The Switch to Matcha!
Roll out of bed, start coffee maker, drink said coffee, feel a SURGE of energy, crash at 2pm (sometimes I’d need to drink some more), then drag the rest of the day.
That was my routine for YEARS. I always thought it was okay because I drank my coffee black with no sugar or milk/cream.
And then, I found Matcha.
I thought Matcha was just a concentrated Green tea (which is kind of is) until I started actually researching it.
According to healthline, here are the deets of matcha
Like green tea, matcha comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. However, it’s grown differently and has a unique nutrient profile.
Farmers grow matcha by covering their tea plants 20–30 days before harvest to avoid direct sunlight. This increases chlorophyll production, boosts the amino acid content, and gives the plant a darker green hue.
Once the tea leaves are harvested, the stems and veins are removed and the leaves are ground up into a fine powder known as matcha.
Matcha contains the nutrients from the entire tea leaf, which results in a greater amount of caffeine and antioxidants than typically found in green tea.
There’s a whole slew of matcha benefits that you can google. Here’s an article I found that lists the benefits
Matcha Q&A
What benefits have you noticed?
Overall better focus: I feel more mentally focused (hello ADHD) throughout the entire morning and day.
No afternoon crash: This was key for me. The caffeine in matcha is released slowly, and the amino-acids control how it functions in the brain. This way you don’t get the jitters, anxiety, heart palpitations, or that familiar mid-afternoon caffeine crash from when you drink coffee.
Easy to prepare: water, scoop of matcha and done.
If I forget to drink it one day, I don’t get a headache or have withdrawals. I can also drink it anytime before noon and can still fall asleep very easily that night.
How do I get started?
ALL MATCHA IS NOT CREATED EQUAL.
Make sure you are buying QUALITY Matcha with NO sugar added. There are a lot of “matcha blends” that contain more sugar than they do match.
Starbucks has a green tea matcha drink and it’s FULL of sugar. In fact, you can’t even get it without sugar because the blend they use has 32 grams of sugar in it!!
We buy Breakaway Matcha. It’s clean and quality. There’s a lot of different blends; we buy and drink Blend 94.
We made sure to buy a small pack of matcha first to make sure we liked it. We just mixed it with warm water in a coffee cup. Once we knew we liked it, we bought this from amazon. It’s a game changer as far as how quick and easy it is to make.
It’s pricier than coffee, but it was just a bit more than what we were spending on coffee K cups (and definitely cheaper than a Starbucks run).
This is what we use to froth. It will blend and heat it to the perfect temperature. Also will make it cold if you want. We just rinse it out with water when we’re done because we only use it for matcha. Easy clean up!
What does it taste like?
It’s hard for me to describe the taste because I drank black coffee (and loved it). It tastes like concentrated green tea. It’s not sweet, but it’s not bitter like coffee either. I just mix matcha with water (pretty boring), but some of you messaged me and said you drink it with coconut milk, which adds a little sweetness to it!
I drink mine warm because I like a warm beverage in the morning, but there are also cold blends as well.
How did the switch from coffee to matcha go?
I did a complete coffee “detox” first. Slowly weaned myself off coffee and then didn’t have anything with caffeine for a day or two. I was tired and had headaches. It wasn’t my first time quitting coffee, so I knew what to expect… which is why I quit on a weekend so I had reinforcements (aka my husband).
It sounds kind of dramatic as I’m typing this out, but it wasn’t.
Obviously, you can just stop drinking coffee and drink matcha instead, but just sharing the route I took.
Let me know if you all have any other questions about Matcha!
xoxo
Katy