Matcha green tea is a vibrant green powder made from young tea leaves. It’s traditionally used ceremonially in Japan, but it’s also a popular flavoring for sweets like these matcha blueberry popsicles as well as other treats and drinks. And a matcha green tea latté is a particularly popular morning drink.
Matcha is typically made by whisking powdered green tea into hot water where it forms a delicate and slightly bitter brew. When you make a matcha green tea latté, you blend matcha powder with warm milk and froth them together to form an ethereally creamy morning drink.
In most matcha lattés you’ll find at local coffee shops, culinary matcha powder is blended with a significant amount of granulated sugar, and then frothed with steamed milk. Sugar counteracts the matcha’s naturally bitter undertones, and makes the drink sweet and dessert-like. Starbuck’s version, for example, packs a whopping 32 grams of sugar – or just shy of what you’ll find in a can of soda.
While matcha itself is fairly nutrient-dense, and particularly rich in chlorophyll and catechins which act as natural detoxifiers that help to reduce oxidative stress among other benefits, adding sugar to matcha certainly counteracts some of its benefits. So, make it at home. You’ll be able to control how additional sweetener you add, if any at all, and it’ll be less expensive than buying it at a coffee shop.
How to Make a Matcha Green Tea Latté
At its simplest, a matcha tea latté needs only matcha powder and milk. You can also add sweeteners like honey, or superfood boosters like collagen peptides, spirulina, or royal jelly if you like. And while matcha lattés are typically made with milk, you can also substitute light coconut milk, macadamia milk or another non-dairy alternative.
You can make a matcha latté on the stove by whisking matcha powder into milk as it warms; however, for a truly frothy and perfectly blended version, you should pick up a milk frother like this one. After adding the matcha and milk, all you need to do is press a button, and it’ll blend, warm and froth your latté beautifully.
Finding High-Quality Matcha
Matcha is very fine, powdered green tea made from young leaves that is traditionally produced and used in Japan. There are several grades of matcha with ceremonial grade matcha being of the highest quality.
Tea can uptake heavy metals from the soil, so you want to purchase a very high-quality tea. You can purchase a quadruple-screened, ceremonial grade matcha here or check out this matcha tea buying guide.
Our Other Favorite Morning Drinks
If you like matcha lattés in the morning, you might also like some of our other favorite morning drinks too!
Chai-spiced Butter Tea is vibrant and nourishing, enlivened by the flavor of sweet spices like cloves and coriander.
Mexican-Style Hot Chocolate made with dark chocolate, warm milk and just a hint of spice.
Supergreen Morning Tonic is perfect in the spring and a vibrant morning juice with wheatgrass, mint and apple.
Golden Milk is another deeply nourishing morning drink that’s spiked with antioxidant-rich turmeric.
Good point about the sugary matcha powder in stores. Had really good luck with Tenzo Tea’s matcha powder, which comes straight from Japan without any added chemicals or sugars http://tenzotea.co
Hi Jenny – I’m having a hard time sourcing vanilla bean powder. Is there any reason not to use pure vanilla extract instead?
Sure, you can use vanilla extract.
this sounds so good! I just bought some vital collagen, and I have so much matcha at home! I will make it asap 🙂