How much matcha per cup

How much matcha per cup? The short answer

Usucha, the standard whisked bowl: 2 g of matcha, 60–70 ml of water at about 70–80°C. Koicha, thick tea: about 4 g, with roughly half the water, kneaded rather than whisked. A latte: 2 g in a small paste, then milk. A bamboo scoop holds about a gram; a level teaspoon about two; a scale reads exactly. Everything else on this page is a variation on those numbers.

The ratios

Usucha and koicha quantities follow standard Japanese tea-house guidance. Latte, iced and baking quantities are common practice rather than a standard.

Why 2 g

The number is not arbitrary. Two grams in 60–70 ml is roughly one part powder to thirty parts water by weight, and at that ratio a first-harvest thin-tea powder shows its sweetness without its bitterness taking over, foams readily, and fills a small bowl to the depth that a few sips empty. Less and the bowl is thin and pale; more and it turns toward the rough, harsh version of thick tea. Japanese tea houses print the number on the tin, the tea schools teach it, and the 20 g and 40 g tins the Kyoto houses sell are sized to it — ten bowls and twenty. It is a center, not a law, and the reason to start there is that it is the ratio the powder was blended to be tasted at.

Scoop, spoon, scale

The traditional measure is the chashaku, a bamboo scoop that holds roughly a gram of powder in its curved tip; two scoops make a bowl and three or four make thick tea. It is elegant and it is approximate — the shape of the scoop and the way you lift it change the amount by a third either way, and a scoop from a new tin of fine, loose powder holds less than one from a tin that has settled.

A level teaspoon holds roughly 2 g, again depending on how the powder packs; a heaped one holds 3 g or more, which is why so many “one teaspoon” bowls are bitter. A tablespoon is roughly 6 g, three bowls’ worth, and belongs in baking. If you want the same bowl every morning, a pocket scale reading to 0.1 g is the honest tool, and the first week with one will teach your scoop hand what two grams looks like; after that the scale lives in the drawer and comes out when a bowl tastes wrong.

Why the amount matters more than the water

Water dilutes taste; it does not change what is in the cup. Two grams of matcha carry the same leaf whether you whisk it in 60 ml or pour it into a pint of milk, which is why a latte is not a lighter drink than a bowl — it is the same bowl with milk around it — and why a large café latte at 4 g is two bowls in a cup. The caffeine follows exactly: at about 32 mg per gram in Japan’s food composition tables, 1 g is about 32 mg, 2 g about 64, 4 g about 128, and nothing you add afterward changes that.

Doubling the powder in a bowl without doubling the water is not a stronger usucha; it is a rough koicha, and it will taste harsh unless the powder was made for that use. If you want more flavor, sift the powder, lower the water temperature, or move to a better tin before you add more grams.

Koicha: the other ratio

Thick tea is the same leaf at twice the powder and half the water — about 4 g kneaded with 30–40 ml into a glossy paste, one part powder to eight or ten of water. It is not whisked to foam; it is worked slowly until it pours like thin honey. Because nothing is diluted, koicha exposes any harshness in the powder, which is why Japanese houses tag only their upper blends as suitable for it; Marukyu Koyamaen tags six of its eleven standard blends. Make it with a powder the maker sells for koicha, add the water in two stages, and expect a taste closer to a rich broth than to tea. A 4 g koicha is also two bowls’ worth of caffeine.

Lattes, by size

Paste first, always: powder into milk directly clumps because milk fat coats the particles. Sweeten in the paste, before the milk.

The ratio that matters in a latte is powder to milk, and it runs about 1 g per 75–100 ml for a drink that still tastes of tea. Below that the matcha is a color; above it the bitterness comes through the milk. A bolder thin-tea blend or a latte-designated powder holds its shape at the lower end; a delicate usucha blend needs the upper end and is still wasted.

Cold, by method

Cold water extracts less of the bitter compounds, so the same grams taste lighter cold — which is why iced matcha can use the same 2 g as a hot bowl and seem milder, and why a powder that is harsh hot is often good cold.

Shaken. 2 g and 200 ml of cold water in a jar, a few ice cubes, twenty seconds of hard shaking. A complete drink; blends made for cold whisking foam better.

Cold-brew. 2 g per 250 ml, whisked or shaken, then an hour in the refrigerator. Smoother still; the powder settles and is stirred back.

Iced latte. 2–3 g as a hot paste, over a glass of ice, cold milk on top. The paste can be made cold, whisked harder, for the same result.

Adjusting to taste

The 2 g bowl is a center, not a rule. A lighter bowl at 1.5 g and a fuller one at 2.5 g are both common; a 1 g bowl is a real, pale, gentle drink and a good way to try an expensive tin or to have a later bowl with half the caffeine. Move in half-gram steps, keep the water the same, and change one thing at a time — grams this week, temperature next — so you can taste what each does. If a bowl is bitter, try less powder and cooler water before blaming the tin; if it is thin, try more powder before hotter water. The tin decides the ceiling; the ratio decides whether you reach it.

How far a tin goes

An opened tin is at its best for about two weeks and acceptable for a month by Japanese sellers' guidance. The 20 g and 40 g formats the Kyoto houses kept through the shortage are sized to a bowl a day.

Common mistakes, in grams

• The heaped teaspoon. 3 g in 60 ml is a harsh bowl; weigh once.
• The “strong” bowl. 4 g in 70 ml is a bad koicha, not a strong usucha; make koicha properly or keep to 2 g.
• The thin latte. 1 g in 300 ml of milk is green milk; use 2–3 g.
• The unsifted spoon. Clumps deliver concentrated bites; the grams may be right and the bowl still wrong.
• The big scoop from a settled tin. A packed chashaku holds more than a gram; the first bowl from a tin that has traveled is often over-measured.

Where the numbers come from

The 2 g and 4 g figures are not a website’s invention. They are what Japanese tea houses print on tins and teach in shops, and what the tea schools use: a bowl of usucha is two scoops of the chashaku, roughly two grams, in about a third of a ladle of water; koicha is three to four scoops in a small amount of water, kneaded. The Kyoto houses’ printed guidance follows the same numbers with small variations, and the 20 g and 40 g tins the Kyoto houses have kept through the shortage are explicitly ten and twenty bowls. The caffeine figure — about 32 mg per gram — is from the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan, 2020 edition, which list matcha at 3.2 g of caffeine per 100 g. The latte, iced and baking quantities are common practice in cafés and home recipes rather than a standard, and they vary; the tables above give the ranges most people land in.

Measuring without a scale

If a scale is not on the counter, three habits get you close.

Level the spoon. Draw a knife across a heaped teaspoon; what is left is about 2 g of loose matcha. Do this over the tin, not the bowl.

Sift as you measure. Push the spoonful through a strainer into the bowl. The powder that falls is de-clumped and, because clumps hold air, closer to a true 2 g than a spoon of lumps.

Learn your scoop. Fill a chashaku from a fresh tin and tip it onto a scale once; note whether your hand gives 0.8 g or 1.2 g. After that, two scoops is your two grams, and the scale goes away.

A fourth, if you have a coffee scale: tare the bowl, sift until it reads 2.0, and stop thinking about it.

The same 2 g, five ways

To make the ratios concrete, here is what one measured 2 g of a good first-harvest thin-tea powder becomes.

In 60 ml at 75°C, whisked: a full usucha — thick, foamed, sweet then bitter, gone in four sips. The bowl the tin was blended for.

In 100 ml at 75°C, whisked: a thin usucha — paler, lighter foam, the umami quieter. Not wrong; some people prefer it, and it is the right move for a bowl in the afternoon.

In 30 ml, then 150 ml of milk: a small latte with the tea still audible under the milk — the powder-to-milk ratio at the upper end.

In 200 ml of cold water, shaken: a light, sweet, refreshing glass with the bitterness barely there.

In 300 ml of milk: green milk. The same 2 g, and the tea has vanished. Add a gram, or use less milk.

Same powder, same grams, same caffeine — about 64 mg in every one of the five. Only the taste moved.

A week of ratios

If you want to find your own number rather than take ours, spend a week on it with one tin and one scale.

• Days one and two: 2 g, 65 ml, 75°C. The baseline.
• Day three: 1.5 g, same water. Note what thinned.
• Day four: 2.5 g, same water. Note what sharpened.
• Day five: 2 g, 65 ml, 70°C. Temperature, not grams.
• Day six: 2 g, 65 ml, 80°C. The other direction.
• Day seven: whichever you liked best, and write it on the lid.

Most people come back to 2 g and a little under 75°C. Some settle at 1.5 g; some at 2.5. All of those are correct, because the number is a center, and the point of the week is to know where your own is.

Grams and the tin you bought

The right amount also depends on what is in the tin, because the ratio was set for a drinking powder and not every tin is one.

A koicha-tagged blend — the upper names on a Kyoto house’s ladder — is wasted at 2 g in a latte and shows itself at 4 g kneaded. If you bought one, make thick tea with it at least once; that is what it was blended for.

A thin-tea blend is the 2 g bowl’s natural home and holds up in a small latte at 2–3 g.

A cooking or latte powder — later harvest, sharper — needs milk or sugar to be pleasant and will taste harsh at 2 g in plain water no matter how carefully measured. Use it at 2–3 g in a latte, or by the tablespoon in the oven, and do not judge it in a bowl.

A tin with no use stated is the one to measure most carefully: start at 1.5 g in 60 ml, taste, and move up. If it is harsh at 1.5 g in cool water, the tin is a cooking powder whatever the label says, and the grams will not save it.

Serving more than one

The ratios scale, with one caution. For two bowls, make two bowls, not one double bowl; 4 g in 130 ml whisks badly in most bowls and foams unevenly. For a pot of iced matcha for a table, 8 g shaken in 800 ml of cold water, strained through a fine sieve if the powder settles, is four glasses. For a batch of lattes, make the paste for all of them at once — 2 g per cup, 30 ml per cup, whisked smooth in a measuring jug — then divide and add milk; the paste holds for a few minutes without settling much and the cups come out even.

The one number to remember

If the tables are too many: 2 g, 65 ml, 75°C. A level teaspoon, a small espresso cup of water left two minutes off the boil, fifteen seconds with the whisk. Every other cup on this page is that bowl with something added or taken away — half the powder for a light bowl, twice the powder and a third of the water for thick tea, milk for a latte, ice for summer — and the caffeine follows the powder wherever it goes. Learn the one bowl and the rest is arithmetic.

Numbers at a glance

• Usucha: 2 g in 60–70 ml, about 1:30 by weight. Koicha: 4 g in 30–40 ml, about 1:10.
• Latte: 2 g per small cup; about 1 g per 75–100 ml of milk. Iced: 2 g per 200 ml cold water.
• Chashaku: about 1 g per scoop. Level teaspoon: about 2 g. Heaped: 3 g or more. Tablespoon: about 6 g.
• Caffeine: about 32 mg per gram (MEXT); 64 mg per 2 g bowl; 128 mg per 4 g koicha.
• A 20 g tin: ten bowls; 40 g: twenty; finish within a month.