Umami matcha is the best kind of matcha, and in this article, we’re going to learn the science behind it. We’ll learn why is matcha umami and search around Japan to find the most umami matcha.
Let’s get started!
Umami Matcha Meaning
Umami matcha is the best kind of matcha, but what is it exactly? Umami is the most desirable of all the tasting notes in matcha, and it essentially means “savory” in Japanese.
Savory has been called the fifth flavor, alongside salty, sweet, bitter and sour. These are the building blocks of flavor and your tongue can sense them, almost on a primal level. This matcha umami is an expression of the amino acid profile of the tea, which we will discuss later.
Umami flavor vs aroma
In some languages, the word “aroma” is used to describe a tea. This is because the experience of tea has more to do with our sense of smell than our sense of taste. When we drink tea, we actually “smell” it through a process called retronasal olfaction.
If you want to figure out what is smell, and what is taste, just hold your nose when you sip the tea. Chances are, you won’t get any of the light florals or even the characteristic vegetal notes, but you should be able to perceive the sourness, bitterness or umami in the tea.
Umami matcha in Japanese cuisine
This umami flavor is common in Japanese cuisine, think dashi broth, miso, seaweed and mushrooms. This is one of the reasons it is so sought after in Japanese teas like gyokuro and matcha.
It’s easy to produce the umami flavor in food, but tea leaves are much more challenging. This requires a miracle of agriculture on the part of the tea farmer.
Where does umami matcha come from?
As we mentioned before, the umami matcha flavor is a result of the amino acid profile within the tea leaf. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and they manifest as a savory flavor on the palate.
The primary amino acid in tea is l-theanine, which is extremely rare in the plant kingdom as a whole. This humble amino acid is not only responsible for the sweet and savory flavor of a tea, but also the calm alert energy you get when you drink it.
The source of L-theanine
L-theanine is naturally produced by the tea leaves, but when the plant is exposed to sunlight it converts this savory theanine into bitter catechins as a protection against the UV rays. In order to stop this process from taking place, a farmer will cover the tea plant with a type of netting so the leaves maintain more of their theanine.
This is why umami matcha has to come from long shaded tea plants. The standard for high quality matcha is 20 days, but some plants can be shaded for up to 40 days or more top maximize the matcha umami taste.
Benefits of Umami matcha
Umami green tea can be a delicious and rare experience. Outside the world of Japanese green teas, you don’t get a whole lot of this umami flavor from tea. The reason farmers work so hard to shade the tea plants, select the best leaves and remove the stems is to carefully cultivate this umami matcha taste, but there are some other benefits to it as well.
Smoothing out the bitterness
More matcha umami usually means less bitterness. This means you can drink the matcha plain without milk or sugar, and take full advantage of the health benefits and nuanced flavor profiles.
Health benefits of umami matcha
If you find an umami matcha, chances are it’s not only delicious but also great for energy and focus. The same amino acids that make green tea umami, also give you that calm alert focus.
Theanine is thought to slow the absorption of caffeine and buffer a lot of its side effects, like the crash and jitters normally associated with coffee. Theanine is also thought to induce a calming effect on the brain and stimulate alpha brainwave activity, the same brainwaves stimulated during meditation.
Where to find Umami matcha
So now that we’ve talked about how great umami matcha is, let’s talk about how to find it! When you are buying matcha, you want to look for a few different factors. First, you want to think about the cultivar or tea plant variety and then the region and farmer.
Cultivars
Did you know that just like wine has different varietals, matcha has different cultivars or tea plant varieties? Each of these cultivars prefers different growing conditions and produces different flavor profiles.
If you are looking for an umami matcha, you may want to try a gokou matcha like the matcha koai. These tea plants have been specially bred for a strong umami flavor.
Regions
The most famous region for matcha is Uji followed by Yame. These microclimates provide the best growing conditions for umami matcha, with rich soils, rolling hills and morning fog that provides additional “shading” for the tea plants.
With the right fertilizer, a farmer can recreate these growing conditions and produce a super umami matcha in regions like Shizuoka and Kagoshima. This is a way to apply additional nitrogen to the soil so the tea plants can develop more umami.
Farmers
In addition to regions and cultivars, farming philosophy can also have an impact on the matcha umami. For example, Mr. Sakamoto is a gyokuro farmer and has perfected a fertilizer for producing umami tea plants without the use of pesticides or chemicals.
He also grinds the gyokuro leaves in a stone mill to produce an umami matcha with the same characteristic savory flavor of his gyokuro.
