The art of presence
Four movements.
Matcha is less a drink than a sequence. Scroll and the line draws itself through all four — sift, whisk, pour, pause.
20 seconds01
Sift
Two scoops through a fine mesh into a dry bowl. Matcha clumps the moment it meets air; a lump that survives sifting will survive whisking, and you will meet it at the bottom of the bowl.
45 seconds02
Whisk
70ml at 78°C. Wrist loose, forearm still, the chasen tracing an M and then a W just off the floor of the bowl. Stop when the foam turns fine and matte rather than bubbled.
10 seconds03
Pour
If you're pouring, pour in one line and don't break it. The unbroken stream is the whole idea — the colour reads truest in motion, and the aroma arrives before the first sip does.
As long as it takes04
Pause
Hold the first mouthful. Umami first, then the sweetness underneath it, then the grassy top note leaving. The second sip is never the same as the first, which is the point.
Where the leaf comes from
The sequence starts long before the bowl.
Twenty-two days of shade, one granite wheel turning at thirty revolutions a minute, forty grams an hour.