Matcha Grades Explained: What Ceremonial and Culinary Really Mean

Matcha is green tea grown in the shade, steamed, dried, stripped of its stems and veins, then stone-ground into a fine powder. "Ceremonial" and "culinary" aren't official grades: there's no standard behind either word, and Ippodo, a Kyoto tea merchant trading since 1717, doesn't use "ceremonial grade" at all. Since autumn 2024, matcha has also been in short supply, which is why prices have jumped.

So if you've stood in front of a shelf of green tins wondering what you're paying for, you're not alone. Here's the whole story, in plain words.

What makes a powder matcha?

Matcha starts life as tencha: tea leaves shaded from the sun for several weeks before picking, which keeps them a deep, bright green and full of savoury, umami flavour. After harvest, the leaves are steamed, dried and destemmed, then ground slowly between stone mills.

That's the difference from ordinary green tea. With most green tea you brew the leaves and throw them away. With matcha you whisk the whole leaf into the water and drink it, which is why it's so vivid and so rich.

Where do "ceremonial" and "culinary" come from?

From Western shop shelves, not from Japan. Sellers outside Japan started calling their best drinking matcha "ceremonial", after the Japanese tea ceremony, and their cheaper baking matcha "culinary". The words stuck because they're easy to understand.

The catch is that nobody checks them. There's no organisation, in Japan or anywhere else, that decides what counts as ceremonial grade, so one brand's ceremonial can be another brand's everyday.

Why one Kyoto tea merchant won't say "ceremonial grade"

Ippodo Tea has been selling tea in Kyoto since 1717. Its own answer to the question is refreshingly direct: as a Japanese company, it doesn't use the term "ceremonial grade", because the term was invented to market matcha to the West and isn't used in Japan.

In Japan, tea people are more likely to talk about where and when the leaf was picked, and how the matcha will be made: usucha, a thin, frothy bowl, or koicha, a thick one that needs the smoothest powder of all.

How to choose matcha without the labels

• Look at the colour. Bright, vivid green usually means young, well-shaded leaf. Dull or yellowish green suggests older leaf.
• Check where it's from. Good sellers name the region, such as Uji in Kyoto, and often the harvest.
• Think about how you'll drink it. Whisked with water, the flavour has nowhere to hide. In a milky latte or a bubble tea, the milk softens bitterness, so a punchier, cheaper powder works well.

The matcha shortage that began in autumn 2024

Matcha went viral, and the farms couldn't keep up. Reports of shortages surfaced in autumn 2024, and some Kyoto tea companies began limiting how many tins each customer could buy.

Supply is slow to grow. Japan produced 5,336 tonnes of tencha in 2024, nearly 2.7 times the figure from ten years earlier, according to the Japanese Tea Production Association, as Reuters reported. But Kyoto's heatwaves hit the harvest, tencha prices at the Kyoto auction rose by about 170% year on year, and new tea fields take around five years to mature. Some Tokyo tea shops were still limiting sales to one tin per person in early 2026.

Where matcha sits in a bubble tea

In a bubble tea, matcha meets milk, ice and something sweet, so you want a powder that dissolves easily and tastes bright through all that, rather than one made for whisking at a tea ceremony.

That's how our Matcha Tea Kit works. The matcha sachet is a ready-sweetened instant matcha tea powder: you stir it into 300ml of milk or a milk alternative, add strawberry popping boba and ice, and that's it. No whisk, no bamboo, no grading puzzle. The kit makes two creamy matcha drinks and two strawberry and mango fruit teas.

We don't call it ceremonial, because it isn't trying to be. It's made for joyful, creamy, pop-in-your-mouth bubble tea. If you're weighing it up against a tin of plain matcha, matcha kit vs matcha powder sets out what you get with each, and does bubble tea contain tea? explains the form tea takes in every TeaJoy drink.

Choosing a milk? Our plant milk for bubble tea guide compares oat, soya, almond and coconut in a matcha drink.

Questions people ask

Is ceremonial grade matcha better?

Not automatically. The term has no official standard, so it depends entirely on the brand using it. Colour, origin and harvest tell you more than the label.

What's the difference between ceremonial and culinary matcha?

In practice, sellers use "ceremonial" for their smoother, brighter drinking matcha and "culinary" for stronger, cheaper powder meant for baking and lattes. Neither is a regulated grade.

Why is matcha so expensive now?

Demand has soared since 2024, while supply is limited by a once-a-year spring harvest, heat-damaged crops and fields that take years to mature. Tencha prices at the Kyoto auction rose by about 170% in a year.

Can you use matcha in bubble tea?

Yes, and it's one of the most popular flavours. A sweetened, easy-dissolving matcha powder stirred into milk and poured over boba and ice works best.

Sip, pop, matcha joy

Find the Matcha Tea Kit alongside our fruit and milk tea kits in bubble tea kits for home, or read how to make bubble tea at home first. Sign up to our emails for 15% off your entire order.