First thing's first, I don't really think there is a "Big Matcha" out there pulling the strings of the matcha industry. But if there were a "Big Matcha," I bet they wouldn't like what I'm going to write. 

Last week I sent out an email covering the basics of L-Theanine. In that email, I said I had more to say on this topic...here is that something more. We'll talk about L-Theanine's intriguing impact on matcha flavor, how the pursuit of that flavor has changed modern tea farming practices, and some fun experiments I've been doing with pure L-Theanine powder. 

Understanding the Role of L-Theanine in Matcha Flavor

This is re-hashing some of what I wrote last week, but it's worth repeating. L-Theanine is an amino acid found in tea that not only provides benefits for relaxation, but contributes a great deal to the savory flavors found in shaded tea like matcha. Shading tea leaves preserves a high content of L-Theanine in the leaves, producing a tea that conforms to the ideal that people expect of high-quality matcha: umami-laden with minimal bitterness. 

Now, I have nothing against umami as a flavor, but the state of the matcha industry is such that the pursuit of umami has become something of an obsession. When you go to shop for matcha, you run into vendors who sell 50 different kinds but describe them all more-or-less the same way. "This one's savory and rich, with low astringency," and "that one's very umami-driven, with little bitterness." Sometimes you see mention of "notes of seaweed and milk chocolate" if the person writing the descriptions is feeling particularly adventurous. 

This is all fine, but what if I have a matcha that smells like a bouquet of roses? Does no one really care? I think it's pretty cool but apparently that's not the norm. 

How does this impact farming? 

I've already mentioned that shading the tea leaves is done with the intention of enhancing the savory notes in tea. But this can only preserve the amino acids already present in the leaves, keeping them from degrading. Given the industry's obsession with umami, it would really be wonderful if farmers could add additional amino acids to their leaves in order to produce the most savory tea possible. 

Well, they can! Farmers can increase the amino acid content of tea leaves through adding Nitrogen to the soil. To some extent, this is nothing new. People have been using compost to do exactly this for centuries (perhaps millennia?) . What is new is cheap synthetic fertilizer that far surpasses the Nitrogen levels that could be contributed naturally. For the most part, this is now the norm in Japanese tea farming, so much so that the term "organic" has become associated with lower-quality (less umami-laden) tea. There are matcha drinkers out there who will deliberately avoid organic matcha because they've learned that only these wildly savory, conventionally-grown teas are worthwhile. 

It would be fine if there were no downstream effects of this turn to synthetic fertilizer. As things are, however, heavy fertilizer usage almost always goes hand-in-hand with heavy pesticide usage, as the sweeter tasting tea leaves taste better to insects as well as humans. Furthermore, chemical fertilizer has been found to rob soil of its biodiversity, rendering farmland less productive over time, while undermining the health of the tea plants themselves (which are regularly replanted to sustain high levels of production)

Experimenting with L-Theanine powder: Why this is all so ridiculous. 

As luck would have it, you can buy large quantities of L-Theanine powder on Amazon very cheaply. I wanted to find out just how much this single compound actually contributed to the flavor of matcha, so I ordered some. On its own, it is indeed quite savory. It tastes like a weaker sort of MSG. The real question was what would happen when I mixed it into matcha? 

Of course I have no shortage of high quality matcha around. I used the most bitter cultivar we had on hand (admittedly not all that bitter as far as matcha goes) and prepped a bowl. Three scoops of matcha, one scoop of L-Theanine powder. It tasted exactly like a "competition-grade," conventionally-grown matcha! The umami was off the charts, and the bitterness was virtually non-existent. I started laughing because the similarity was that uncanny - I really urge you to try it out if you're curious. It would seem that L-Theanine really is responsible for matcha's savoriness, and instead of dumping chemical fertilizer in the soil and pesticides on the leaves, we could just be adding L-Theanine to matcha after the fact if we really want that particular flavor. 

Do with that information what you will! For me it just underscores what I've been thinking for a while now: why are we so fixated on umami to the exclusion of complexity, especially when umami can be achieved so easily? Maybe because umami is shelf-stable and floral and fruity notes are less so? Maybe there is a "Big Matcha" out there, and they don't want us to know this "one simple hack." If you're feeling rebellious, though, it's worth a try! 

In the meantime, you can rest assured that our matcha is always grown in accordance with our values. It is all farmed without chemical fertilizers, without pesticides, and with a deep appreciation for the diversity of flavors that is possible in tea!

Thanks for reading and happy sipping,

Simon