Learning to Judge Matcha Quality like a Tea Professional - March 29th 2025 (Ooika Labs)
How does the Japanese tea industry determine the quality (and price) of Matcha? How is Match judged for competition? In this interactive class, we’ll examine and judge Matcha just like how it’s done in Japanese tea competitions.
Date: Sunday, March 29th, 2025.
Time: 2PM to 3:30PM.
Location: Ooika, 300 Witherspoon St, Princeton, NJ 08542
Free Gift: Your class includes a complimentary Tencha examination kit which you’ll be able to keep and bring home with you. (MSRP Value of $50 — included free in your RSVP ticket!)
How does the Japanese tea industry determine the quality (and price) of Matcha? How is Match judged for competition? In this interactive class, we’ll examine and judge Matcha just like how it’s done in Japanese tea competitions.
Date: Sunday, March 29th, 2025.
Time: 2PM to 3:30PM.
Location: Ooika, 300 Witherspoon St, Princeton, NJ 08542
Free Gift: Your class includes a complimentary Tencha examination kit which you’ll be able to keep and bring home with you. (MSRP Value of $50 — included free in your RSVP ticket!)
How does the Japanese tea industry determine the quality (and price) of Matcha? How is Match judged for competition? In this interactive class, we’ll examine and judge Matcha just like how it’s done in Japanese tea competitions.
Date: Sunday, March 29th, 2025.
Time: 2PM to 3:30PM.
Location: Ooika, 300 Witherspoon St, Princeton, NJ 08542
Free Gift: Your class includes a complimentary Tencha examination kit which you’ll be able to keep and bring home with you. (MSRP Value of $50 — included free in your RSVP ticket!)
Learning to Judge Matcha Quality like a Tea Professional
How is Matcha actually judged at auction, or in tea competitions in Japan? Join Ooika’s founder Marc for an in depth course on Tencha (unground Matcha.) You’ll gain both the tools and knowledge set to accurate judge the quality (and therefore price) of unground Matcha, known as Tencha. We’ll follow the same judging procedures that are used in the Japanese tea industry - and gain a deeper understanding of Matcha itself throughout. To our knowledge, a class on professional Tencha examination has yet to be taught in English.
What’s Covered
Learn the categories of judgement to examine unground Matcha (known as tencha.)
Understand what is desireable, and what may be considered a flaw, in Matcha.
Gain a tea professional level of understanding of Matcha quality, which can be used to understand if the Matcha you’re buying is worth it’s price.
Uncover the cultural factors that go into Matcha production, and pricing.
Most importantly, gain the confidence to know if you’re drinking actually good Matcha.
About Ooika Labs (覆い香の研究会)
Ooika's mission is to preserve heritage Matcha across Japan. For something to be worth preserving, you must first understand and appreciate it. Matcha is often marketed as exotic and mysterious, which can feel overly romantic and pretentious for beginners. Ooika labs’ (覆い香の研究会) approach for Matcha knowledge is contemporary approachable, through hands-on classes, entertaining videos, and clear, engaging content.
There’s a Japanese proverb, “a frog in a well knows nothing of the great sea.” We’ve all heard of Matcha: it’s a bowl of ground tea from Japan.
Yet, is that all it is? Intuitively we know that there must be more. After-all: Ancient monks drank it. Emperors revered it. Today an entire way of life known as Chado (Japanese Tea ceremony) centers around this green powder.
Matcha: An Introduction will unravel the master of Matcha, giving you the tools and knowledge to think like a Matcha connoisseur.
