Perfect Ted Ceremonial Grade Matcha, 30g
Matcha is a habit rather than a purchase. A small pack only makes sense if it will be opened most days; bought on impulse it sits in a cupboard going dull, and with a green powder the dulling is visible long before anything else gives it away. Buy it if you already drink matcha, or if you intend to make it properly rather than as an occasional experiment. It is caffeinated, so it is not an evening drink and not a swap for a herbal one. Keep it sealed and out of the light and it stays close to the colour it arrived.
Perfect Ted Ceremonial Grade Matcha, in brief.
Perfect Ted Ceremonial Grade Matcha is loose green tea powder in a thirty gram pack, whisked into water rather than steeped in it, picked into the teas.co.uk curator selection as the plain unflavoured matcha for people who want to drink it from a bowl rather than build it into a latte.
Two rules matter most: water at about 80 degrees rather than boiling, and sift the powder first. Ceremonial grade is the brand's own term, not a regulated standard.
Curator notes: the scores are our own judgement of this pack in its present form, measured against the brand's published notes. Dispatch time for Perfect Ted's ceremonial matcha is generally 1 to 2 working days. Whisking, storage and the iced build are also in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Ceremonial grade is the brand's own description on the front of this pack. In the trade the term generally points at the youngest, softest leaf and the finest mill, intended for drinking on its own with nothing but water rather than for building into a sweetened latte. What we will say is that a matcha at this grade rewards being treated properly and punishes boiling water badly.
Curator notes: the taste profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We usually dispatch this line within 1 to 2 working days. Storage and serving notes are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Perfect Ted
It arrived as part of the wave of British matcha brands that grew out of the move away from energy drinks, selling matcha as a daily drink rather than as a ceremonial curiosity, and this pack is the plain end of that: no flavouring, no sweetener, nothing added to carry it.
Those taste scores are our own reading of the 30g pack as sold today, set against Perfect Ted's own description of it.
Packaging: Check the pack's recycling guidance and your council's rules before binning it; the parts may go different ways.
What You Are Actually Buying
- You drink the leaf: the powder stays suspended rather than being infused and discarded, which is where the body and the colour come from.
- Unflavoured: nothing is added, so it works as a plain bowl, as a latte base, and in cooking, which a sweetened matcha does not.
- What it is not: not a green tea in powdered form and not interchangeable with culinary matcha in a bowl. Culinary grade is built to survive sugar and milk; this is built to be drunk on its own.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: about 80°C. Never boiling. This matters more than anything else on this list.
- Sift: always. Matcha clumps in the pack whatever the grade, and a lump in the bowl is a lump in the mouth.
- Whisk: a bamboo chasen does it best, a small electric frother stands in well, and a fork will not do.
- Measure: follow the serving guidance on the pack rather than a number from the internet; different grades and mills are measured differently.
- Milk: works, and oat carries matcha better than almond because it does not thin the body.
- Storage: sealed, cold and dark. Matcha oxidises faster than any leaf tea and loses colour and sweetness within weeks of opening if it is left warm and bright.
- Best with: the morning, plain sweet biscuits, or dark chocolate.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Perfect Ted Ceremonial Grade Matcha, 30g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Perfect Ted
Packaging: Check the pack's recycling guidance and your council's rules before binning it; the parts may go different ways.
Our commitment to the planet
Sourcing and packaging details are printed on the current UK pack; the brand page carries the fuller story.
The taste profile
How does it compare
Two things ruin matcha and both are easy to avoid. The first is boiling water, which scalds the powder, strips the sweetness and leaves a flat bitterness that no amount of whisking will fix. The second is lumps, which come from tipping powder into a bowl of water rather than the other way round.
The Plain Bowl
The Iced Bowl
Made with this tea
The Plain Bowl
The simplest way to drink Perfect Ted's ceremonial powder: water, a whisk and a bowl.
- Matcha, measured as the pack directs
- 70ml water at about 80 degrees
- A bamboo whisk or a small electric frother
- A small tea strainer
- Sift the powder through the strainer into a wide bowl.
- Add two tablespoons of the water and whisk to a completely smooth paste before anything else goes in.
- Pour in the rest of the water and whisk briskly in a W shape, not a circle, until a fine even foam forms.
- Drink straight from the bowl, immediately.
What you'll end up with: A silky opaque bowl with a fine foam on top, savoury underneath and sweet behind that. If it tastes harsh, the water was too hot.
Iced Matcha
Perfect Ted matcha served cold, from the same smooth paste as the bowl.
- Matcha, measured as the pack directs
- 2 tablespoons water at about 80 degrees
- A glass filled properly with ice
- 150ml cold water
- Sift and paste the powder with the warm water until completely smooth.
- Pour the smooth paste directly over a glass packed with ice.
- Top with cold water and stir hard from the bottom.
- Drink within a few minutes, before it separates.
What you'll end up with: Lighter and cleaner than the hot bowl from identical powder, because cold suppresses the umami and lets the grassy sweetness lead.
Oat Matcha Latte
Ceremonial grade Perfect Ted, whisked and topped with oat milk for an everyday mug.
- Matcha, measured as the pack directs
- 60ml water at about 80 degrees
- 200ml oat milk, hot or cold
- Honey or maple, optional
- Sift, paste and whisk the matcha with the water as for a plain bowl.
- Heat or chill the oat milk, and froth it if you have the means.
- Pour the milk over the whisked matcha rather than the other way round, so the colour layers.
- Sweeten only if you want to; taste it first.
What you'll end up with: The everyday version. Oat carries matcha better than almond because it keeps the body rather than thinning it out.
Matcha Tonic
Perfect Ted matcha layered over tonic and ice, with lime to finish.
- Matcha, measured as the pack directs
- 2 tablespoons water at about 80 degrees
- A glass filled with ice
- 150ml chilled tonic water
- A wedge of lime
- Sift and paste the matcha until completely smooth, then cool it.
- Fill a tall glass with ice and add the chilled tonic first.
- Pour the cooled matcha in a thin stream over an upturned spoon so it forms its own green band.
- Squeeze the lime over the top and stir before drinking.
What you'll end up with: Bitter, sharp and thoroughly refreshing. The quinine in the tonic pushes against the astringency instead of hiding it, which is the point.
Green Morning Smoothie
A thick breakfast smoothie of Perfect Ted matcha, banana, spinach and oat milk.
- Matcha, measured as the pack directs
- 1 banana, frozen
- 200ml oat milk
- A handful of spinach
- 1 tablespoon nut butter
- Sift the matcha straight into the blender so it does not clump against the wall of the jug.
- Add the frozen banana, the oat milk, the spinach and the nut butter.
- Blend until completely smooth and drink straight away.
What you'll end up with: Thick, green and properly filling. The banana carries the matcha so no sweetener is needed, and the frozen fruit does the work ice would.
Matcha Salt
Perfect Ted matcha shaken with flaky sea salt, a good home for a dulling pack.
- 1 part matcha
- 4 parts flaky sea salt
- A small jar with a lid
- Sift the matcha into the jar.
- Add four parts flaky sea salt and shake until the colour is even.
- Use on chips, on grilled fish, on edamame or on the rim of a glass, and keep it sealed and dark like the powder itself.
What you'll end up with: A kitchen use for the last of a pack that has started to dull. The salt carries the savoury side of matcha better than anything sweet does.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Green tea leaf, milled | The whole pack | There is nothing else in it. Unflavoured matcha is a single-ingredient product, which is why it works as a plain bowl, a latte base and a baking ingredient alike. |
| Umami depth | Not separately stated | The savoury, broth-like base of the bowl. It is what separates a drinking matcha from a green powder and the first thing boiling water destroys. |
| Natural sweetness | Not separately stated | Sits behind the vegetal note and only appears when the water is well below the boil. Getting it into the bowl is the whole point of the 80 degree rule. |
| Suspended solids | The whole pack | The body, the colour and the reason the bowl separates if you let it stand. You are drinking the leaf, not an infusion of it. |
Ingredients and allergens. Milled green tea is the only published ingredient for this barcode, and the 14 major allergens are nowhere on it. Ingredients and allergy notes are Perfect Ted's to change; glance at an up to date UK pack first.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. Where the database and your pack disagree, the pack wins.
Pack: 30g of loose green tea powder from Perfect Ted, sold as ceremonial grade. The pack shows how much to use per bowl, plus the best before date.
Rows without a figure describe the milled leaf, which is the whole pack. Blanks in the table can all be answered from a current UK label, and from nowhere else.
Ceremonial grade is the brand's own description for this pack and we report it as theirs; it is a market term rather than a regulated standard. Our tasting notes on this page are an editorial view, formed from the current pack and Perfect Ted's own published description.
What's in Perfect Ted Ceremonial Grade Matcha, and what isn't:
- In: milled green tea leaf and nothing else. No flavouring, no sweetener and no bulking agent.
- No added sugar: the sweetness in a well-made bowl is the leaf's own, and it only shows up when the water is below the boil.
- Caffeine: matcha is green tea leaf and contains caffeine. Because you drink the leaf rather than an infusion, the amount depends on how much powder you use.
Asked about this tea
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Send a product question through the contact form; replies usually come within one working day.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Perfect Ted Ceremonial Grade Matcha, 30g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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