Given the popularity of matcha, both iced and warm, adding this trendy drink to your cafe menu can prove beneficial, and profitable to your business.
But as any barista knows, making matcha to order can slow down service. That whisk-and-bowl ritual is beautiful for home brewing, but less ideal when there'a line out the door. Enter the need for a more efficient way to serve high-quality matcha without compromising flavour or aesthetics.
Naturally, many coffee shops are creating more efficient ways to make matcha lattes out of necessity to maintain the speed of service. The most popular option is to make a large volume of matcha 'concentrate' at a time, rather than fresh and indivudally to order.
While we love coffee at Five Senses, we also appreciate all flavours and drinks and a really great workflow. So, we put three popular "batcha" methods to the test to help cafes streamline matcha prep while maintaining great flavour and quality. Our tasting panel—four coffee experts including two Q Graders trialled these methods with a focus on freshness, mouthfeel and overall flavour.
As a result, we have the winning recipe for the up and coming summer, which is bound to be filled with iced Matcha Lattes to streamline your workflow, without sacrificing your high standards for flavour. For consistency, we've used filtered water from the same source and the same milk and 2.5g of matcha per serve of 200ml milk.
Matcha concentrate with chilled water
We mixed cold water with matcha. The matcha powder was blended with chilled water from the fridge (30g water for every 2.5g matcha) to make a concentrate. We then added this concentrate to our glass of full cream milk and ice. We found this created a sweet and mild matcha drink. This recipe certainly resulted in less bitterness, however it also lacked some of the more complexity found in matcha. It was lighter in colour, not as vibrant to the eye. We also sampled this 24 and 48 hours later, with similar results. This recipe seems quite stable but needs to be stored in the fridge and it does become duller in colour as it ages.
Matcha concentrate with hot water
We blended 80 degree celcius water with the matcha powder, using 30g of hot water for each 2.5g of matcha. This temperature is the perfect level for extracting those healthy compounds from the matcha without causing an increase in bitterness. We then rapidly cooled the mix in an ice bath to preserve the colour, flavours and reduce any excess bitterness. This is the most similar batch option to an individual chasen hand whisked matcha in terms of the temperature. A blender that mixes hot liquid (like a Vitamix or Thermomix) is required. Depending on the volume created, you may also want to have an ice machine as you need to flash chill the concentrate. When mixed with milk and ice, it creates a balanced drink, with a range of both sweetness and bitterness. The mouthfeel is creamy and coating, and the flavours are bolder and more complex as the hot water allows for the release of more compounds from the matcha tea. This method is best consumed the day it is made. Day 2 is still quite vibrant, however it has a slightly more dry finish and by day 3, it is noticeable more bitter and dull in colour. Make sure you keep it refrigerated and mix/shake prior to using as the matcha settles.
Ready to drink latte mix
We blended the matcha powder directly with dairy milk, creating a ready to drink mix that is simply poured over ice to serve. This recipe creates a sweet matcha drink with less aroma, however it is more intense overall, possibly due to the omission of water the other two methods incorporated. There is slightly less bitterness prominent with this drink, however this seems to come at the significant sacrifice of the mouthfeel. Even when sifted and combined well, the cold milk proteins and fats can make the fine powder more difficult to mix. As a result, it creates a dusty, coating feeling over your tongue and entire mouth. As the matcha doesn't dissolve, there is potential for an increase in matcha lumps with this method. This is by far the most efficient method for a busy service, however it does offer more some inflexibility with orders due to the premixed milk and you won't be able to layer your served drinks. This matcha mix lasted well into day 2, maintaining its pretty green shade, however the mouthfeel does reduce in quality with age and by day 3, the dusty mouthfeel has increased to grittiness and the latte leaves a really dry and lingering finish.
So, the best recipe we tried that maintains a fresh and quality matcha drink without disrupting your workflow is creating a concentrate of matcha with hot water freshly every day. There is slightly more prep work involved with this to maintain its freshness, however it produces a superior matcha latte that our tasting panel unanimously agreed upon was the best.
Iced Matcha Latte (batch) - makes 15 serves
Ingredients:
- 42g Matcha - sifted through a sieve
- 450g of 80 degree celcius filtered water
- Ice bath, fill large bowl with ice and cold water
Method:
- Blend matcha powder and hot water in a heat safe blender.
- Once fully combined, place into suitable food safe pouring container. Fully submerge the concentrate into your prepared ice bath, allow to cool completely.
- Once chilled, store in fridge.
- To serve, pour 30g of mix over ice and 200g milk of choice.
