In our region, we pride ourselves on our coffee, and for good reason. The coffee bean can trace its origins back to Yemen, and our reputation for high-quality specialty coffee extends beyond our region.
Indeed, so deeply embedded is our coffee culture that consuming the beverage is an immutable aspect of many people’s daily routines. Days begin at the café, friendships are forged over a cup of coffee and business deals are settled with the chink of a finial. So, for another beverage to disrupt that pattern, you know it must be legit.
Matcha is one such disruptive force. Going from a novelty drink you’d only order to freak out your friends to a fixture on café menus across the country. But it’s not just an alternative to coffee; matcha has also worked its way into the recipes for cookies, bagels, frappés, chocolate and pancakes.
Everyone seems to know someone who’s bought into the matcha craze, often spouting the apparently clear-as-day benefits of the substance and suggesting you’re crazy for not already being on board. And while it’s easy to assume that matcha comes from the same strand of pseudoscientific health fads which suggest that anything green must be good, the antecedents of matcha are reputable, dating back millennia with origins in China.
Matcha is essentially a grounded powder made from green tea leaves that are specially grown, cultivated and processed to have an enhanced chlorophyll content—hence its vibrant green colour. Similar to coffee beans, matcha comes in different varieties, with some boasting a distinctive earthy flavour and others a more robust, sweet taste.
Often cited as a ‘superfood’—or ‘super powder’, we’re not quite sure of the lingo here—and apart from its taste, its myriad health benefits are what’s driving the surge in popularity. Matcha has a natural high antioxidant count, meaning that it delivers a potent dose of metabolism-boosting, illness-fighting vitamins and minerals that can also protect you from chronic diseases. While matcha contains caffeine, it does so in lower doses than coffee.
All that said, it isn’t all antioxidant sunshine and illness-fighting rainbows. Matcha’s antioxidant richness ultimately comes back to bite it, as it also contains high levels of an antioxidant called quercetin. While quercetin is celebrated for its anti-inflammatory properties, too much of it can interfere with the body’s ability to properly process medication. The other, more obvious drawback to matcha is its price. Matcha is typically more expensive than regular coffee, and if you get a taste for it, premium-grade matcha can very quickly burn a hole in your pocket.
So ultimately, the choice to switch to matcha depends on what you value. If you want a caffeine hit, plus an antioxidant boost, without the crash, matcha is undoubtedly superior. If a caffeine maximisation approach is more your speed, coffee is unbeatable. Ultimately, whether you opt for coffee or matcha will likely come down to taste and price, as the benefits of matcha are not so noteworthy that it’s worth consuming even if you find the taste repugnant. Plus, it’s not like coffee is unhealthy either. There’s a reason why we’ve developed such a deeply ingrained coffee culture here, and it’s not because drinking it is a guilty pleasure.