Ceremonial Matcha

Ceremonial matcha is shaded first-harvest tencha, stone-milled fine enough to whisk with nothing but water. The term itself is unregulated though, so the real work is checking what stands behind it. This page gives you the buying checklist for 2026 and compares the two ceremonials KOJA carries; the full grade system is explained on the matcha grades page.

What should you check before buying ceremonial matcha in 2026?

Five things, in this order: color, origin transparency, mill date, harvest and price per bowl. Anything a shop cannot answer on these five points is a reason to keep scrolling.

1. Color. Ceremonial matcha is a vivid spring green. Olive or dull yellowish tones mean old powder or late-harvest leaf, whatever the label says.
2. Origin transparency. A named garden and a named region. "Product of Japan" is a customs declaration, not an origin. Since the 2025/26 tencha shortage pushed demand past the harvest, more loosely labeled powder has entered the market, which makes this check more important than it was two years ago.
3. Mill date. The one date that actually describes freshness. Matcha ages from the day of milling, so a shop that prints only a best-before date is withholding the number that matters.
4. Harvest. First harvest. Spring leaf gives the sweetness and umami the grade is named for; later flushes drift flat and bitter.
5. Price per bowl. Tin sizes vary widely, so the gram price misleads. Divide the price by the bowl count and compare like with like.

Why is price per bowl the honest metric?

Because a bowl is the unit you actually drink: 2 g, regardless of the tin it came from. A small tin at a modest price can be the worse deal and a larger refill the better one. Here is the math across the KOJA range, no rounding tricks.

• Origin Nº 1 tin: 30 g, 39 €, 15 bowls. 2.60 € per bowl.
• Origin Nº 1 refill: 100 g, 89 €, 50 bowls. 1.78 € per bowl.
• KOJA Daily tin: 40 g, 29 €, 20 bowls. 1.45 € per bowl.
• KOJA Daily refill: 100 g, 65 €, 50 bowls. 1.30 € per bowl.

Read it the way you would read a coffee bill. A daily ceremonial habit on the Daily refill runs 1.30 € a day. A single estate bowl on the Origin refill runs 1.78 €. Both undercut most café drinks and with matcha you know which garden the leaf came from. The metric also keeps marketing honest: a brand can dress up a gram price with tin design and ribbon, but 2 g is 2 g in every bowl on this continent.

How do Origin Nº 1 and KOJA Daily compare?

Same grade, different sourcing and different jobs. That is the entire short version; here is the longer one.

Origin Nº 1 comes from a single estate in Kagoshima, one garden and one batch at a time. The profile leads with deep umami, follows with a soft natural sweetness and ends clean, with no bitterness when the water is right. Its job is the straight bowl: water, whisk and ten quiet minutes. If matcha is an occasion in your day rather than a habit, this is the one.

KOJA Daily is a ceremonial blend from Yame and Nishio. Blending across two regions keeps the cup consistent batch after batch: a rounder, slightly grassier profile with enough body to stand up to milk. Its job is repetition, the bowl that happens every morning whether the calendar is kind or not. It is also the better base when milk is involved; for that use case see the matcha for lattes collection.

If you cannot decide on paper, do not decide on paper. The Origin Nº 1 sample is 10 g for 9.90 €, five bowls of the single estate before you commit to a tin.

How do you prepare ceremonial matcha?

Sift 2 g into a bowl, add roughly 70 ml of water at 80 °C and whisk briskly in a W motion until a fine foam covers the surface. Boiling water is the most common beginner mistake: too much heat pushes even excellent leaf into a bitterness that has nothing to do with quality. The full walkthrough with timings and tool notes is on the how to make matcha guide.

One honest note on the effect, since it is half the reason people switch from espresso. A bowl delivers caffeine together with L-theanine, which most drinkers describe as steady focus without the spike and crash. The actual numbers per bowl are on the matcha caffeine page.

FAQ

Is "ceremonial grade" an official certification?

No. There is no legal definition and no certifying body, in Japan or anywhere else. Any brand can print the word on any powder. That is why KOJA backs it with data instead: garden, region, harvest and mill date printed on every tin, lab-tested per batch.

Can I use ceremonial matcha in a latte?

You can, but pick the right one. KOJA Daily was blended with milk in mind and keeps its character in a latte. Origin Nº 1 is better drunk straight, because milk covers exactly the subtleties you paid for.

Why does KOJA carry only two ceremonial matchas?

Because two is what we can document properly. One single estate for slow bowls, one blend for daily drinking, every batch with its own data sheet. A longer menu would mean sourcing we could not verify to the same standard, so there is no longer menu.