Making matcha is a ritual. Many American cafés don’t give the ritual the respect that the Japanese tea, which is meant to be prepared delicately, deserves. Matcha primarily presents itself in two forms: ceremonial grade and culinary grade. If you order matcha from a café that does give it the proper attention, you are likely sipping on ceremonial grade matcha that has been agitated in a small bowl with water using a bamboo whisk.

The word “matcha” implies that the tea leaves have been ground into a powder form. The tea leaves before they are ground are called tencha leaves. While you can steep tencha leaves on their own, they are typically harvested and consumed to make matcha. Matcha has become commercialized enough so that when Americans buy it, we typically understand that we’re purchasing a powder.

When purchasing coffee beans, we generally have two options: whole beans, which require a grinder, and preground beans. Grinding whole beans right before brewing results in a fresher cup of coffee. So why haven’t we commercialized the option to ground our own tencha leaves into fresh matcha powder? While they’re harder to find, you can buy tencha leaves online, in specialty stores, and from Cuzen itself.

Welcome to the Grind

The Cuzen Matcha machine introduces us to freshly ground matcha. It’s a small, square-shaped machine that automates the process of making matcha. The main part of the machine is 9.9 x 8.9 x 4.9 inches, but the grinding component, which is a metal barrel that protrudes from the top, adds about 4 inches, making the total height 13.9 inches. This gadget provides a mostly hands-free means of making a cup of matcha in about two and a half minutes.

The two primary components of the machine are the barrel that contains the grinder, and the cup that sits underneath to catch the fresh powder. Once you remove the bamboo lid at the top of the tube, you see the gray plastic piece on the top that contains a metal handle to help pull the whole thing out when needed. This is where you pour the leaves in.

The machine is designed so that you can insert an entire packet of leaves, which apparently stay fresh for about a month. Since the machine comes with a variety of tencha leaves, I like to try a variety, so I don’t like to put so much in there at one time. This gray piece twists onto the piece below to lock it into place. If you unlock it while there are still leaves in there, it’s pretty tough to relock it into place. I needed to flip it upside down to unload the leaves in order to twist it back on. It sounds annoying because it is.

This is where my biggest issues with this machine lie. The grinder consists of a few parts that snap on top of each other inside the tube. When you take these parts out, usually for cleaning, they're tricky to get back into place, and if they’re not perfectly aligned, the grinder won’t work properly. To clean the entire grinder, which gets a lot of matcha all over it even after one cycle, the company recommends using tools like toothbrushes and screwdrivers. When I want to make a different type of matcha, it’s going to have traces of other tencha leaves, because lots of it sticks to the grinder. Matcha can get kind of sticky, so I understand that it’s hard to avoid this to a certain extent. But the multiple components of this grinder make it way too complicated to clean.

The following pieces underneath are two rigged ceramic stones that do the actual milling, which sit on a larger plastic piece that the entire grinding tool sits on inside the tube. The ground matcha then dispenses from the bottom of the tube into the whisking cup, which you fill with water. It does a very good job at grinding—the powder is light, and I never noticed any unground chunks.

There's a line on the cup indicating how much water to fill it with. Matcha doesn’t require much water at all. You can always add more if you want it more diluted. You’ll typically want to use chilled water, as it creates more of matcha’s signature umami flavor than with hot water. There is no hose or water tank connected to this machine. Part of me wishes it contained a tank. At this price, it seems like there should be more technology incorporated, because the machine is essentially just a grinder with a spinning cup. The entire milling system feels like it’s made of cheap materials.

The spinner of the whisking cup starts spinning once the cup is placed in the center and the Start button is pressed. Throughout the cycle, the machine makes some rumbling noises. The whisking cup does not work as well as a bamboo whisk. I can primarily tell because there’s significantly less foam produced from the Cuzen Matcha than when I do it the traditional way. Depending on the type of leaves used, there can be a little bit of sediment remaining at the bottom, which I noticed even when I brewed it on low strength (which is 1 gram of matcha, as opposed to full strength, which is 2 grams). I had sediment from some ground leaves but not others. I was able to just scrape it into the other cup, but clearly the spinning is not as efficient as it could be.

There is also grind-only mode, where you remove the spinner and don’t put water inside the cup. This gives you just the matcha powder, which you can then whisk in your own bowl. You get this mode by pressing down the Strength button. I do appreciate that this mode exists, because you can whisk better by hand.

Sourcing Leaves

When it comes to the matcha itself, Cuzen Matcha sells its own packets of leaves. Cuzen claims other brands of leaves could get stuck in the grinder, but I’m sure that’s just a way for the company to get customers to buy its own brand. It offers six types of leaves that fall into two categories: organic and single origin. The organic packets, which are 20 grams each, are labeled Premium, Signature, and Latte Blend. You can buy the gift version of the machine that comes with these packets or buy them separately for $30.

Cuzen doesn’t use the terms “ceremonial” and “culinary” grade. It’s typically understood that ceremonial grade is the first harvest and culinary grade is the second harvest of tencha leaves. Cuzen’s Signature blend includes 50/50 first and second harvest, so my interpretation of this is that it includes half culinary grade. That may be why they aren’t labeled as such, because it may be perceived as lesser quality. My favorite of these is the Signature blend. I found it has the earthiest flavor.

Cuzen's single-origin leaves are where you can splurge. These are limited-time offerings, each from a different region in Japan, and cost $45 each, or $150 for a set of three. They come in canisters, but there are 20-gram packets inside the canisters. A note with each explains where in Japan the leaves come from. Of the few that I tried, my favorite is Kirishima Okumidori. It really brings out that umami flavor that I love from matcha. The iced matcha latte I made with these leaves, into which I also incorporated frothed oat milk and honey, was without a doubt the best I’ve ever made on my own. I credit that to the freshness of these great tea leaves and the good milling that they received from the machine.

Cuzen Matcha sells accessories such as cups, but the one accessory I’s really want is a tightly sealed container to keep the matcha leaves fresh, which the company doesn't sell. The packets have no way of sealing other than folding the top over—aka, not tightly sealed. The whole point of using the machine is for fresh matcha, and without a way of sealing the packets well, the matcha becomes less fresh.

The Cuzen Matcha Maker comes in black or white. The design is ultimately a little lazy. A straight-up cube with a hole cut out in the middle? And I wish the machine were a bit sturdier and engineered better. But it gets the job done well and will get more people to make matcha at home who otherwise wouldn’t bother.