Does your matcha taste grassy or bitter, while someone else insists they’re picking up toasted nuts, delicate florals, or a subtle sweetness?
They’re not necessarily imagining it. Matcha can contain an incredible range of flavors, from rich umami and fresh greens to nuttiness, sweetness, and florality. The way you drink it, including its temperature and even whether you slurp, can affect which notes you notice.
Here’s how to get more out of every sip.
1. Taste Starts With Your Nose
What we think of as flavor is actually a combination of taste and aroma. Your tongue detects basic tastes like sweetness, bitterness, sourness, saltiness, and umami, while your sense of smell helps fill in the more specific details.
As you sip matcha, its aromatic compounds travel from the back of your mouth into your nasal cavity, where they reach your olfactory receptors. This is why tea professionals slurp when tasting. Slurping helps vaporize the matcha, which releases more aroma and makes the matcha’s subtler notes easier to detect.
Delicate flavors are often difficult for beginners to pick up. Our single cultivar Kiwami contains delicate floral, honey, and cream notes, which are accentuated beautifully by a bit of milk. Next time you make your latte at home, try it yourself: Take one sip normally, then take another with a small slurp. You’ll be surprised just how much complexity is packed into one sip of matcha.
2. Temperature Changes What You Taste
Aroma becomes easier to perceive as aromatic compounds evaporate, which happens more readily at warmer temperatures. This means a hot matcha may reveal nuances that are harder to detect when the same matcha is served over ice.
If you usually order an iced latte, try tasting a freshly whisked shot of matcha before adding milk and ice. You may notice more of its natural sweetness, umami, or vegetal character.
That doesn’t mean hot matcha is inherently better. Temperature simply changes the experience, and comparing the two can help you discover which qualities you enjoy most.
3. The Tongue Map Is a Myth
You may remember seeing a diagram dividing the tongue into separate zones for sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. In reality, most areas of the tongue can detect all five basic tastes.
Rather than trying to place matcha on a specific part of your tongue, let it move across your palate. Take note of how the bold flavor of Hikari develops, opening with walnut and butter, then finishing with a refreshing lemon note. Does the sweetness linger? Does it become nuttier or more vegetal as it cools?
How to Taste Matcha More Mindfully
You don’t need to be a tea expert to recognize flavor notes. The next time you prepare matcha, try tasting it before adding milk or sweetener. Smell it first, then slurp it to let it coat your palate. Once you get the full experience of the matcha, allow yourself to sip and savor it.
There’s no single “correct” tasting note to find. With a little attention, you may discover an entirely new side of a matcha you already love.
