About

How we work

We are a small team in Japan. We do not put our faces on this site. Everything else about how it is made is on this page.

Who is writing this

This Matcha Life — 抹茶の間 in Japanese — is written and edited in Japan. We publish under the name of the publication rather than under personal bylines. That is a deliberate choice, and it costs us something: you cannot look us up. So here is what we can offer instead of a face.

We read Japanese. That means we can go to the source — the makers in Takayama, the tea merchants in Uji, the specifications and the trade press — rather than translating what an English-language site said last year. Most of what is written about matcha in English is a copy of a copy. Ours is not.

How we choose what to recommend

We write the standard down before we look at the products, and before we look at what anything pays.

• The Quiet Pick — the one we would put in our own kitchen. One per guide, no exceptions.
• The Upgrade — what more money actually buys, stated plainly, including when it buys nothing.
• The Budget — the honest floor. What you give up, and what you do not.

A product that is loud, badly made, or dressed up in invented ceremony does not get recommended here, regardless of what it pays. That rule is the whole point of the seal.

What we have tested, and what we have not

Guides start from published specifications, Japanese-language sources, and makers' own descriptions. Hands-on notes and our own photographs are added as tools arrive, bought at our own expense. Where we have not yet handled something ourselves, the guide says so. We will not describe a bowl of tea we have not drunk, or a workshop we have not visited.

How this site makes money

Some links to shops are affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We choose what to cover before we look at what it pays, and no brand has ever paid to be included here or to be reviewed favourably. The full statement is on the affiliate disclosure page.

What we will not do

• Tell you matcha cures anything. We will show you the research and link to it, and leave the medicine to doctors.
• Sell you urgency. No countdowns, no "last chance", no exclamation marks.
• Pretend that a $90 whisk makes better tea than a $40 one when it does not.
• Look down on your latte. Everyone arrives somewhere.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say that we did: takenakacontact@ibeck.co.jp.

日本の方へ — 媒体概要・取材のお問い合わせは こちら。