Matcha green tea has been around for about a thousand years. And if you haven’t tried it yet, it’s time. That might have you wondering: what is matcha, anyway? Is it different from plain old green tea? If so, is it better?
If you’ve ever wondered about any of those things, you’ve come to the right place. Since matcha is a key ingredient in Pep Rally, our new energy boost, I wanted to do a deep dive. Ready? Let’s go!
Matcha 101
First, let’s talk about the common confusion between green tea and matcha. To clear it up, let’s start with the basics. Matcha is a specific type of green tea. That means that all matcha is green tea, but not all green tea is matcha.
Because matcha is specially grown and processed, the nutrients in the tea leaves are more potent and you get more of that leaf in your drink. Basically, matcha’s a more effective vehicle for getting the goodness of green tea (think: caffeine and antioxidants) into your system.
What makes matcha so great
Let’s be clear here: all green tea is great for you. Matcha just gives you some of the benefits in a higher concentration. Here are a few of my favorite things about matcha:
It’s loaded with antioxidants
Matcha has more antioxidants than other forms of green tea. This basically means it gives your cells more resources to fight damage, helping your body stay healthy and prevent chronic conditions, cancer, and more.
It gives you a natural energy boost
Because matcha is more concentrated than green tea, it delivers more caffeine. For reference, an eight-ounce cup of normal green tea has about 28 mg of caffeine. That’s basically half of what black tea has and about a quarter of the caffeine content you’d find in an eight-ounce cup of coffee. Truthfully, I can drink a cup of green tea and not feel the energy boost at all unless I really pay attention.
Matcha is different, though. It can pack in twice as much caffeine as green tea or, depending on the preparation, even more. In Pep Rally, you’re getting 80 mg of caffeine per serving. But because you’re getting it from a natural source, you don’t have to worry about jitters or any of the other junk that can come with a lot of the caffeinated products on the market today.
In fact, matcha also contains an ingredient that can directly combat that edge that comes with other forms of caffeine: L-theanine.
It delivers L-theanine
Remember how I said that shading the green tea leaves during the end of the growing process made them create more amino acids? This is the amino acid we’re talking about. L-theanine is a pretty powerful tool that can help improve focus and productivity. Specifically, this amino acid can:
- Help you fight stress and keep your blood pressure stable even when you’re in stressful situations
- Improve your focus
- Support immune health
Read more