What does ceremonial grade matcha actually mean?

Nobody. There is no regulator, grading body or certification behind the phrase, in Japan or anywhere else. Any brand can print it on any matcha. In Japan, matcha is judged instead by its cultivar, origin, harvest and taste, and tea schools such as Urasenke and Omotesenke have their own preferred teas.

That does not make the idea useless. It is a fair shorthand for "made to be drunk on its own, not baked into a muffin". It just means the words on the tin prove nothing. The tea has to.

• Harvest: first harvest, young spring leaves, not second or later harvests.
• Growing: shade-grown for weeks before picking.
• Origin: a named region, ideally a named producer, not just "Japan".
• Colour: vivid, bright green, not dull, olive or yellowish.
• Texture: very fine and silky, not gritty.
• Taste with water: savoury umami and natural sweetness, with little bitterness.
• Freshness: recently milled, with a date you can see.

The simplest test is to whisk it with water only. A matcha that needs milk and sugar to be pleasant was never really ceremonial grade, whatever the label says.

The first harvest of the year, in spring, gives the youngest and most tender leaves. Combined with shading, it produces the most L-theanine, the amino acid behind matcha's savoury sweetness, and the least bitterness. Later harvests grow in more sun and taste sharper, which is why they usually go into culinary matcha. We compare the grades side by side in ceremonial vs culinary vs supermarket matcha.

Uji, in Kyoto Prefecture, is where matcha as we know it was developed, and its tea houses have been refining shading, picking and milling for centuries. Origin on its own is not a guarantee, but a matcha that names its region and producer has something to stand behind. More in why the best matcha comes from Uji.

Because it is the hardest to fix. Matcha starts to oxidise the moment it is milled: the colour dulls, the sweetness drops and bitterness takes over in the following weeks. A great first harvest matcha that sat in a warehouse for a year will taste worse than a good one milled last month, and few labels tell you when the tea was milled. More in why matcha fades.

We use the term because people search for it, so here is exactly what we mean by it. Our matcha comes from a tea house with nearly two centuries of expertise in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture. It is first harvest, shade-grown and hand-picked, steamed, dried and milled. First harvest, milled in Uji each month, packed in London the week it's sold.

If you drink matcha with water, yes: the difference in sweetness and bitterness is obvious from the first bowl. If you only ever bake with it, no: culinary matcha is made for that. For lattes, it depends on how much you want the tea to taste of tea through the milk. A bolder ceremonial matcha like Shōgun is the middle ground.