Although it often appears, everyone's understanding of matcha is really limited. Does the so-called matcha taste really contain matcha? Isn't matcha powder and green tea powder the same thing? Japan's matcha is just a "fake foreign devil" who came back from studying abroad in rags.
How hot is matcha? Matcha originated in Japan, and the popular drinks in Japan have gone through the development process from carbonic acid to coffee and then to tea drinks.
1970, Japanese young people like to drink carbonated drinks. From 65438 to 0980, vending machines became popular, and the sales of coffee and drinks soared. After 1990, with the maturity of bottled tea technology, the tea beverage market grew rapidly. By 2005, the sales of bottled tea drinks in Japan reached 93 13 billion yen, accounting for 25.8% of the total retail sales of beverages.
Although the mainstream tea drinks in Japan are oolong tea, green tea, barley tea and other original leaf teas, matcha is welcomed by more and more people in the field of bottled tea and brewing tea powder.
Ito Group, the leader of Japanese tea drinks, introduced a new type of beverage containing matcha powder. Coca-Cola Company also began to sell canned matcha lattes from 20 1 1; Ito Group's annual sales of solid matcha exceed10 million copies.
The popularity of tea drinks has promoted the expansion of Japanese tea snacks.
1996 Haagen-Dazs introduced matcha ice cream in Japan, and Starbucks introduced matcha cappuccino in 5438+0 in 2006. In 20 10, the annual survey of "consumers' favorite ice cream flavor" released by Japan Ice Cream Association showed that the taste of matcha ranked fifth. By 20 15, the taste of matcha has risen to the third place, and the preference rate is nearly 50%.
Matcha, as a typical Asian taste, is sought after by more and more westerners.
In recent years, Americans have consumed nearly half of Japan's matcha exports, and "matcha" has become a standing taste of coffee ice cream shops. In just 20 14, the retail sales of matcha powder in the United States increased by 54.9%, and the sales of matcha ready-to-drink beverages more than tripled. Starbucks' Matcha Frappuccino sells well in Europe and America.
Matcha is also popular enough in China.
Search for "matcha" in the food category of public comment: Beijing 18 15, Shanghai 3266, Guangzhou 1 149, Shenzhen 689. This amount is equivalent to saying that if any coffee, milk tea or bakery doesn't have a "matcha smell", then this store can basically close.
Matcha and green tea powder are not the same thing Although many people claim to like the taste of matcha, they don't know what it is. Of course, consumers can't be blamed for being stupid, because most of the "matcha powder" circulating in China market is only green tea powder.
Actually, matcha and green tea powder are not the same thing. Green tea can be divided into many kinds according to the difference of technology and production, and matcha is the only kind of powdered finished product among many kinds of green tea.
In Japan, green tea powder is called powdered green tea, which is to grind bad green tea leaves into powder, while good green tea is brewed and drunk by people.
Matcha grows in the dark, so it is usually picked one month later than ordinary green tea. Of course, its nutritional value will be higher and its color will be greener. Ordinary brewed green tea is a little yellow.
The production process of matcha is also very complicated, and the basic steps include crushing, steam deactivation, cooling, drying, stem-leaf separation, sand removal, sterilization, quick drying and crushing.
The harsh growth environment and complicated production methods certainly make the price of matcha powder higher. Usually good matcha powder is several times or even ten times more expensive than green tea powder.
Because of the difference between matcha and green tea powder, Japanese companies are very cautious when using the label of "matcha". Some companies will use green tea powder instead of matcha powder when making cookies and desserts, but even if the product name says "matcha", it must be marked "green tea powder" in brackets or in the list of raw materials. In China, there is no such strict requirement.
The prototype of matcha is in China. Nowadays, most people who drink tea in China make tea directly. In fact, this way of drinking tea became popular on a large scale after the Ming Dynasty. How did people in China drink tea before the Ming Dynasty, especially those with education and taste?
There are two mainstream methods, one is to stir-fry tea and the other is to order tea. Both drinking methods use tea powder instead of tea. The ancients generally called it "end tea", and the production principle is similar to that of modern matcha.
The main source of "end tea" is cake tea, also known as group tea or slice tea. Cake tea became popular at the latest in the Tang Dynasty. Picked tea leaves are steamed, ground and dried to make cakes. In the Tang dynasty, tea cakes were ground into powder and cooked with salt, ginger, dogwood and other spices, which tasted quite strange. Song people's method of ordering tea is much more elaborate.
The earliest people who liked drinking tea were the literati in the Song Dynasty. They put tea powder into a tea bowl, add a little water to make tea cream, then fill the soup bottle with water, and at the same time whip the tea soup quickly with a teapot to form fine foam. The description of this process in Daguan Tea Theory is: "Stir tea cream, gently caress him, gently lift his hand, rotate around his wrist, and go up and down thoroughly, like the beginning of tillering, sparse stars and bright moons, and become a grand view." This kind of tea-ordering skill with performance, in terms of operation itself, is really the prototype of Japanese matcha road.
In addition to ordering and fighting tea with a strong sense of competition, there is also an elegant tea art activity in the Song Dynasty: tea sharing.
Tea sharing is also called "soup play" and "tea play". In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Gu Tao described it as "being able to pour soup and tea into a poem, order four Euros, and * * * a quatrain, which is almost a Zhang Tang watch." Small things, spit on your hands, do your ears. "
It seems that tea sharing may be similar to coffee drawing now. Not only can you draw simple patterns with tea foam, but you can also write poems and draw pictures with tea cups. In the Southern Song Dynasty, drinking tea even became a means of livelihood for folk artists.
So, how come all these tea drinking methods have been lost?
The Yuan and Ming Dynasties was a turning point in the history of Chinese tea.
Although nomadic Mongolians have the habit of drinking tea, they are not interested in fried tea in Tang and Song Dynasties, preferring butter tea, medicinal tea or loose tea. The rulers' different preferences, coupled with social unrest, the decline of national strength, the rampant fake tea and the decline of literati status, led to the decline of cake tea and tea at the end.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered to stop making tea of Longfeng group, and various places distributed tea in succession: "Taizu attached great importance to the people's power, stopped making dragon group, took photos everywhere and picked buds to enter the DPRK." The tea-drinking culture in the Ming Dynasty also changed, and scholars also thought that the method of making tea and drinking tea was "simple but not vulgar, full of interest, which can be described as the true taste of tea" compared with the tedious method of ordering tea. Since then, the late tea in China has disappeared, and the way of ordering tea has gradually become unknown.
Matcha is also a minority in Japan. Although it declined in China, the skill of ordering tea has been developed and expanded since it spread in Japan.
The Japanese hobby of drinking tea was developed under the influence of China people from the beginning. In the twentieth year of Zhenyuan in Tang Dezong, the Japanese Zen master Zuyi came to China to study as a monk and brought tea seeds back to Japan. Later, because of the love of Emperor Xie, the Japanese temple royal family began to plant a large number of tea trees. The tea culture in Pingan Nara period is very similar to that in Tang Dynasty.
During the Kamakura period, Zen master Rong went to the Song Dynasty twice to study Buddhism. After returning to China, he not only brought back a large number of tea-seed tea sets, but also brought back a manuscript of Tea Classic to Japan, completed the first Tea Classic in Japan, and ate tea for health. The book records the tea-making skills in the late Song Dynasty, laying the foundation for Japanese matcha.
In Japan at that time, the tea ceremony favored luxury and extravagance, but now the tea drinking philosophy of "harmony, purity, purity and silence" and the special position of Uji matcha are all laid by money. In the hands of money, Japanese tea ceremony combined with Zen thought and embarked on a real localization road.
Nowadays, Japanese tea drinkers usually order tea with black porcelain bowls, bamboo utensils and flower arranging utensils. Most tea rooms do not exceed four tatami sheets, and the whole process is extremely complicated and serious, reflecting Zen everywhere and showing very distinctive Japanese aesthetic characteristics. Therefore, it can't be said that Japan's matcha road only copied the tea-ordering skills of the Song Dynasty.
The inheritance of modern Japanese tea ceremony mainly depends on two ways. First, girls' schools improve women's "personal cultivation" through skills such as flower arrangement, tea art and needlework; The first is the "family system", which inherits traditional skills according to blood relationship.
The steps of matcha road are complicated and meticulous, and there is a saying that it takes ten years to order a good cup of tea. Even in Japan, the audience is very small.
Moreover, in the middle and late Edo period, the tea-making method of the Ming Dynasty also spread to Japan, forming a tea-frying ceremony with the concept of "harmony, purity, cleanliness and leisure", which is more concise and simple than the matcha road. In fact, modern Japanese drink more fried tea than matcha.
Why are the tastes of fried tea, green tea, barley tea and oolong tea not as popular as matcha? Perhaps it is precisely because the real "matcha" is invisible to most people. Things are rare, which sounds particularly attractive.