Onyx Coffee Lab Uji Matcha Powder

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YOU'RE WELCOME:

FREE shipping for orders over $40

TRENDING COFFEE:

Peru La Margarita Gesha Rwanda Kanzu Natural El Salvador Santa Rosa The Duet Cold Brew

ONYX IS MY PAL

FREE shipping for orders over $40

TEA:

New Teas offerings have launched now in eco sachets. We've taken weighing to the tenth of a gram out of your hands so that each cup is perfect. We suggest trying Onyx Tealight which has organic oats and honey along with black tea and cinnamon to create a complex sweetness and silky mouthfeel tea experience.

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Twitter is the K-cup of Coffee....

Uji Matcha

This exceptional matcha powder comes from a small women-led farm in Wazuka village, Uji region. Uji is highly renowned for their excellence in matcha production, and this matcha is the culmination of two fantastic cultivars. It balances the nutty sweetness in the late budding Okumidori with the umami flavor from Yabukita. Enjoy this very approachable, smooth matcha with enlivening notes of almond, mild citrus, and lingering sweetness.



Variety:
Wazuka (Uji), Kyoto, Japan
Process:
Shaded 21 days, Processed to tencha, Stone milled
Cup:
Almond, Pomelo, White Sugar, Brisk Freshness, Abundant Umami
bag
Variety:
Wazuka (Uji), Kyoto, Japan
Process:
Shaded 21 days, Processed to tencha, Stone milled
Caffeine:
mg
Cup:
Almond, Pomelo, White Sugar, Brisk Freshness, Abundant Umami

Story

Hori Tea Farm, Wazuka Village
Not only is this farm women-led, but their leadership has spanned at least three generations of great matcha producers. Shade-growing boosts the chlorophyll production in the tea leaves, giving them a rich green color. It is a labor-intensive process to protect the tea bushes from the sun in a very controlled manner. Only the newest spring buds and three leaves of the shade grown tea plants are harvested. The leaves are briefly steamed within hours of plucking to halt the oxidation process and preserve the vivid green color. The steaming process also creates a uniquely sweet and vegetal flavor profile. After further intensive processing, tencha, the finished dried leaves, are then stone ground into fine powder at a rate of 40 grams per hour. Hori matcha is used by the Urasenke tea school.

Matcha Powder
All matcha is made from high-grade, shade-grown green tea leaves that are ultimately ground into powdered form. The resulting tea powder is traditionally whisked into hot water, instead of steeped, to form a frothy drink. Because the window for production is quite limited and production so labor-intensive, matcha tends to be a more expensive tea. The act of preparing, presenting, and sipping matcha is part of a traditional Japanese tea ceremony called "chanoyu." Generally speaking, matcha created for the purpose of this traditional tea ceremony is the distinction for “ceremonial grade”, versus matcha used in culinary practices. There is no official governing body at this time that regulates this term.

Matcha Recipe
Step 1. Dose 2g of matcha into sifter
Step 2. Use scoop to press matcha through sifter until all the matcha has been sifted.
Step 3. Add 40g of water (170°F)
Step 4. Whisk until foamy. Use “M” or “W” motions when whisking for optimal incorporation
Step 5. Add 60g of water (170°F) - 100g total water
Step 6. Serve and enjoy
Equipment needed: Kettle, Bowl, Sifter, Whisk, Scoop, Scale
Tip: When using a wooden whisk, soak it in warm water for 2 minutes before each use to preserve it’s form and shape.

Matcha Latte (Shot) - Recipe to make concentration for Matcha Lattes
Step 1. Dose 2.5g of matcha into sifter
Step 2. Use scoop to press matcha through sifter until all the matcha has been sifted into the bowl.
Step 3. Add 50g of water (170°F)
Step 4. Whisk until foamy. Use “M” or “W” motions when whisking for optimal incorporation.
Step 5. Transfer into cup (add sweetener if desired) and top with 10oz of steamed milk
Step 6. Serve and enjoy.

Farm Cost

The price here reflects not only the labor of growing and cultivating the tea, but also the respective farm’s years of skilled handling, quality of regional cultivars, and often times processing work that may include milling, drying, steaming, oxidation process, and more. We partner with friends like Hugo Tea Company to identify quality teas, where within we seek to uphold transparency and quality. Due to the varying weights of each type of tea, at this time, we are listing the rough cost for each tea tin. This tea was purchased at $217 per kilogram.

$23.00

Transportation

This number represents the cost incurred while the tea was moved from the producing country to Onyx Coffee Lab in Arkansas. The price listed below is the cost we incurred per kilogram of tea via designated express micro-lot shipping by air transport. It varies for each tea based on the overall volume and density of the shipment.

$3.00

Production Cost

The following list includes many of the costs associated with producing this tea. We have always maintained transparency as a principle but have often lumped these things under the label of “production costs” in the past without going into detail.

There is an inherent difference in handling tea versus coffee, where most teas are fully processed at a processing facility in the region or at the tea farm itself. There is intensely skilled labor that comes with the drying, oxidation, rolling, steaming and packing processes. Tea is also physically very delicate, and extra care is taken in handling each dried leaf or bud to maintain the structural integrity of tea.

While the following list isn’t exhaustive, hopefully, it gives you a picture of the work, expense, and investment involved in executing tea at the level that we do. At this time we are listing our cost of production for each pound of tea at around $3.40. There are obviously many other aspects of running a business such as breakage, mistakes, new equipment and maintenance, but this works as an arbitrary cost associated with making one box of tea.

Fixed Costs
These are costs associated with simply having a business. Things like utilities of internet, natural gas, phones, rent, business licenses, fees, etc. These things increase every year. For example, most commercial leases increase by 2% every year. We periodically look at these costs and try to reduce expenses, but work in this area are small moves of the needle as these are mostly the same and usually increase every year.

Packaging
This is all the things that go into packaging the tea to get it safely to your home. There’s the biodegradable bag, the recyclable box, the compostable mailer, different boxes for bulk shipping, the paper that pads the tea, tape, and a few odds and ends. (Read about our new retail packaging HERE). These costs are separate from the tea, but a part of the cost of producing tea that is packed well and ready to ship and consume. We want our teas to arrive in a secure fashion, looking like it did when it left Onyx: with style and design but also keeping the environment in mind. Shipping packages inevitably have waste associated and we’re working towards sustainability at each step.

Labor
At Onyx, we work to make jobs both sustainable and celebrated, and we pay salaries, provide health insurance, and give regular raises to our staff. Often we have a handful of staff that get celebrated, but everyone on our team contributes and is valuable. Likewise, we wish to pay our tea partner, Hugo Tea Co, for all their skilled labor in tea handling (from hand massaging oils to create phenomenal Earl Grey or the careful packaging of each tea box). Onyx is not just a brand or a design or a café, we are truly made by every person we work with.

We all know it takes work to make anything. Hugo’s sourcing approach echoes our own, which has more labor involved than you may think. Because we visit every Relationship Coffee producer, that means our green buying team of Jon and Dakota typically spend a total of six months traveling. We’re committed to visiting and cupping on the ground, this inevitably is an investment of time, of money, of long layovers, of encountering government coupes and protests, and forging some of the greatest friendships and seeing some of the most beautiful landscapes imaginable. We appreciate that in working with the Hugo Tea team, Tyler and Logan, put equal dedication into sourcing these teas.

We have a creative team that helps create all things visible, digital, and print. These folks are very talented and have really helped push the dream of Onyx to the next level. We believe that tea can inherently be great, but having something that looks and feels good helps inform expectations, helps bring value, and tells the stories in this way has tangible and important value.

These are a few of the jobs we feel really have more involvement than might be imagined, but throughout Onyx there are touch points of intentionally positioned team members to help create the best possible beverage experiences.

Taxes
We all know what this is. We set aside and submit money every quarter for taxes along with paying all of the weekly and monthly taxes we are obligated to pay. This can be tough for a small business as there are ebbs and flows in cash flow, and taxes are often not paid in conjunction with the sales season.

$3.40

Fair Trade Min.

$0.00

C Market

$0.00

Cup Score

Lot Size

Lot size informs us of one thing: the size of that lot. Forming a single farm lot can often take just as much labor and experience as the large regional blends, depending on the level of labor or quality standards applied to each day or week’s pickings.

A great example of this would be matcha powder, which is often a carefully constructed sum of processed green teas that are often grown in different sections of a farm to create a balanced and intentional matcha experience. It may be built up on many different farms. This often signifies that the lot was built to reflect the flavor characteristics or unique cultivars of the region. Meanwhile, a larger lot size of a Yunnan black tea may end up being used in a variety of different teas, based on the final processing and any additional treatments before packaging.

100kg

Transparency Grade

Transparency

We as a company believe that transparency is unbelievably important. The point of listing things below is not to justify what we charge or what we profit, but to give a realistic snapshot of the industry and how Specialty Coffee can be different than other commodity industries.

$32.40
$23.00
$3.00
$3.40
$0.00
$0.00
100kg

Transparency

We as a company believe that transparency is unbelievably important. The point of listing things below is not to justify what we charge or what we profit, but to give a realistic snapshot of the industry and how Specialty Coffee can be different than other commodity industries.

$23.00
$3.00
$3.40
$32.40
100kg
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