Wild Foods

Wild Foods offers ceremonial grade matcha powder that represents their commitment to quality and traditional Japanese tea cultivation. Their flagship matcha product is sourced from a century-old farm and produced using time-honored methods that preserve the authentic character of this revered green tea.

Premium Ceremonial Grade Matcha

The company’s Wild Matcha is classified as ceremonial grade, the highest quality designation for matcha powder. This certified organic matcha is produced without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, ensuring a clean and sustainable product that aligns with health-conscious consumer values.

The matcha undergoes traditional tencha (shade-grown tea leaf) production, where tea plants are covered for several weeks before harvest. This shading process increases chlorophyll and amino acid content, particularly glutamate molecules, which enhances the distinctive umami (savory) flavor profile that characterizes premium matcha.

Quality Standards and Sourcing

Wild Foods emphasizes that quality matcha requires tea plants at least 50 years old, with many of their source plants ranging from 75 to 100 years old. This age requirement reflects the importance of terroir and the accumulated wisdom of generations of tea farmers in developing superior flavor profiles.

The matcha is harvested during the first flush, known as ichibancha in Japanese, which yields the most premium leaves. This labor-intensive hand-picking process ensures that only the youngest, most tender leaves are selected, resulting in superior flavor and texture.

Traditional Processing Methods

Following harvest, the leaves undergo steaming to preserve freshness, then are sorted, de-stemmed, and de-veined to produce tencha. The final grinding process uses traditional granite stone wheels that rotate slowly to avoid burning the delicate leaves. This meticulous process takes approximately one hour to grind just 30 grams of finished matcha powder, highlighting the time and care required for authentic production.