Most matcha sold outside Japan is blended from whatever is left after the good leaf has been sold. It is milled fast, sits in a warehouse, and arrives dull and bitter. That is the tea that convinced a generation it needed three pumps of vanilla.
We buy single-cultivar leaf directly from three families — in Uji, Kirishima and Shizuoka — and have it stone-milled to order. A granite wheel turns at thirty revolutions a minute and produces forty grams an hour. It cannot be rushed without cooking the leaf, and cooked leaf tastes like hay.
The shop on Church Street exists so you can taste the difference before you commit to a tin. Everything on the board is whisked in front of you, at the temperature it is supposed to be, in a bowl wide enough to do it properly.
