How is matcha made step by step?

Tea plants are shaded for three to four weeks, the young leaves are picked, steamed for about 15 to 20 seconds, dried flat without rolling, and stripped of stems and veins to make tencha. That tencha is then ground on granite stone mills into a powder around 5 to 10 microns across.

Why is matcha ground on stone mills?

Because stone mills stay cool. A granite mill produces only around 30 to 40 grams an hour, and that slow pace keeps friction heat low, which protects the colour and aroma that faster ball and jet mills tend to cook out of the powder.

Is matcha just ground up green tea leaves?

No. Matcha is ground from tencha, which is shade-grown leaf that has been steamed, dried without rolling, and had its stems and veins removed. Grinding ordinary sun-grown sencha gives a duller, more bitter powder that is not matcha.

How much matcha does one tea plant produce?

Very little. Only the youngest leaves of the first harvest are used, most of the leaf weight is lost as water during drying, and stems and veins are cut away, so a large share of the field's growth never reaches the tin. That yield loss is a core reason matcha is expensive.

How matcha is made

Matcha is made by shading tea plants for three to four weeks, picking the young leaves, steaming them within hours, drying them and stripping out stems and veins to make tencha, then grinding that tencha on granite stone mills into a powder fine enough to whisk straight into water.

What are the steps from tea plant to matcha powder

Every step does one of two jobs: build sweetness and colour in the leaf, or protect them on the way to the tin. Nothing is oxidised and nothing is roasted, so the finished powder still tastes of the field it grew in.

The production chain, in order
Step	What happens	Why it matters
Shading	Plants covered for 3 to 4 weeks before harvest	Raises L-theanine and chlorophyll, lowers bitter catechins
Harvest	Only the young top leaves picked, by hand or precision machine	Older leaves are tougher, more bitter and duller in colour
Steaming	Leaves steamed for roughly 15 to 20 seconds within hours of picking	Halts oxidation and locks in the green colour
Drying	Leaves dried flat in a tencha furnace, never rolled	Keeps the leaf brittle so it can later be shattered, not crushed
Refining	Stems, veins and stalk separated out by air and blade	Leaves only soft leaf flesh, where the sweetness sits
Resting	Tencha held in cold storage, often over the summer	Rounds off sharpness before milling, in the traditional practice
Milling	Tencha ground between granite stones at about 30 to 40 g an hour	Creates a powder fine enough to suspend in water instead of sinking

Why are the tea plants covered before harvest

Shading is the step that makes matcha matcha. For the last three to four weeks before picking, growers cover the rows with reed screens, straw or black synthetic mesh, cutting sunlight by up to about 90 per cent. Starved of light, the plant makes more chlorophyll to chase what is left, which deepens the colour, and stops converting the amino acid L-theanine into bitter catechins, which builds sweetness and umami.

The same leaf grown in full sun becomes sencha and tastes sharper and thinner. That is the whole difference in a sentence, and it is why shade growing gets a guide of its own.

Why is matcha steamed rather than pan fired

Green tea has to be heated quickly after picking to stop the leaf oxidising, and the two traditions do it differently. Japanese producers steam, usually for about 15 to 20 seconds. Chinese producers more often pan fire in a hot wok or drum. Steaming is wetter and faster, and it preserves the bright grassy character and the vivid green that matcha is judged on. Pan firing drives off more moisture and adds a toasty, nutty note that would read as a fault in matcha.

This is one practical reason Japanese and Chinese powdered green teas taste so different at the same price. It is a processing choice rather than a quality ranking.

What is tencha and why are stems and veins removed

Dried, unrolled, shaded leaf is called tencha, and it is the only leaf that becomes matcha. Ordinary green tea is rolled while it dries, which bruises and curls it. Tencha is dried flat and left brittle, so it can be broken into powder cleanly.

The refining step matters just as much. Stems, veins and stalk are cut away by air separation and blade, leaving only the soft leaf flesh. Stems and veins are fibrous, low in amino acids, higher in bitterness and poor at milling, so leaving them in produces a duller, grittier, harsher powder. Removing them costs real yield, which is a large part of why matcha costs what it does.

How is tencha ground into matcha

Traditional matcha is ground between two granite stones turning slowly against each other. It is deliberately unhurried: one mill produces only around 30 to 40 grams an hour, so a kilogram takes a full day of milling. The point of the slow pace is heat. Friction warms the powder, and heat destroys aroma compounds and dulls the colour, so the mill stays cool and the grooves in the stone shear the leaf apart rather than crush it. The result is a powder around 5 to 10 microns across, fine enough to feel like talc.

Industrial milling exists because stone milling cannot scale. Ball mills and jet mills turn out hundreds of kilograms an hour and are used for culinary and ingredient powder, especially where the matcha will be baked or blended anyway. The trade-off is heat and particle consistency, so the powder is usually coarser and less vivid. Neither is fake matcha; they are different tools for different jobs.

Granite stone mill: about 30 to 40 g an hour, coolest and finest, used for drinking grades.
Ball mill: high volume with more heat, common for culinary and ingredient powder.
Jet mill: air-driven and very fast, used at food-manufacturing scale.

How long does the whole process take

Roughly a month of shading precedes the first harvest of spring, which in most of Japan falls between late April and May. Steaming, drying and refining all happen within a day or two of picking, because the leaf will not wait. The tencha is then usually held in cold storage and milled to order, sometimes months later, because matcha starts losing colour and aroma from the day it is ground.

That last detail is the one worth taking home as a buyer. Tencha keeps reasonably well; matcha does not. A tin ground last week and a tin ground last year can come from the same field and taste nothing alike.

Where is matcha made

Almost all matcha worth drinking is made in Japan, concentrated in a handful of districts: Uji near Kyoto, Nishio in Aichi, Yame in Fukuoka, and increasingly Shizuoka and Kagoshima, which have been converting sencha fields to tencha as demand has grown. China, South Korea, Kenya and Vietnam also produce powdered green tea, mostly at the ingredient end of the market.

Common questions

How is matcha made step by step?: Tea plants are shaded for three to four weeks, the young leaves are picked, steamed for about 15 to 20 seconds, dried flat without rolling, and stripped of stems and veins to make tencha. That tencha is then ground on granite stone mills into a powder around 5 to 10 microns across.
Why is matcha ground on stone mills?: Because stone mills stay cool. A granite mill produces only around 30 to 40 grams an hour, and that slow pace keeps friction heat low, which protects the colour and aroma that faster ball and jet mills tend to cook out of the powder.
Is matcha just ground up green tea leaves?: No. Matcha is ground from tencha, which is shade-grown leaf that has been steamed, dried without rolling, and had its stems and veins removed. Grinding ordinary sun-grown sencha gives a duller, more bitter powder that is not matcha.
How much matcha does one tea plant produce?: Very little. Only the youngest leaves of the first harvest are used, most of the leaf weight is lost as water during drying, and stems and veins are cut away, so a large share of the field's growth never reaches the tin. That yield loss is a core reason matcha is expensive.