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Matcha, the once humble green tea from Japan, has gained a cult following worldwide. One of the key reasons why matcha has seen legions of people jumping on the trend is that it’s treated as a great alternative to coffee.
While there are still coffee fanatics who will balk at the idea of saying goodbye to their favorite beverage, matcha has proven that it’s not just a trend. When you make the switch, here are eight things that will happen:
- You will have more energy. Green tea is not the first thing that pops into mind when you think of drinking something to energize you. It’s usually coffee that does the trick. But matcha is a great alternative to your daily brew.
Matcha only has a third of caffeine that coffee has—only 30 milligrams in one cup compared to coffee’s 75 milligrams. But green teas have a phytonutrient known as L-theanine, which stores (and regulates) caffeine in your body for a longer period of time.
- You won’t get jittery. The thing with coffee is that it gives you a caffeine spike, or that sudden burst of energy that will make you feel shaky or jittery. The common misconception is that the more caffeine you take, the more awake you’ll feel. That isn’t necessarily true.
Caffeine is basically a drug, a form of upper like heroin that when taken too much, can raise adrenaline and induce a heart attack. While matcha has lower levels of caffeine, it significantly makes up for it in other ways.
- You will make a ritual out of it. There are now packaged versions of matcha available in the market, but if you’re gunning for the traditional method of preparing it, you will have to carve out time to do so. You can make this your “me” time.
In fact, in Japan, drinking matcha is a ritual where you whisk the tea with a bamboo stick for several minutes until it becomes frothy. This manner of preparing matcha is considered an external benefit as it induces relaxation and mental wellness.
- You will realize that you’re a slave to coffee. Early in the morning, you drink coffee. You take coffee breaks at the office. Sometimes, you even drink coffee as a nightcap for good measure. Once you switch to matcha, you will realize that much of your life is centered on coffee—that no other beverage is more important than a steaming cup of coffee.
- You will have a healthier mouth. Have you ever noticed your breath smelling bad after downing that cup of coffee? That is caused by the high sulfur content in coffee. When the sulfur interacts with large amounts of caffeine, it causes the mouth to dry, leading to a foul smelling breath.
Matcha, on the other hand ,has antioxidants in the form of polyphenols, which are abundant in green tea leaves. Polyphenols are known to combat halitosis or bad breath.
- You will have clearer skin. Coffee consumption has been known to have adverse effects on a person’s skin and can even cause acne breakouts. Matcha, on the other hand, has antibacterial properties that will help clear skin of any outbreaks and give it a radiant glow that is hard to achieve.
- You will be more environmentally conscious. Matcha doesn’t have the history of abuse and environmental unsustainability that coffee has. Coffee is commonly cultivated in poorer parts of the world that have lax regulatory and safety standards, like in Africa and South America. There have also been cases of intensive deforestation to make way for coffee fields.
While growing matcha isn’t without its downsides, it has a significantly lower impact on the environment. In Japan, they didn’t cut down trees for the cultivation of matcha, and the tea fields are used over and over again.
8. You will have a new beverage on rotation. You may or may not drink matcha on a daily basis, but it’s a new thing you can add to your rotation of beverages. Also, matcha isn’t the only kind of green tea out there. It’s just the most popular, so you might fancy trying out other varieties as well to further expose your palette to teas.
