Matcha latte
Paste first, then milk — never powder into milk
Matcha will not disperse in milk. Every gritty matcha latte comes from skipping the water paste stage.
Ingredients
- matcha, sifted2.5 g
- water at 75 °C40 ml
- milk180 ml
- honey or syrup, optional8 ml
Method
Sift and paste
Matcha plus 40 ml of 75 °C water, whisked smooth.
Sweeten while it is concentrated
Honey dissolves into the hot paste. It will not into cold milk.
Texture the milk to 60 °C
Do not go hotter — hot milk flattens matcha the same way hot water does.
Pour through
Pour the milk in and the green will lighten to jade. Oat milk is the best plant option here.
Notes
- Hojicha version: swap in roasted hojicha powder. Toasty, almost no caffeine, and easier to like.
Lighter version
There is a full recipe for this — see Unsweetened matcha latte. Short version: drop the honey, go up to 3 g of matcha to make up the intensity the sugar was providing, and keep the milk under 60 °C so its own sweetness comes through.
Made it? See how the pour actually looks.
Photograph this pour and Brew scores the symmetry, contrast and definition, and names the exact mistake to fix next time.
Score my pour →What you need
- Chasen (bamboo whisk) or Handheld milk frother
- Small sieve