Recipe
A matcha latte is a bowl of usucha with milk added, and almost every problem people have with it comes from treating it as one step instead of two. Whisk the matcha in water first, then add the milk. Do that and the drink stops being lumpy, stops being bitter, and stops needing three spoons of sugar to be drinkable.
The short answer. Whisk 2g of sifted matcha with 40ml of water at 75°C until smooth and foamy. Warm 150 to 180ml of milk to about 60°C and froth it. Pour the milk over the matcha. Sweeten last, if at all.
Matcha does not dissolve, it disperses, and milk is a far worse dispersing medium than water. Milk proteins and fats coat the particles almost immediately, which is exactly what you do not want while you are still trying to break clumps apart. Whisk in a small amount of water first, get a smooth glossy base, and only then introduce the milk. Every cafe that makes a good matcha latte does it in this order.
2g of matcha to 40ml of water to 150 to 180ml of milk is a reliable starting point. If the matcha disappears behind the milk, do not add more powder first, reduce the milk. A 300ml latte needs closer to 3g, which is why large cafe sizes so often taste of nothing but sweetened dairy.
Heat the milk to about 60°C, and no higher than 65°C. Past that, lactose stops reading as sweet and starts reading as cooked, and you lose the reason you added milk in the first place. If you have no thermometer, the outside of the jug should be hot but still comfortable to hold for a couple of seconds.
Cold blunts both sweetness and aroma, so an iced matcha latte needs a slightly heavier hand: 2 to 2.5g of matcha, whisked in 40ml of warm water, then poured over ice and topped with cold milk. Whisking in warm water even for an iced drink is what stops the grittiness. There is more on this, including a cold-shake method and an overnight cold brew, on the iced matcha page.
Sweeten after tasting, never before. A good matcha needs very little, and the amount you need is a decent proxy for the quality of the tin. Liquid sweeteners disperse properly in a cold drink where granulated sugar just sinks, so use honey, maple, or a simple syrup for anything iced. If you find you need three spoons to make it drinkable, the problem is upstream of the sugar.
This is a milk drink, so it is the wrong place for your most expensive ceremonial tin. Milk flattens exactly the delicate top notes you paid for. A premium culinary or a mid-tier ceremonial grade is the right call, and it is a much cheaper habit. The India brand rankings list price per gram, which is the only honest way to compare, and the first-tin guide explains the floor below which a tin is probably not what it says.
A hot matcha latte made the correct way round: matcha whisked into water first, then frothed milk poured over. Roughly 220ml.
Ingredients
Method
FAQ
2g for a 220ml latte, and closer to 3g for a 300ml one. If the matcha tastes lost behind the milk, reduce the milk before you increase the powder, because more powder in the same volume mostly adds bitterness rather than flavour.
You added milk too early. Milk proteins and fat coat the particles before they have separated, so the clumps never break. Whisk the matcha in a small amount of hot water first, get a smooth base, then add the milk.
Oat milk is the best all-rounder, since it froths into a stable microfoam and its mild sweetness complements matcha rather than competing with it. Whole dairy gives the richest foam. Avoid rice milk, which is too thin to hold foam, and treat almond as an iced-only option.
A premium culinary grade or a mid-tier ceremonial grade. Milk flattens the delicate top notes that make an expensive ceremonial tin worth the money, so save that for a plain bowl and spend less on your daily latte powder.
Yes, but whisk the matcha into a little warm water first, then pour it over ice and top with cold milk. Whisking directly into cold milk is the single most common cause of a gritty iced latte.
It depends on the dose, not the milk. A 2g serving carries roughly 38 to 88mg of caffeine depending on the powder, with most everyday matcha landing in the middle of that band. The per-gram measurements are set out on our matcha caffeine page.
Health claims about matcha are graded by evidence strength on our benefits page, and anything we have got wrong and fixed is logged on our corrections page. We do not sell matcha and we do not sell rank order, which is explained in our editorial policy.