ZOE Science & Nutrition - Matcha, coffee and green tea: which is healthiest? with Prof. Tim Spector and Chef Andrew Kojima

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Is matcha the ultimate coffee alternative, or just another wellness fad? In this episode, Andrew Kojima - aka Chef Koj - an expert in Japanese cuisine, and Professor Tim Spector, a world-leading scientist in nutrition and gut health, explore whether matcha is truly a healthier choice than coffee.  Chef Koj explains the rich history behind matcha, its role in Japanese culture, and why it has become a global wellness trend. Tim breaks down the latest science on matcha’s impact on metabolism, brain function, and gut health, comparing its effects to those of coffee. For listeners curious about incorporating matcha into their daily routine, this episode includes a practical guide on how to prepare matcha properly. Koj demonstrates the traditional method of whisking matcha and shares tips on avoiding common mistakes. For those new to matcha, he also explains how to make a simple and delicious matcha latte for beginners.  The episode concludes with a tasting of Koj’s matcha custard dessert, showing how matcha’s umami-rich flavor can be used in unexpected ways. Could matcha actually help curb sugar cravings and build a taste for more complex flavors?  🥑 Make smarter food choices. Become a member at zoe.com - 10% off with code PODCAST 🌱 Try our new plant based wholefood supplement - Daily 30+ Follow ZOE on Instagram. Timecodes 00:00 Healthier than coffee? 02:15 Listener questions 03:17 What is matcha? 05:59 The same as green tea? 09:33 History of matcha 10:20 Industry marketing tricks 11:55 Why the west loves coffee 12:55 Does matcha make you alert? 14:42 How caffeine levels differ 16:53 Does matcha contain fiber? 21:37 Health benefits of matcha  25:10 Truth about iced matcha latte  28:59 Perfect matcha demonstration 41:55 Flavour profile of matcha 43:53 How to add matcha to food 44:35 Matcha dessert ideas 46:45 Expensive vs cheap matcha 47:33 Should you add milk? Get Chef Koj's book 'No Sushi' here 📚Books by our ZOE Scientists The Food For Life Cookbook Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector 🍵 Chef Koj's perfect matcha kit: Bamboo Matcha Whisk & Scoop Organic Japanese Matcha Green Tea Powder Matcha Bowl Studies referenced for today's episode Effect of in vitro digestion-fermentation on green and roasted coffee bioactivity: The role of the gut microbiota, 2019, Food Chemistry Matcha Green Tea: Chemical Composition, Phenolic Acids, Caffeine and Fatty Acid Profile, 2024, Foods Anti-Stress, Behavioural and Magnetoencephalography Effects of an l-Theanine-Based Nutrient Drink: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial, 2016, Nutrients Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here. Episode transcripts are available here.

Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. There's a battle brewing at your local café. On one side, coffee, the undisputed caffeine champion. And on the other, matcha, an ancient underdog surging in popularity. This modern-day David versus Goliath battle raises the question, is Matcha healthier than coffee? While both drinks contain nutrients that help with cognition, metabolism, and inflammation,

only one packs double the fiber. In today's episode, our guests will reveal Matcha's health benefits and show you two incredible ways to enjoy it. Andrew Kojima, better known as Chef Kodge, is a Master Chef finalist, a Michelin-reviewed chef and his book No Sushi is an expert guide to Japanese cuisine. He's joined by Professor Tim Spector, one of the world's top 100 most cited scientists,

a professor of epidemiology at King's College London, and my scientific co-founder at Zoe. Whether you're a coffee lover curious about matcha, or a matcha enthusiast looking to deepen your knowledge, you'll leave today's episode knowing exactly what's in your cup. Kodj, thank you so much for joining me today. Hey, pleasure to be here.

Tim, welcome along. Great to be here. So Kodj, we like to kick off our show here at Zoey with a rapid fire Q&A with questions from our listeners. Are you up for that? Sure. Tim, you ready? Absolutely. All right, starting with you, Tim.

Is caffeine the only benefit of drinking coffee or matcha? No. Do matcha and coffee share the same health benefits? Similar. Could matcha help prevent certain cancers? Possibly. Cododge, could matcha help to curb a sweet tooth? No, not on its own. And finally, and you know what you can have at it, give us a whole sentence. What's the most common misconception about matcha? It's that it's a completely different type of tea. There's mint teas and all sorts of teas. It's actually for the same tea that Many British people drink, you know black tea well look matcha is having a moment and so I think it's perfect timing to get into this and As the head of a science and nutrition company. I'm getting more and more questions about it. Like what is it?

Is it a superfood and the biggest question I get all the time is is it healthy? Is it a superfood? And the biggest question I get all the time is, is it healthy? Is it healthier than coffee? I have absolutely no answers to any of these questions, but luckily, I have some world experts here with me, hopefully to give me the answers. And at the end of this episode, we're actually gonna demonstrate how to make a proper matcher with a world expert

in how to do that. So if you've got any matcha at home and you're listening to this, grab it now so you'll be ready to join us in a little while. But before we get there, Kodj, I'd like to just start at the beginning and you touched on this a bit in your quickfire questions. What is matcha and where does it come from? Okay, so first of all, it's a type of green tea and all green teas are made from the same plant that any other teas that we might be familiar with, black teas that we drink typically with milk. And it's a special type of green tea because rather than taking the leaves and infusing those into water, you pick the leaves especially when you first grow them.

When I say pick, you mean you pick the youngest ones as well, and not just physically pick. Then you ground those into a very fine powder. Takes a long, long time, the whole preparation, which is why it's quite expensive. You suspend those particles in water rather than infusing other nutrients out of the tea leaves and you drink that or eat it. So you just drink the whole leaf rather than like dipping it in and taking it out again? Exactly, imagine when I make a coffee plunger,

you drink that and you get the bits at the end and it's a bit unpleasant in your mouth, okay. That's because the particles are not very fine. But if you imagine that they're really, really fine, you would just drink that and not notice. That's what drinking match is like. Amazing. And so tell me, is there some magic process by which you decide which tea leaves or I could wander up to a tea plant, pick a few, cut it into little pieces and like, hey presto, I have matcha?

No, because it's taken at least 900 years to work out where to grow the leaves, how to pick them, when to pick them, what to do to them before you pick them. And so one of the main things that Matcha has over other types of green tea is that it's grown in shade. And they realized this by accident initially because it was naturally in the shade of other trees but they noticed that the leaves had more chlorophyll, so they were greener. And so they look and they taste different. So it's very particular sorts of tea leaves that are picked.

And are tea leaves normally not grown in the shade? No, most tea would be grown in full sunlight. And tea has moved from China to Japan, to Sri Lanka, to India India to Kenya now as well. They all share similar characteristics of where they're growing, typically higher up on hills, full sunshine. What the Japanese did when they realized the tea leaves that were growing in the shade of other trees naturally were fighting for more sunlight.

They pushed more chlorophyll into the leaves and that's what makes them greener. Now what they do is they actually shade them. So traditionally they would shade them with bamboo. And so how is that different from the preparation of a green tea or a black tea? People who know me know that I'm a bit addicted to my black tea. What is different here?

Okay, so I'll start with black tea for a start. The difference with black tea is that you would collect the tea, you wouldn't be quite so picky on which leaves you choose, and you'd let them ferment and oxidise. As you know from watching leaves, if you just let them die, they'll go brown. And that's why black tea is actually black tea, but Chinese people call it red tea, because often when you infuse it, it's more red, reddy brown. So that's the main difference. The green tea, you're trying to make sure it doesn't oxidise, make sure, reddy brown. So that's the main difference. The green tea, you're trying to make sure it doesn't oxidize, make sure it doesn't ferment,

and that's the big difference between green and black tea. And then I think the first thing you asked was, what's the difference between green tea and matcha? Well, matcha, you're making sure that you get the particles, and with green tea, you'd infuse it as you would with any other normal tea, what I call normal tea, or tea that we're more used to. So in the green tea, I dip infuse it as you would do with any other normal tea, what I call normal tea or tea that we're more used to. So in a green tea, I dip it in the hot water, I let it sit there for a few minutes, I take

it out. So then all I've got is just the water with some stuff that sort of come out of the green tea. Whereas in matcha, I've literally got the entire leaf smashed in very small pieces. Yes. And I think for me, that means that when it goes into your body, if you just put it into water, you're kind of relying on what's water soluble to then put into your body, but by putting the whole thing in, you're opening up more options in terms

of what your body can ingest, process and extract nutrients from. So it's a super concentrated green tea. Correct. Most teas, you would let them dry and you'd crush them or roll them. And actually if you roll them, one of the good things about that is with green tea, you'll see that they almost look like little sticks, but they unfurl. So they've been rolled. And I think the reason for that is it delays or prevents any oxidation. Whereas other teas, you would leave them to dry out open and then you'd crush them and they would break into little particles. And that's what you've got in tea bags. And I understand there's another critical part of the process in making matcha

that differs from other teas? You steam it first, and you don't do that with other types of tea. Because if you steam it, two things will happen. One is it won't be able to oxidize. A bit like, you know when chefs say, oh, I'm gonna blanch my broccoli and it's gonna stay green.

If you take green beans, let's say, or munch two, they've got a sort of dull matte colour. If you put them into hot water, the cells on the surface break and the colour changes and it goes more vibrant green. Now if you then continue to cook those for too long, they would lose their brightness again and you might remember from school dinners, green beans that are mushy pulp. I definitely remember, this is what happens when I cook the broccoli as well. That's great.

Yeah, exactly. They've had all the life and nutrients cooked out the menu, you would be better drinking the broccoli tea. So explain, coming back to the matcher, just to summarize there for the, what has to be done to make this magic work. So you steam them first, and that locks in the color,

it locks in the flavor, and then you dry them, and then you grind them, and it's no good sticking them in the colour, locks in the flavour, and then you dry them, and then you grind them. And it's no good sticking them in a blender, that's not the traditional way. The traditional way, typically the artisans will grind them by hand on a granite mill basically. And if you've ever watched flour being made, it's the same. You're taking a grain, but in this case a leaf, and you're just rubbing it between two millstones effectively. I think it takes an hour to make 30 to 40 grams of matcha, and that's typically how much I buy in a go. I don't buy more than that because that's probably, if you're drinking

every day, a month or two supply. But it takes an hour for an artisan to do it, and that's why it's expensive. I've been drinking matcha green tea for 25 years. I'd like to share something exciting. Back in March 2022, we started this podcast to uncover how the latest research can help us live longer and healthier lives. We've spoken to leading scientists around the world doing amazing research. And across hundreds of hours of conversations, they've revealed key insights that can help you to improve your health. If you don't have hundreds of hours to spare, no need to worry.

At the request of many of you, our team has created a guide that contains 10 of the most impactful discoveries from the podcast that you can apply to your life. And you can get it for free. Simply go to zoe.com slash free guide or click the link in the show notes and do let me know what you think of it. Okay, back to the show. And does it come from Japan?

I mean, have people been drinking it for more than 25 years? Oh yeah, yeah, way more. I mean, 900 years. It was British monks brought it over and planted these tea fields and found that the matcha tea was a very good way of not only stimulating themselves, but also keeping themselves calm.

And that was good for meditation because I don't know about you, but I've been to yoga classes where I've fallen asleep in the last pose. I think I've forgotten what it's called now. I'm feeling very relaxed and I'd like to be meditating, but I'm very sleepy as well. Now the British monks, when they wanted to meditate, they wanted to be quiet, calm, but they also wanted to be stimulated and mentally alert. This is in Japan 900 years ago. Fast forward, I mean, I went there to Tokyo a few years ago, and everything's green.

So everything's matcha. You go to a convenience store, the Kit Kats are all matcha flavored. Matcha Kit Kats. You go to McDonald's, you could have a matcha version of your burgers and everything was green. So it's a marketing sensation over there. Everything is given a healthy gloss. This trend, I think is, is, is coming this way. And I think we, you know, we are going to see a bit of a matcha revolution, I think.

It feels like here in the West, Tim, coffee is the default choice now for energy. Why is that? I think it's because the health perception of it as an unhealthy drink is fading. People are realizing that it doesn't cause heart attacks. It's not mind-altering or, you know, doesn't cause cancer. All these things that we were told about 10, 20 years ago are not true and actually coffee is now known to be, you know, have a major reductive preventive effect

on heart disease. So I think all these things considered and the availability of coffee shops everywhere that have overtaken tea rooms, I think has contributed to this. And the fact also that you can get decaf coffee, which is very drinkable now, which before it was sort of undrinkable.

So even if you've got a problem with caffeine, you can still enjoy coffee. So I think that's why it's been so successful. I think one of the reasons that a lot of people listening think they drink coffee is like they wake up and they really need this energy boost. And they think about coffee as this sort of source of that. Is the experience with Matcha different? Yes, because it's got something else in it apart from caffeine.

It's got L-theanine and caffeine and L-theanine work in tandem to slightly delay the caffeine release so you still feel stimulated but you also have this sort of sense of calmness and when I drink it I just feel more able to you know when you're being overstimulated by screens and various different ways of people contacting you messages emails whatever I feel much more able to sort of pick them off one by one. And if I drink coffee and tea and matcha, I see coffee as two things. One is, yeah, you know, I have the sort of Sunday morning, get waking up thing.

I also see coffee as a social thing. It's, you know, it's become that over 25 years. Matcha, I'd like it to be more of a social thing, but for me, it's a very personal thing. I take time out of my day to drink my Matcha. I also drink coffee when I'm doing sports. I find that's quite good. When I'm trying to focus, if I'm trying to sit and write something, I find coffee, I can feel a bit distracted by things.

My mind's buzzing a bit too much. I don't find that with Matcha. So that's how I differentiate when I drink coffee with Matcha. Makes me think of my son who just started drinking coffee recently, because my father introduced him to it on a trip, took him to Italy and was like, well, you have to drink coffee now. And he came back and he was just sort of wired

each time he had one in the morning. Cause of course he wasn't used to it, as I think so many of us have sort of got inured. And it made me realize it's quite a real drug. Like, you know, it was like really affecting him. And he decided actually he was going to cut it out for now because it was sort of felt like it was, it was too much. And I think that's really interesting the way you describe it against matcha. Tim, are you able to explain it all?

Yeah, so we're talking about the caffeine amounts in these different products. So you've got the green teas, which have low levels of caffeine in them, sort of 20 to 50 milligrams. Then you've got the matcha, which is the concentrated form, which has about double that, 60 to 90 milligrams on average. And then coffee goes to 100 to 130 milligrams. So it's a sort of gradient. So you're getting relatively less in there and black tea would be somewhere between matcha and green tea. So you've got a range of these caffeine's but we've been hearing about this other chemical this L-3-anine which does seem to counteract some of the overstimulatory effects of the caffeine on the mind and that's why we're going

to get on to some of the studies but you know it doesn't seem to affect your sleep as much as coffee. So there's another drug here that has been a different effect. Correct, yes. Obviously in teas and coffees, there are hundreds of chemicals that we're only just discovering. But these are a few that have been isolated that we think definitely have these brain effects.

And so you've got these two competing effects with matcha that are really, really quite fascinating to study and that you can still get some of the benefits of caffeine without it keeping you up at night and making you too wired. And maybe that's why Matcha seems to be taking off. I'd actually love to get into that now because I always thought it was, the only thing coffee was was caffeine.

And I know, Tim, that you co-wrote a big new paper with Zoe on this groundbreaking new research on how much coffee can actually transform our gut. And I know that you've also been reading up on the latest research on matcha. So I'd love to sort of almost measure them up against each other a little bit, because I think for many of our listeners, they're like, okay, how does this compare with this coffee that I'm so used to? Could you tell me about the nutritional differences between coffee and Matcha? Yeah, so if we start with fiber, coffee's actually a decent source of fiber,

1.5 grams per cup. So if you're having three cups a day, getting four or five grams of fiber, about a third of the average intake in the US. And matcha probably has more fiber in it than coffee. It all depends on the amounts you're using, but over 50% of the matcha powder is actually fiber. So if you're putting a tablespoon in, you're going to be getting, you know, over 10 grams of

fiber. So fiber is as good, if not not better than coffee. There's less caffeine relatively but probably still enough to get you up in the morning. It has fats in it that that coffee doesn't have so it's actually a source of omega-3s and these linoleic acids and these are all healthy fats interestingly that have come out. We know that these healthy fats are good for the brain, et cetera. 17% of it is protein. Everyone's on about protein these days,

these relatively small amounts, but it's all good quality, giving you a few grams of protein in there as well. If you take this all together, then actually nutritionally, there's quite a lot good stuff going on with this match in this concentration that seems to be pretty equivalent to coffee, given what we know.

I think there's lots of things we don't know, well, there's other chemicals are in there. But interesting that the things that it has that coffee doesn't is it has this L-3-anine, which is this other chemical in there that seems to, in studies, maintain sleep quality. So people who are taking, I think they take generally about three grams of matcha before going to bed, doesn't seem to stop sleeping as coffee would. The studies show a bit of variability between people, but that's a really encouraging sign. What I really like about matcha is that it's got similar polyphenol levels to

coffee, these defense chemicals that you get from the, you know, the bean or the leaf or, you know, the plant itself. And so, whereas it's more diluted in green tea, you're getting a really concentrated hit of them. And many of them, we still don't understand exactly what they do, but, you know, these are great antioxidants. Is there a reason why the matcha might be higher in these polyphenols than your average tea?

Well, partly it's because more of it is seeping out into the drink. So actually you're extracting more of them than you would just by dipping the leaf in. But it could also be the way they're picked and grown So sometimes from what you're describing it sounds like the leaf if you're picking the sort of young leaf Rather than the whole leaf then you're getting more polyphenols in that because it's having to grow faster It needs more defenses. So sometimes just Selecting the very best quality leaves will also help you there. So some of it is the quality element.

Is growing it in the, partly in the dark somehow affected? Yeah, well maybe, you know, they have a tougher life. So, you know, again, we come back to this idea that if they're struggling to survive, that they're producing the best chemicals that make us healthy. I always love this. It makes me think about us as human beings today that we live in this environment where for the first time in our history, we're surrounded by food all the time, right? And our ancestors obviously were constantly worrying

about starvation. So at least in the West, you know, we're surrounded by food all the time. And yet weirdly we're sort of the least healthy we've ever been. And it makes me think of your tea leaves here, Kodge, that you're sort of causing them to suffer with the shade and all the rest of it. And then Tim, you're telling me that actually it gives us the best polyphenols. There's, there's

something about how somehow we're not evolved to live in too good an environment. No, that's right. We all need a bit of stress in our lives. Just got to titrate it. That's what I bring you, Tim. That's why I'm here. Bring us both stress. And I know that in your recent paper, you were talking about this, like quite significant impact that coffee was having on the gut microbiome. And this might be one of the ways in which it affects our health. Do we know anything about matcha and its effects, you know, beyond

the sort of the stimulant that we've been talking about? I couldn't find anything in detail on matcha and its effects beyond the stimulant that we've been talking about? I couldn't find anything in detail on matcha. There's a little bit on green tea, but I'd love to do some studies. The problem is matcha hasn't really been used much in the West, and so there aren't the big epidemiological studies. So we have to extrapolate a lot of it

from just green tea studies. So we're to extrapolate a lot of it from just green tea studies. So we're guessing a lot of the work here, it's all quite new. There are a few little studies showing it does have definite benefits. We've talked a bit about its anti-caffeine effect. So the idea of the L-3-anine means that you're getting decent night's sleep and sleep quality seems to be improved.

Some evidence that can reduce stress as you were suggesting it does for you in some placebo controlled studies. So cortisol levels dropping. So some anti-stress effect I think is really interesting and some studies of elderly Japanese, quite a big study did show cognitive improvements, particularly in the women who were taking not huge amounts, just I think three grams a day. So that over a 12-week period. So I think we, you know, everything is suggesting that it's working this way. Metabolic effects doesn't make you lose weight. They've done some studies on

that. It's not a cure for everything, but it's all pointing towards help. It's been touted as an anti-cancer drug. I couldn't find any really good evidence yet that it does that, but there's reasons theoretically suggest it would do if people followed up and then we did bigger studies. So, yeah, I like the look of matcha. It's got all the, you know, the things that we want to see in a healthy food. You know, it's made in this artisan way that's really got no real processing in it and it's got all these nutrients of the plants in a really concentrated form. So yeah, I think we're going to see more and more of it. So Tim, what's your final assessment? Is coffee

healthier than matcha? Probably we have more evidence that it's healthier at the moment, but I think matcha is great for anyone who doesn't like coffee, then that's obviously the go-to drink. And I would urge people who do drink coffee to maybe switch to also having matcha, particularly in the afternoons, et cetera, and start to build up that habit because the two together look pretty unbeatable. Tim, I mean, I've done a lot of podcasts with you and Kodj, he's very rarely that positive about something.

So that's actually really interesting because if I play it back, I think you're saying there's not a lot of scientific evidence yet on this in terms of real studies. Short term studies, but not long-term studies. Got it. So compared to what you often like to talk about, it seems like there's still quite limited evidence but the underlying properties of it you really like because they tie to things that you know have really good benefits? Well, that's right because green tea has been studied and this is just a form of green tea. So if we accept that it's a concentrated high dose form of green tea, then there's every reason to be optimistic about its health benefits.

I think that's what I'm seeing. And in the last five years, there have been a number of these studies on sleep and mood and cognitive performance that have been very encouraging. So yeah, I'm much more positive about it than I would have been, say, four or five years ago. And my other takeaway, I think, is you about it than I would have been, say, four or five years ago. And my other takeaway, I think, is you probably wouldn't give up coffee for it, given the current data about the health benefits, but perhaps reducing coffee, combining the two, you might be saying is a good outcome.

Definitely, yes. You know, my tea time, my British tea time drink, this could be it, and I might start having my own little tea ceremony. And particularly if it's gonna be in this calming effect when you're feeling a bit uptight. So I think we can use both of these potential health foods. Yes. So I'd love to talk about the reality of drinking Matcha in the West now,

because I have to admit, I was quite cynical going into this podcast, because when I think about matcha, I think about somebody ordering like an iced matcha latte from Starbucks. And I look at this thing and I find it very hard to believe that it is like a health drink. When I think about matcha, should I think about something like that? Iced matcha latte? I think it's a shame that you do, but I'm glad that you do because it means that we're sitting here having a conversation.

I think of matcha the same way that I, when I first went to Italy and I'd already developed acquired a taste for coffee and I saw the way they drink coffee, very, very small shots. And that's how matcha is for me. So it doesn't take me very long to make it. It doesn't take me very long to drink it either. I saw these Italians come into the bar, al stanko, and they don't even sit down. They stand and drink it and go. That's pretty much what it is for me. I make it in a couple of minutes. I drink it in a minute. It's a five

minute ritual. As I said, because fewer people drink it, I don't see it as a social thing, but you could share a link to the show with one friend who would benefit from today's information, it would mean a great deal to me. Thank you. And Tim Howell, should I rush out and have an ice matcha latte? I wouldn't because generally they're absolutely packed with sugar and have hardly any matcher in it. You know, there's large versions you get at Starbucks probably have got six or seven spoons of sugar in it. So that to me would outweigh any benefits of the poor old matcher. And you can tell, you know, because you've hardly got any fiber in that, which means there's very little matcha in those drinks.

So be wary of suddenly having a matcha halo, which I think it will do. A matcha Kit Kat is still a Kit Kat. It's just green. And I think we don't know about the quality of the product that goes into them. There's no stamp of approval in the same way when you've got the pure product you can actually tell. So I think we ought to be a bit nervous about embracing all ultra-processed matchers. The team actually did take a look into this just before because I was sort of curious. And apparently the ice matcher latte from Starbucks, according to its own website, has 33 grams of sugar in it.

So like six and a half teaspoons in that one drink. Now that's quite a lot of sugar, isn't it, Tim? That is a hell of a lot of sugar, yeah. Which again, that matcha isn't gonna be worth that much amount of sugar. So it's all a trade-off. So I'd love to talk about like how you would drink matcha if you want to do it properly. So I'm assuming that Starbucks is not the way that those Buddhist monks 900 years ago

were drinking their matcha? No, I mean, I'd love to show you how I do it. And that's very purely matcha and water and nothing else. And if you acquire the taste for that, then you can experiment putting it into other things. I put it into avocado this morning, for example. And avocado. Okay. This is fantastic.

I have to admit, this is the bit I've been most excited about. Our producers have been sent away to boil the water in advance. I'm hoping that's going to have happened and they're going to come and help. And we are going to get our own matcha tasting from a world expert. So thank you, Kosh. All right, well Kosh, you've just gone and delved into your magic box of secrets and brought a whole bunch of stuff up onto the table. Can you tell us what's in front of us?

Well, this is the matcha. This is ceremonial grade. Ceremonial grade is the best. This box is 30 grams. I personally do about a gram per serving. It's about 17 pounds. So that'd be about just north of $20. It's just over 50p per match a shot. So that's about 70 cents.

About 70 cents, yeah. So, you know, about a 10th of the price of your Starbucks Matcha Latte probably. Much high quality, we have to make it ourselves, we have to do the washing up ourselves. And ceremonial grade has this wonderful ring. Is there a ceremony associated with this or it's just clever marketing?

The ceremony develops over years and if you go to Japan, you can see this and you can be mesmerized by the beauty and the tranquility of the process. You went to one. Yeah, they're amazing. Well, there's only really two other things you need and even then you don't really need them.

This is the bamboo whisk. You can see that it's in cross section, it's just a bit of bamboo, but it's been cut into, I've never counted, but hundreds of very delicate prongs. Looks a little bit like a whisk, I think, but made of bamboo. Yeah, it's called a cha sen. Cha a little bit like a whisk, I think, but made of bamboo. Yeah, it's called a char sen. Char is tea, sen is whisk, and this is a char shaku,

a tea spoon, I suppose. Which I would describe as a very small wooden spoon. Hockey stick. Yeah, it's like a hockey stick. You can experiment how much match you like, but this sort of measures a small amount, and you could use just the tip of a teaspoon. When I was researching this it was seemed to be very different amounts people use. No standard amount per portion people like

more concentrated more dilute. Yeah I think even the instructions say one to two grams so there's like 100% difference so I just put about that much in. But people have different amounts in Japan. It's not like everyone in Japan always has one teaspoon. Well, it's very, very difficult to measure the way this, unless you're a drug dealer. So, you know, I do it by eye and, you know, maybe I could put a little bit more in. In fact, I'm just for three of us. Yeah, for what? So I would do one scoop per person. I'd rather make that last, because it is expensive, but I'd rather have one or two of those a

day, maybe even three, rather than just load it all into one. I'd rather have more and get my fibre in. Well, you get your fibre in over the day if you have three of them. I think the first thing I'd say is it's incredibly green. It's really vibrant in comparison to like my normal expectation about like a tea or anything like that, which I would expect to be sort of dried and nothing like as a stronger colour. It looks healthy, doesn't it? It would normally be in a Japanese teacup, but for the purposes of this demonstration,

I've bought a glass so you can see what we're doing. I mean, one of the first things we do is we use the whisk just to sort of smooth out any lumps because you I don't know if you've sort of tried this thing with cocoa it's hydrophobic so you just want to minimize the risk of that so just get rid of any clump of matcha. And then the next stage is basically pouring in I would normally do about 50ml which is probably about the size of these cups I've brought along. That's probably more than Italian would drink in terms of a good shot of coffee. Tiny compared to my venti at Starbucks. Right. Short, intense, potent. And then this is boiled water, but not boiling. So we've left this to cool down. It's probably about 70 degrees Celsius, probably about 160 Fahrenheit.

And really not very hot. So I'm used to tea and generally that's 100 degrees. You're very fussy about your water, aren't you Jonathan? I'm quite fussy, but it's normally in the sort of 195, maybe 90. Like to me, 60 degrees seems really low. I think the point of this is that you're going to drink this in two, three sips. So we want to drink it and then we want to get on with our day. We don't want to have it there while we go back and it gradually comes down in temperature. So there's something very mindful about this.

I've got to be there. I'm making it. I'm going to drink it right now. It's not this thing I'm then just going to carry around with me in this enormous cup for the next two hours. No, exactly. The mindfulness to making it and drinking it. The other thing I think about coffee is it's a social thing. It's a stimulant. It wakes you up. But tea

is more, hopefully when you drink tea as well, it's like, right, I'll put the kettle on. It's instantly, I'm calming it. So that's part of the mindfulness process for me. Actually going to put the kettle on, maybe coming back and then letting it steep and then finishing it off and drinking it. Here it can all be done, I've taken a very long time over this, but it can all be done in about a minute or two. Okay. So all I'm going to do is pour a little bit of water in. So you've turned in quite a small amount of water there. Just a small amount, yeah. And now you're going to use this whisk to make sure that all those particles are suspended. The water is green because it's suspended in the water. It's not dissolved in the water. If you make instant coffee, it's dissolved.

So it looks really green, but actually just tiny, tiny little bits of tea floating in this water. But they're so tiny, it looks, I'd say it looks as though now you've got a sort of like a green smoothie. And it's frothing up isn't it? It's frothing up. So that's the other nice thing about this. You know if you do get into drinks through creamy and milky you know lattes and things like that, coffee or otherwise, that foam is going to give you the mouthfeel of creaminess but without any cream at all. Just plant and water, simple as that. Ah but you've got some fats in there so that as we mentioned, the Omega 3s and other ones. So that does give it that extra mouth feel.

So I'm getting a little bit more in. So you've got an inch of water now. Yes. I'm partly making this so I can pour this out and give you a taste. But there we go. I mean, that's pretty much it. Would you like to try some? I would love to try some.

Okay, let's try not to do this. Thank you. It feels like some sort of high-end soup that you've now made for me in a small little tasting cup. Kanpai. Kanpai, sip it, two or three sips. It's not as bitter as I thought it was going to be. That's because it's good quality. There's quite a lot of taste afterwards. To start with it doesn't taste so much like a tea. I feel

like the aftertaste after a while tastes more like a green tea, but it tastes quite different to start with him Yeah, well, it's smoother isn't it? I think it's good That creamy frothiness There's more to it would be rather disappointing as a soup But it's definitely a lot more than a tea in terms of their consistency Like which I think now that I understand it actually has all these bits of tea in it And you haven't diluted it that much because the amount of water in it is quite small. So I was sort of expecting you to give me a, you know, a sort of mug of this,

and actually it's a very small amount of tea. So there's still like quite a bit of tea, I guess, in this little drink. But I've had longer versions of it, And I quite like an Americano equivalent. And yeah, I'd say you can have bigger shots. I think there's a fair bit of flexibility in how you want to drink it, aren't there? You know, longer or shorter versions of it. I brought I did bring some cold water as well. I mean, sometimes I just make it with cold water.

And this is a sauce whisk that I have as a chef. And many people have these little whisks. But if you don't have one of these, that will do the same. It's sort of aerating it. What's it called? A sauce whisk. A sauce whisk.

A sauce whisk. Yeah. And now you're putting about the same amount of tea it looks like. Well, I'm gonna put a bit more in, because I'm gonna do this more diluted, perhaps. Okay. And just to show that you don't have to have to, it's nice to make it sort of traditional and part

of the ritual, but you could just put this cold water in. Because for me, the main reason for using hot water with tea is to speed up the infusion. But of course, you're not infusing here, and you're not dissolving either. You're suspending the particles. Now, you can see already that there's a few little clumps of of green tea, i.e. the source whisk is not quite as effective as the traditional bamboo. You mean the temperature of the water doesn't matter? I don't accept. No, no, that's the I would say that's the whisk, not the.

But you can still see a little bit of a foam there. And so that's really interesting, because I guess I was thinking, well, obviously it needs to be quite hot in order to dissolve it or take the, you know, take the flavours out. But you're saying, well, of course, it doesn't really matter because actually it's just sort of floating in this. The temperature is really just about my, how I like the taste of the drink. One of my pet frustrations when I'm traveling

in any country that isn't a big tea country, whether it's France or America, is nobody boils the water hot enough to make the tea. But with Matcha I should always be happy because it doesn't really matter what the temperature of the water is. All right so it looks like you've made about twice as big an amount this time. You can dilute it to taste and see where it is. There is a little bit of bitterness but if you compare lots of matches you would get some that are you know the lower quality will be more bitter. The other thing about green teas compared to brown teas is obviously the

leaves themselves are oxidised but if you then do that trick where you're trying to get two cups of tea out of the same teabag, the second extraction will be more heavy in tannins and therefore more bitter. With green tea, that's less of an issue. Do you want to try some cold? I would love to try some cold. Thank you. Feeling more calm already, Jonathan? Oh, I'm feeling quite hyped up at this point. So no, I don't know't know how does it take to get the benefits of L3 anene? Over the next half an hour. Okay. So that's just cold. Cheers. Yeah it's nice but I prefer the warm one.

There's a different experience isn't it? For me when it's cold like that and it's a bit more diluted it tastes more of creaminess and dairiness. Yeah. We know we've changed two variables there, temperature and dilution. But you could imagine there's some drops of milk in there. It is. I get that now, yes. It's still got quite a strong flavour, I think, doesn't it? If you compare it with any tea, there's a much stronger

flavour. So you can see that it's more like coffee in that sense, that it's got that sort of depth and presence to it. And even when it's cold and more diluted, I think I still feel that. I agree that it's less bitter, but it's definitely not as bitter as I expected because it's just water, right? There's no sugar, there's no milk, so any of the rest of it. It's not like coffee. It doesn't have that coffee that roasted a moment because there's nothing roasted in here. So it really is just the sort of raw plant. So it's more herbal, more grassy.

The other notes that I'm getting here. So it's it's a very different experience to coffee, except perhaps that mouthfeel when you get, you know, if you had a frost up some espresso or one with a head on it, that's the only similarity. And then the little bit of bitterness and the long follow, isn't it? So once you've drunk it, you're still getting those flavors, you know, 30 seconds later. I think that's one of the things that really distinguishes it from, you know, some mass produced sugar sweetened beverage

as they like to say in the States, right? You get the hit of the sugar and flavor, it disappears very fast. Whereas this, I think, like a coffee, you know, like a really good meal, that you're still getting a lot of tastes afterwards. And this is part of why I imagine some people like matcha and presumably some people also really dislike it.

It's definitely got a strong flavor to it. Yeah, but nothing like coffee. I don't think it doesn't have that intense bitterness. Agreed. So someone like you is not a coffee drinker, you probably, you know. Happily drunk it without complaining. Yes, exactly.

I feel like a lot of people are drinking matcha, not just with water, but in a way rather like a replacement for coffee. Do you think this is a disgusting habit? How do you think about that? No, I think it's a real shame if it's loaded with sugar, but one of the ways I like to drink it is just with some warm coconut milk. Something we haven't really touched on yet, but when you taste it, it actually has umami. It's got that sort of soothing savoriness.

And when you then layer that up with something else that's got umami, so like nut milks or, I mean, I did it with avocados this morning, you get this double whammy of umami. And that's very satisfying. How would you add it to other foods? So you talked about your avocado, but someone who's starting out, you know, you've got some spare powder, you know, you want to add it to everything you can think of. What would you start with? Well, this is the perfect example.

My daughter's 12. No, this probably 12 is roughly where you need to be careful a bit about caffeine and your son as well. But she has exams today. And I gave her last night lemon, honey and ginger because she's on the verge of a cold, try and get her some good sleep. And then this morning, I know she's not going to have that, taste that, but I just sprinkled one gram as I chopped up some avocados, a little bit of salt, a little lemon juice and put that on some toast and that was our breakfast.

I've seen it on eggs. Have you seen matcher eggs and eggs? Yeah, you could use it as a seasoning. You could even put it into one of the problems is it does clump a little bit, but if you put it in with some salt, fine salt, or even actually crystal salt, it will disperse itself within the salt and then you could use it as a seasoning as well. Do you feel like the natural introduction to this for someone who hasn't used it before is as a drink and the food follows or actually is it more the other way around?

I think that I subconsciously knew about it through food first because there's another Japanese dish called ochazuke and that would be green tea with dashi. A dashi is a stock. So again, you've got that double wami of umami. You've got the umami of the dashi stock and the umami of the tea. And then you combine those and you pour them over rice. And it's a very sort of comforting way of eating leftover rice the next morning for breakfast or something.

And I'd had that as a child. Do you know someone who's curious about matcha? Why not share this episode with them right now? You'll empower them with the latest scientific advice to help them choose the daily drink that's best for them. And I'm sure they'll thank you. Now I think you have brought another show and tell, am I right, Kodj?

Which is a way, in fact, to eat matcha rather than to just drink it. Do you wanna tell us what you've just brought out? Yes, well, I was cooking at the weekend and it was Burns night, I'm half Scottish and half Japanese, so I did a Japanese crannican. So basically I made a granola

that went with a matcha cream effectively. Now this is slightly sweetened. It's got eggs, sugar, a touch of butter, double cream and a little bit of mascarpone. Wow, it's also pretty bright green I would say, Tim. Yeah. In comparison to my average dessert. It makes it seem... Sorry, you're not meant to eat the whole lot. It's just... It would be... It had lots of other things. You'd find that a bit clawing if you didn't eat the whole lot. Well, I was just thinking that when you described the ingredients, it probably didn't sound like the healthiest thing I was ever going to eat,

but it looks like it looks basically like a bit like a mashed avocado, like a complete blended avocado, really green. So I'm thinking, Tim, it must be really good for me. And I clearly allowed more than one spoonful. What do you think? I think you're allowed at least two spoonfuls. Should we give it a go? Yeah, let's go. But again, you should get this double whammy of the umami that's in the milk products with the umami of the matcha.

Oh wow. Surprising taste, isn't it? I wasn't expecting that. Pretty good, isn't it? Mmm. Yeah, that's good. But I'm definitely inviting Cod around to cook my dinner. So you've got the sweetness, but it's got much more depth on it. So yeah, that's a lovely face. It feels like you can feel a lot of the fat in it because of the sort of smoothness if I compare with what we were just having with the matcha, but you can still get some of the taste of the matcha coming through. Is it easy to blend in with yogurts and creams

and cream cheeses and things or not? It is quite difficult. What I tend to do is I would, if I'm using sugar, I put it in with the sugar because that sugar will naturally disperse it. Right. So like you're adding it with the salt when you mix. So you're putting it in with something else first. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. It'll mix it. Or if I'm not using sugar, I would just make a very small amount of matcha tea and then use it. Because what you don't want to do is put too much water into your cream cheese or whatever else you do. Tim's very self-controlled. I've had two more spoons while he's been talking and I've now put it a bit away because I can tell I'm going to eat the entire thing if I leave it too close. It was delicious. So coach, you've given us like lots of different

ways to eat matcha. If someone, you know, like me has never tried it before and they're thinking out of this show, you know what, I'm like really sold on this combination of this beautiful story of 900 years of Japanese monks eating it and Tim talking about the health benefits. If you were trying to advise the best ways to start, what would you tell someone who's listening now? Well, I think the avocado is a very good way, but my daughter didn't even notice it was there, and I only told her in the car on the way to the exam. I think if you want to taste it, try it on some rice, and add a little stock, and that's the best way

to acquire that taste. Same way that you'd acquire a taste for coffee, you might have it with milk first. Well, the French famously teach their children to enjoy wine, they dilute it, so you're just sort of introducing it slowly. Does it matter teach their children to enjoy wine, they dilute it, so you're just sort of introducing it slowly. Does it matter whether you buy a cheap wine or expensive one to start with? I think if you're going to use it to put into a, to mix with other ingredients, you can

certainly buy a less expensive one. But drinking on its own, you should when you start go for the more expensive one. I think so because it's got less of the bitterness and a bit more sweetness. And let's say I was like, you know what, I'd really want to try it as a drink because I see it advertised in all these different coffee shops. Would you have any guide? I have already heard both of you told me

not to go to have the Starbucks Venti, whatever, but is there a way that might maximize my chances of having something that you would approve of, both I guess in terms of the quality of the matcher and also the experience as maybe a very easy entry point? Yeah, just some warm milk. Just again, because it's a powder, add the milk in very slowly at the beginning, even like maybe a bit of cold milk to make it into a paste so you don't have any of the clumps

of powder left, and then top it up with warm milk. And again, you'll get the soothingness, the umami of the milk. And actually, when you taste good milk, it is sweet. You don't need the extra sugar. Yeah. So I think it's reasonable to start with, but I think there's some evidence that having milk in your teas does interact with the good polyphenols so they may not be absorbed as well.

So use that as a starting point, then try and wean yourself off the milk and go hardcore like we've done today, which is I actually prefer it neat rather than with milk. But you know, the most important thing is to enjoy it. Amazing. Well, I'm going to try and do a quick summary. So I guess I start with this amazing idea that there were these Buddhist monks 900 years ago who figured out that, you know, the secret to enlightenment was growing their tea in the dark, picking just the right bits, smashing it up into millions of pieces, and then drinking it. I always wonder about how anyone ever figures any of this stuff out.

But then amazingly, like modern science says, basically they cracked it. And that's because it not only has this caffeine, it has this other thing, L-3-anine, which apparently sort of balances this out. Tim, I think you were saying sort of improves your sleep quality. And so it sort of reduces some of those rough edges that comes with the with the caffeine So there's something real here It's a drink that's been drunk for a very long time So it's not just a sort of made-up thing in the last few years where they claim comes from the East is actually real

There is less caffeine in it than coffee So it is a way to sort of reduce that if you feel like you're on a bit of a caffeine roller coaster with coffee Which I've definitely been in the past, but there's more caffeine than black tea or green tea. And part of the reason for this is actually it's completely different from a tea. In a tea you're sort of steeping this leaf, which might have been fermented in boiling water and it's getting some extracts here, you're actually getting the whole leaf. And that one of the reasons I think Tim that you were so positive about it is that therefore you're actually getting the whole leaf. And that one of the reasons I think Tim that you were so positive about it is that therefore you're actually getting a lot more plant because you're eating this whole thing

and the plant has got all of these polyphenols, it's got a lot of fiber in it. I think you said probably gonna be more fiber than in your coffee, certainly the way that you drink it, Tim, so there's a lot of health benefits that come from that because you're going to eat the whole thing. And an easy entry point might be to just swap out

the way you're having your coffee today. A lot of people will be having coffee with milk or some sort of milk alternative. And Tim, you're saying, you know, that's a good entry point, but actually the milk is potentially blocking quite a lot of the health benefits. So you really want to end up being able to drink it the way Kodj that you introduced us today. And I think I'm pretty sold. I have to make the cold

one. I don't think I'm going to start drinking cold match. It didn't give me that pleasure, I think, of like the warm drink. The warm match is really nice. I love the fact that you have this little ceremony of making it. And I think like a lot of people listening, I feel like I spend my life at 110 miles an hour and never stop and actually even just making a cup of tea is often something I think I like for just a few minutes of stopping and so the idea that you have to sort of brush with a brush like for a couple of minutes, that is something very lovely about it, I think I'd be totally up for trying that. And in terms of the food, someone else is going to have to make it. Kaj, so if you're willing to come around and make

me that amazing dessert, I'm all sold. Thank you so much, Kaj, for coming in and showing us how to do this. We'll make sure we put some links on the website for anybody who's interested to understand a bit more about that process. Tim, thank you for taking us through the amazing science here. This was a real pleasure. Thank you both. Thank you. Now, if you listen to the show regularly, you already believe that changing how you eat

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