Koicha vs Usucha: Thick Tea vs Thin Tea Explained!

What is the green matcha paste? This is called Kiccha and it’s actually one of the two ways to prepare match. You may be familiar with the Foi Usucha or thin tea, but in this blog we’re gonna be talking about the lesser known Kiccha or thick tea. We’ll compare this tea based on flavor, texture and health benefits to see what makes it different from the classic match style. This thick match paste is made with double the amount of powder and less than half the amount of water it’s actually drunk during special tea Cemonies and it can only be made out of the highest quality match powder. When you use this quantity of match powder, it really intensifies the flavor, so you need to make sure that there’s no bitterness at all in the match that you’re using. For this reason we only use Premium Ceremonial Grade match for Kiccha. For this experiment we’ll be using the Premium match Chiang. A blended match made from two different cultivs just like wine is broken down into varietals. Tea is broken down into cultivars and each one produces different flavors. Most match is made from the Yabukita cultivar, but this tends to have more bitter flavors, especially when it’s produced as a koiccha. The Oumiddoi kltivar has a much smoother taste profile with less bitterness, so it works great as a kiccha. The premium match chiang is a blend of Okumidori and Assatsuu, another rare cultivar that is known for its natural sweetness. I wanted to prepare this tea as an usuchcha match and as a kucha matchcha. To see how the taste differs for the usucha, I’ll use two grams of powder and 80 mit of water. I’ll be using a scale wherever possible to keep the measurements accurate. By the way one milliliter of water weighs exactly one gram, so you can use a scale to measure out both your tea and your water. Pretty cool trick for the Koico Macha. I actually scaled up the measurements because I wanted to make sure I had enough. I used eight grams of the same match and poured in 60 miters of water. Normally the ratio would be four grams of match powder and 30 miters of water. But most of it ends up sticking to the bowl. So I wanted to make sure that I had enough to pour into a glass for Koiccha match. You don’t need to whisk the match because you’re not trying to get foam. You can just gently stir the match until it’s combined evenly into the water. There’s actually a special type of whisk for making Koicchaacha with 36 thick bristles. But here I’ll just be using a regular chace. What you want to do here is make sure that there are no clumps in your Kucha matchcha. All of the powder should be combined into the water. Just take your time and make sure the paste is smooth. You can always add a little bit more water in later. If it’s too thick, you want the consistency to be thin enough to pour and drink, but not thin like water. Now that I have the right consistency. I think it’s time to do a little comparison of the health benefits of these two match teas. The important thing to know about match is that because the powder is mixed directly into water, you’re consuming the entire leaf along with all of its health benefits. This means that the nutrient profile is easy to measure. Four times the powder is four times the antioxidants, caffeine, amino acids and vitamins. Even though there is more liquid in the Usucham matcha, the kiccha actually has four times the nutrients. The standard Usuchamachcha already has six to ten times the antioxidants as a cup of normal green tea, but the koiccha is on a whole noether level. This is like a super concentrated match shot with each sit bringing the nutrients of ten cups of normal green tea. But before you go pounding Koutscha shots we need to talk about the caffeine. So a premium matchcha like this will have 34 mig of caffeine per gram of powder. A regular bowl of usuchi match will have 68 migrans of caffeine, which is relatively low compared to the 90 milligrams in a small cup of coffee. Eight grams of match, on the other hand, will have 200 and 72 milligrams of caffeine, so the two of these together will be a combined 300 and 40 mgm of caffeine. This is really more caffeine than you should be drinking it a day, but I had a lot of blogs to edit, so I figured i’d give it a try. I poured the two teas out into a glass for a sidebyside comparison. The usuchcha was easy to pour, but the Koicche match really took its time. You can get an idea of just how thick this paste is by watching it pour out. By the way before you get worried about the caffeine content, just note that a lot of the paste never left the bowl. Good thing. I made extra. So even though these are the same Mac tea, they couldn’t be more different. The Usuchcha is light, airy and creamy, and the Koiccha match is intense and vegetable. You’d have to really like match to enjoy the flavor of this. It really coats your palate, and because it’s so thick, the aftertaste is really long. Because the Chiang is such a high quality match, the taste of the Kouticcha is still smooth, but it’s really intense. The taste takes over right away and begins to dominate with these steamed vegetable, slightly grassy and floral tasting notes. This is not how I want to drink match every day, but it could be nice for special occasions. One positive note about Usucha match is that it actually has a foam which gives it an airier consistency and taste, almost like a latte, but without milk and sugar. Speaking of latte’s one big advantage Kiccha has is that it can actually work very well in lattes. Have you ever had a Macha Latte that just tasted water down? It’s probably because there is too much water in it. One way you can cut back on the water in your macchcha Late is to just make the koiccha paste and then add the milk directly into it. I added some milk to the Usucha matchcha and the koiiachcha to see how the two compared as a latte. The Usuch match tasted quite watery, but the koiiachcha late was probably one of the best lattes I’ve ever had. The taste was so rich i felt like I was really drinking a matchcha latte instead of just a glass of green milk. Whether you’re making Koicheachcha or Usuchcha matchcha, the Chiang Premium works great in both, and if you want to try it out for yourself, you can find it on our website. After traveling around Japan for the past few years, we’ve met with dozens of farmers and sampled 100 of different pesticide-free macha teas. We’ve ultimately selected a handful of our favorites and you can find them all at notes, dot com. Another way to support this channel is by liking this blog and keep in tuch for more matcha tips. Thank you all so much for reading. We’ll See you next.