Cultivation and production of IRO Matcha tea

Three to four weeks before harvesting, the tea plantations are covered with a tarpaulin that only lets through 10% of the sunlight. In this way, the plants try to compensate for the lack of sunlight and the leaves fill with chlorophyll and amino acids, giving them their unique smooth and subtle flavour. In a certain sense, the plants go in search of the best of themselves and give it to their leaves.

For superior quality Japanese Matcha tea, the best young leaves are harvested with great care in the spring. They are then immediately steamed over water vapour to block the oxidation, retain their beautiful green colour and preserve all the beneficial substances they contain. They are then dried gently in various stages to be able to extract all the aromas.

We then only keep the best of the pulp of the leaf, removing the twigs, the stems and even the veins. What is left of the leaves is sorted according to colour, flavour and aroma to create the different qualities of Tencha, the raw material of Matcha tea.

The final stage consist of slowly reducing the Tencha leaves into an extremely fine powder using granite millstones. This traditional process, which only produces 30 to 40g of precious powder every hour, preserves the colour, flavour and all the nutritional components of superior quality Matcha tea.