Matcha has properly earned its spot as one of the UK's favourite café orders, and honestly, we get it. That bright green colour, the gentle grassy flavour, the little energy lift without the jittery crash of a double espresso. It's basically sunshine in a glass.
The only tricky bit is making it at home without ending up with a layer of green sludge at the bottom of your cup. So here's our foolproof method for a smooth, bright, never-clumpy iced matcha latte, ready in under five minutes.
What you'll need
- 1 to 2 teaspoons of good quality culinary-grade matcha powder
- 2 to 3 tablespoons of hot water (not boiling)
- Milk of your choice, dairy or plant-based both work brilliantly
- Ice cubes
- A dash of honey or syrup, if you like things a little sweeter
How to make it
- Sift your matcha into a small bowl or mug. This one step is the real secret to avoiding clumps, since matcha loves to cling together in little lumps if you skip it.
- Add your hot water. It should be hot, not boiling, ideally around 80°C. Boiling water can scorch matcha and make it taste bitter rather than fresh and grassy.
- Whisk briskly in a zig-zag motion until you've got a smooth, frothy paste with no lumps in sight. A bamboo whisk is traditional and does a lovely job, but a small milk frother or even a fork works perfectly well too.
- Fill a glass with ice, pour over your milk, then add your matcha paste on top.
- Give it a good stir, add sweetener if you fancy it, and that's it. Smooth, bright and ready to sip.
Getting it smooth every time
A few little things make all the difference. Always sift the matcha first, always use hot rather than boiling water for your paste, and always whisk before adding the milk rather than trying to stir everything together at once. Do those three things and you'll never end up with clumps floating about.
It's also worth spending a little more on decent matcha if you can. Cheaper, lower-grade powders tend to be more bitter and clump more stubbornly, while good quality matcha whisks up smoothly and tastes naturally sweet and grassy rather than sharp.
Fancy letting someone else make it for you?
If all this whisking sounds like more effort than a lazy summer afternoon calls for, we've got you covered. Down at our coffee shop we're properly obsessed with matcha, the good and proper stuff, whisked up fresh and served the way it should be. We also pour Allpress coffee for anyone who's more of a flat white person, so there's something for everyone in your group.
Our team's current favourites are the blueberry matcha, served over ice with a gorgeous blueberry syrup swirled through, and the banana matcha, which is creamy, naturally sweet and disappears far too quickly on a warm day. Honestly, we can't pick between them, so our advice is to try both.
Come and say hello, grab a seat in the sun if we're lucky enough to get some, and let us do the whisking for a change.
