We know that Matcha is a popular flavor for desserts and drinks. In a gelato or restaurant business, a best-selling gelato with a high investment return is not that hard to achieve. You don’t have to find expensive and rare food items to be included in your food products. A unique and luxurious matcha gelato will inspire food lovers to return and recommend you via word of mouth.
Using Culinary Matcha and its Advantage Over Other Green Teas
Using culinary Matcha and not ceremonial or ordinary Matcha is the best way to start with selling matcha gelato. It gives a grassy-, bitter-, and astringent-tasting matcha best for cooking, and is good to mix with recipes and delicious desserts. Yes, I said bitter and astringent; but it tastes terrific and, when mixed, the food will still have an incredible green color. You can promote your food lineup as healthier desserts than those at other restaurants or cafés. Furthermore, culinary Matcha integrates well with other ingredients, unlike ceremonial organic Matcha which might become invisible or less green in color when mixed with other foods. It also has a sweet flavor and buttery or creamy consistency.
Why Use This Matcha Grade for Gelato?
In the US and Canada, sellers will just say Matcha or organic matcha powder. There are different types of Matcha and we will discuss what is suitable for making gelato. The primary grades are ceremonial and culinary matcha.
Ceremonial-grade matcha is the highest-quality premium matcha available. It is made from young matcha tea leaves with the veins and stems already removed. It has a delicate taste and fine texture. It has a bitterness but with a sting of natural sweetness so it is suitable to be whisked and added to milk as a matcha latte, but it is best served plain to appreciate the sweet taste. Therefore, you can just offer it as a stand-alone drink aside from matcha gelato.
Culinary-grade matcha does not mean cheaper or lower quality than ceremonial grade. The difference to culinary is that it is less sweet, more bitter, and astringent, making it an exact matcha to mix with sweet dessert recipes. It is not ideal to make this a plain matcha drink. When mixed, it makes the food tastier and sought-looking without making the final food product become less green.
Good culinary-grade matcha has a thick consistency, making it a great addition when creamed with lattes and chocolate drinks.
Grades of Culinary Matcha and What is the Best for Gelato
The culinary matcha sub-grades are premium, café, ingredient, kitchen, and classic.
Premium grade is more of a light green color and can just be added to or stirred in smoothies and lattes. It is one of the most affordable kinds of Matcha. It is easy to make the drinks at home; that is why it is not that profitable to have this kind of Matcha unless mixed with premium ingredients.
Café grade has a more intense and bitter flavor that works well with baking and cooking. This is the grade that is often used in cafés.
Ingredient grade is thicker than Café and Premium and is perfect for baking. Don’t forget to whisk it, primarily when used in cooking, since it does not dissolve easily and is a bit thick and lumpy.
Kitchen grade is thick, but bitter; the advantage of using this is to mix with large batches of ingredients or when making large batches of matcha-flavored desserts. The disadvantage is it will produce a lower quality food, necessitating selling these for a lower price and profit.
Classic grade has an astringent and strong flavor yet a creamy consistency. It is used in several recipes and has a fine texture and bright green color. It can be integrated and mixed easily with drinks without losing much of its creaminess. This grade of culinary matcha is the most favored to be used in food items because many customers love the flavor and the bit of creaminess.
When choosing the best Matcha for Gelato, depending on your desired ingredients, budget, and outcome, the best would be Café, Ingredient, or Classic.
Get Matcha on Your Menu
Try adding Matcha not only to your Gelato or ice cream lineup but also frappes and cakes. Café and tea lovers will surely love Matcha. It would be a wasted opportunity to just add ordinary Matcha to your food: Be unique and make them come back for more. You can increase the price, and customers will still buy it because of the look and taste.
Matcha will elevate your business since diners will be curious how this dessert could be so good. You can even showcase the ceremonial matcha accessories if you are also offering plain hot matcha tea. Ambiance is a factor in how customers will perceive the effort of making and serving their food. They will appreciate that you have a premium-quality tea with good service, not just a store-bought ordinary matcha powder. Premium matcha will nicely complement their non-matcha desserts and drinks.
I hope this post will motivate you to learn about Matcha and visit expos to both learn more and find suppliers.
Photo “ななや 世界で一番濃い抹茶ジェラート” is copyright under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License to the photographer Kanesue and is being posted unaltered (source)
Photo “Matcha & chocolate muffins” is copyright under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License to the photographer Megumi and is being posted unaltered (source)
More Matcha Recipes on T Ching
Matcha Soft Serve by Kei Nishida
