Introducing Soma Matcha

July 07, 2026

Dear Somatribe,

Our dream at Soma Cacao is to provide you with everything you need for your daily cup. Like a giant octopus, we constantly have many limbs extended, groping for ways to improve your Soma mug. In addition to our cacaos, superfoods, Mini Mixer and blenders, plus the ceramic mugs we source from our friends at Lore Pottery, we dream of one day stocking fair-trade spices, sweeteners, and healthy plant milks. As our tentacles discover ways to improve your daily ritual, the three brains in Soma HQ (Rose, Alistair, Snowbell) start looking for ways to stock them in the Soma store.

We’re aware that not every Soma cup will be filled with Soma Cacao. We have no plans to sell coffee, since a lot of other people do that already, and we don’t drink coffee anyway. But we do drink matcha, and quite often we find ourselves ordering it in cafes once we have exhausted our customary questions about their cacao (“Do you use powder or paste?” “What is the varietal?” “Can I see the packet?” “Can I see your manager?” etc).

The inspiration for selling Soma Matcha came when we were on a sourcing trip in Indonesia, and went to a cafe in Bali that didn’t sell cacao, but was known for its high-quality matcha. We ordered it, sat down at a little table, took a sip, and both went “wow.”

We realised then that the difference between proper Japanese matcha and the matcha they sell in Australian cafes is the same difference between the cacao we knew from Mexico and the cacao available at home when we started Soma five years ago. Real matcha is fresh, crisp, sweet, and joyously uplifting, without any cloying mouthfeel or grassy aftertaste. Actually, what we know as matcha in Australia mostly isn’t even technically matcha, but just some form of powdered green tea.

Real matcha is produced using an age-old and very particular process: specially selected breeds of tea plant (‘cultivars’) grown in rich soils in a handful of traditional matcha-making areas of Japan are covered with shade cloths for the last 3-4 weeks of winter, inducing the plants to produce more chlorophyll (which gives real matcha a deep emerald-green colour, not the pasty pale green of lower-quality matcha powders), preventing the degradation of L-Theanine by sun exposure, and protecting certain aroma compounds from breaking down. The tenderest leaves are picked in the first flush of spring (generally one or two from each stem), immediately steamed to stop oxidation, preserve antioxidants and enzymes, and lock in flavour, then gently cooled, dried, sorted, aged, then stone-ground at very low heat to make matcha powder.

A proper matcha is a fine, bright-green powder with a sweet, complex flavour, buttery texture and umami mouthfeel, very little bitterness, and a clean, crisp finish. After a lot of shopping about with Japanese tea-makers, we have found a matcha powder which we love and know we can stock consistently at Soma.

Our Soma Matcha comes from tea trees that grow at the foot of Sakurajima, Japan’s most active volcano, in the Kagoshima Prefecture on Kyushu Island. It includes tea from three carefully-collected cultivars: Yabukita, the most traditional cultivar in Japanese matcha; Saemidori, which provides a kick of natural sweetness and gives our matcha its electric green colour; and Okumidori, which you will taste in the buttery mouthfeel and crisp finish. The tea plants are shaded for at least three weeks at the end of winter, and the leaves are steamed at 100C for 20 seconds within a few hours of picking. Our Soma Matcha comes exclusively from the first harvest, and is certified organic by the Japanese Agricultural Society.

Soma Matcha is rich in antioxidants. Because you don’t steep matcha, but consume the whole leaf in powder form, it contains more catechins than any other type of tea. Catechins are a type of polyphenol that protect cells from oxidative damage, reduce inflammation, lower bad cholesterol, improve heart health, and reduce blood sugar spikes after meals. Like the polyphenols in cacao, catechins pass through the small intestine intact, and feed good bacteria in the colon. They are a boon for gut health, too.

Because of the way it is shaded before picking, matcha retains more L-Theanine than other types of tea. L-Theanine is a natural amino acid found only in tea leaves, which is absorbed in the gut and influences several neurotransmitter systems, including GABA, which makes us feel calm, glutamate, which helps us concentrate and learn, dopamine, related to motivation and reward, and serotonin, related to mood. Studies indicate consuming L-Theanine increases alpha brainwave activity, which induces a feeling of relaxed alertness similar to the feeling of meditation. For this reason, drinking matcha helps with sleep and stress regulation. It’s also why matcha, which contains about one-third the caffeine of a cup of coffee (slightly less than a cup of black tea, and a bit more than Soma Cacao), doesn’t give jitters. The interaction of caffeine and L-Theanine creates a pleasant sense of calm aliveness, with no hyperactive heart or prickly skin.

We are cacao lovers, and will always be cacao lovers, and as yet matcha has never replaced our morning cacao on the balcony. But when noon strikes, we’re bored from bookkeeping, and we want to rest with a warm cup of something delicious, it can be nice to have options. That’s why we’ve decided to sell Soma Matcha. We’ve been drinking ours at least three days a week, enjoying learning the ins and outs of making a cup of matcha - the whisking, the froth, the ceremony. We hope you trust us enough to know we have sourced the very best matcha we could find, and we hope that you’ll join us for our little jaunt through the world of ceremonial-grade matcha, our bright green something on the side, our traditional Japanese afternoon delight.

As part of our Soma Matcha range, we’re also launching a hojicha tea. Hojicha is matcha’s cousin - it is harvested from the same plants at the foot of Sakurajima, but then roasted, making it naturally low in caffeine and giving it a toasty, nutty, caramelly taste. It’s perfect for a warm cup at a chilly sunset - we’ll give you a full description in our newsletter next week.

Until then,

With tiger nut milk and a little vanilla (but try our matcha and hojicha on their own first),

Rose, Alistair, and the team at Soma Cacao