How Matcha Is Made: From Tencha to Stone-Ground Powder
There is a serene silence that settles over a tea field before dawn, when the dew still sits heavy on the shade netting and the only sound is someone walking the rows, checking by feel whether the leaf is ready. Most people who lift a bowl of matcha to their lips will never stand in that field, feeling the cool of a stone mill room, or watching a farmer roll a tencha leaf between thumb and forefinger to judge, without a single word, whether a season's patience has paid off. And yet all of that unseen labor is what ends up in the bowl. A leaf raised in shadow. Hands trained over years to know which shoot is ready and which should wait another day. A mill turning so slowly that an hour's work barely fills two tablespoons. None of it is written on the label. But, all of it is there in the taste, for anyone willing to slow down long enough to notice
How Is Matcha Made?
Matcha begins as tencha, tea grown beneath shade cloth, picked by hand, steamed within hours of harvest to hold its color, dried flat, and finally ground, slowly, on a granite stone mill. Skip any one of these steps and the results are simply not the same.
The tradition is a blend of both simplicity and complexity. A farmer who has walked his rows for thirty seasons will tell you that the difference between an unforgettable bowl and an ordinary one was decided long before anyone picked up a whisk. You might be one of the few matcha-enthusiasts who has questions cross their mind such as: how long the shade stayed down? Whose hands touched the leaf? How patiently did they turn the stone?
What Is Tencha, and Why Every Matcha Begins There
Tencha is the shade-grown, steamed, flat-dried tea leaf that becomes matcha once it is ground on a stone mill. Unlike sencha, which is rolled into tight, dark needles after steaming, tencha is left whole and flat, and that stillness is exactly what allows it, months later, to surrender itself to the grinding stone.
Growers who tend these fields describe the leaf going through two slow stages before it's ready: weeks under shade cloth, then time resting flat on the drying floor. Rush either one, and the leaf won't develop the color or flavor matcha depends on. Skip either stage, no matter what the label claims, and what you're left with isn't real matcha.
Why Is Matcha Shaded?
Tea fields grown for matcha are covered with cloth or netting for three to four weeks before harvest, which pushes the plant to build far more chlorophyll and L-theanine than it otherwise would. That shift is where matcha's vivid color and rounded sweetness truly come from, rather than from anything that happens later at the mill.
For nearly a month, entire hillsides vanish beneath an artificial dusk that does not lift until the grower decides the leaf is ready. Starved of direct sun, the plant pours what energy it has left into color and sweetness, as if trying to make up for what has been taken from it. In the final days before harvest, a particular fragrance rises from the shaded rows. Growers call it ooika, the shade aroma, and those who have spent a lifetime among these fields say they can judge an entire harvest by that scent alone. At the first flush of spring, when new growth is at its most tender and briefest, the harvest finally begins.
Matcha Hand-Picked or Machine-Picked?
Hand-picking, known as tezumi, means a picker selects only the youngest, most tender leaves by sight and touch, while a handheld harvesting machine moves nearly a hundred times faster but gathers stems and old leaf indiscriminately. Because harvest method is rarely disclosed, cheaper machine-picked leaf often ends up inside a tin sold as hand-picked.
Ask a farmer who still insists on picking by hand why they have never modernized, and you will likely hear something close to reverence in the answer: a hand knows a leaf in a way no blade ever will. It is slow, deliberate work that resists every modern instinct to hurry, and a single field picked this way can take an entire morning to clear. The matcha harvested with haste tends to carry a flatter, more bitter note that no amount of blending can fully hide. Loop Matcha Tokyo has chosen the slower road regardless. Every leaf in every batch is hand-picked, without exception, whatever it costs to hold to that.
How Is Matcha Steamed and Dried?
Freshly picked leaves are steamed within hours of harvest to halt oxidation and lock in their color, then dried flat and carefully de-stemmed, mostly by hand in the finest tencha. Wholesalers often blend tencha from several farms or cultivars at this stage to round out flavor and color, not to cut corners.
A leaf begins changing the moment it is cut, the way a sliced apple begins to brown in open air, so steam is applied quickly, just long enough to arrest that process before the color can dull. What follows is a labor of love: stems and veins pulled free by hand, a task so hands-on that a single skilled worker might clear only a kilogram or two in an entire hour. It is often here, too, that something easily misunderstood takes place, leaf from several farms brought together under one blend, not to disguise a weak harvest but because a practiced hand can coax out a depth no single field offers alone. Much of Japan's most celebrated ceremonial matcha was never the work of one farm by itself. It was composed, with intention, the way a tea master composes an entire ceremony.
Why Does Stone-Ground Matcha Take So Long to Make?
Finished tencha is ground on a granite mill called an ishi-usu, two round stones turning at roughly 55 to 60 rotations a minute to avoid building heat. A single mill produces only 30 to 40 grams of matcha an hour, ground finer than 10 microns, closer to silk than tea.
The pace is almost meditative, because speed is the enemy here. Grind any faster and friction builds heat, unraveling in minutes the aroma a farmer spent an entire season protecting. What comes off the stone after that hour feels nothing like an ordinary powder, fine enough to seem woven rather than ground, and that slowness isn't a flaw waiting for a better machine to solve. It's the whole point, the reason genuine ceremonial matcha has never been cheap and never will be, no matter how large the company selling it grows.
Stone-Ground or Ball-Milled: Is There a Real Difference?
Ball milling grinds tencha inside a rotating drum packed with steel balls, producing far more matcha per hour than a stone mill ever could, but at the cost of color, suspension, and flavor. Since "ceremonial grade" carries no legal definition, a seller can use the term regardless of which method actually produced the powder.
Something is always lost in that trade for speed. Ball-milled matcha tends to look duller sitting in the tin, settles quickly to the bottom of a bowl instead of holding its suspension, and tastes flat and one-note where a stone-ground leaf would unfold slowly across the palate instead. Because no authority anywhere checks which method actually filled a given tin, the choice is left entirely to the seller's conscience. We've written elsewhere about whether this industry is overdue for real grading regulation. This is precisely the gap such a rule would need to close, wide enough that almost any shortcut can be driven straight through it, unnotic
How Loop Matcha Tokyo's Process Fits In
Ginza and Aoyama carry this entire journey from field to tin without a single step skipped: grown beneath shade in Nishio, Aichi, picked only by hand, ground slowly on stone, and built from five named cultivars rather than one alone.
An intentional composition, balancing five distinct cultivars into one coherent, layered finish.
FAQ
How is matcha made?
Matcha begins as tencha, tea grown beneath shade, picked by hand, steamed quickly to preserve its color, dried flat, and finally ground slowly between granite stones. Every stage shapes the final cup, and hurrying any one of them changes what you taste.
What is tencha, and how is it different from matcha?
Tencha is the leaf before it becomes matcha, grown and shaded the same way but left whole and unground. It is only the final stone-grinding that transforms tencha into the fine powder known as matcha.
Why does shading matter in matcha production?
Shading forces the plant to produce more chlorophyll and L-theanine, which is where matcha's vivid color and gentle sweetness truly come from. A leaf grown without enough shade turns out paler and noticeably more bitter.
Is matcha always hand-picked?
No, though the finest matcha traditionally has been. Most matcha sold today is harvested by machine because it is faster and cheaper, and since harvest method is rarely disclosed, machine-picked leaf can quietly end up in a tin marketed as hand-picked.
How can I tell if my matcha is really stone-ground?
Watch how it behaves in the bowl. Stone-ground matcha holds a vivid, almost electric green, stays suspended in the water rather than sinking quickly, and tastes rounded rather than sharply bitter. A dull color and a fast-settling powder usually point to a faster, lower-quality grind.
Why is stone-ground matcha more expensive than regular green tea powder?
A traditional stone mill can only produce 30 to 40 grams of matcha an hour, since grinding any faster raises heat and damages the aroma. Combined with the slow, hand-driven work of shading and deveining, that is why real stone-ground matcha will never be sold cheaply.
Is blended matcha made differently than single-cultivar matcha?
The growing and milling are the same. A blend simply brings together tencha from several cultivars to create a fuller, more balanced flavor, the same approach behind much of Japan's most celebrated ceremonial matcha.
What You're Really Holding When You Open the Tin
Every bowl carries decisions made long before it ever reached your hands: how long the leaf rested in shade, whether it was gathered by careful fingers or an indifferent blade, how patiently it was stripped of stem and vein, how slowly it was finally ground to powder. Neglect even one of those choices, and the bowl will tell on you, no matter what the label promises. Ginza and Aoyama carry every one of them faithfully: shade-grown in Nishio, hand-picked without exception, ground slow on stone, and blended from five named cultivars, with nothing about that journey left unspoken.