About | Matcha and Beyond | Premium Matcha

How it all started

The founder, Olivia Nottin, is a nutritional therapist passionate about food. It was while she was helping her clients on their journey towards healthier eating habits, that she noticed their overconsumption of coffee and sugar-loaded lattes were particularly detrimental to their overall goal. Olivia recognised many couldn’t cut down on their habitual lattes and after discovering matcha, she felt it was the perfect alternative, with a very delicate taste, texture and many health benefits.

Olivia is matcha obsessed and having searched high and low across London, she realised there was a gap in the market. It was this which provided the inspiration behind Matcha and Beyond and her desire to bring it to a wider and more curious audience.

Between 2017 and 2018 she travelled to the US and Japan to gather some inspiration in order to source the perfect matcha and open a matcha café in London for 2 years which unfortunately closed permanently during the pandemic. She is still importing matcha from Japan and is now concentrating on the retail and wholesale opportunities to continue her mission to bring good matcha into people’s lives and that’s the MATCHA AND BEYOND story.

What is matcha?

Matcha is the result of stoneground tealeaves, which are unheated to preserve their nutrients and far less processed than regular green tealeaves. So, by drinking matcha you gain all of the benefits from this powerful “superfood”.

It is well entrenched in consumers’ minds that green tea features high level of antioxidants and is considered as a healthy hot beverage alternative. However, when one brews their usual green tea, most of the goodness is actually thrown away because water can only extract a fraction of its benefits. Most of the valuable antioxidants and minerals remain trapped in the tea leaves.

Matcha has a natural sweetness, slight vegetal or grassy overtones, creamy texture and a hint of astringency, although, it should never taste bitter – this is a sign of poor quality matcha. It should be consumed in the same way as coffee and goes well with dairy milk or non-dairy milk.

How we select our matcha

With a focus on quality, we hand-select each matcha grades. It takes extra-patient taste buds to find the finest matcha. Olivia has spent countless hours sipping through Japan’s most prized tea leaves before selecting the grades she chose for Matcha and Beyond. Each grade is a blend of different cultivar originating from the same farm, so each grade will have their own different profile and will be single origin made with 100% tea leaves.

Japanese Source / Origin

Matcha tea originated in China; however it was imported in Japan in 1191 where the harvesting process was perfected by the shading of the leaves before harvest. Ceremonial matcha comes almost exclusively from Japan where the process was refined to perfection.

Direct Trade

We work in directly with farmers who observe sustainable agricultural practices and are certified by the Rainforest Alliance. We have developed one on one relationships with a number of these farms and pride ourselves of these relationships.

Terroir

The environment influences the tea, therefore certain regions in Japan are dedicated to the agriculture of matcha tea. We chose to work with a tea farm in Kyushu Island as its proximity to the volcano Sakurijima offers a nutrient rich soil which gives its fine and delicate taste to the tea leaves.

Harvest

A month prior harvest, the entire tea fields are shaded from the sun. By shielding tea trees from direct sunlight, the young leaves will have low level of tannin (which prevents bitter taste) and a delicate taste rich in umami flavour. This process will also preserve the chlorophyll naturally present in the tea and give matcha its high antioxidant content. Once harvested, the freshly plucked tea leaves are steamed, deveined and air dried. The raw leaves are then stored away from heat and direct sunlight before being ground.

Freshness

Tea is extremely sensitive to heat, light, moisture, and air. Our matcha are ground to order at the farm, then packaged in oxygen free pouches or tins and air shipped to us in London. This process allows us to offer the freshest matcha possible.

Matcha and Beyond - Traditional Matcha Refill

Going greener than matcha

As part of our values, we work with farmers that are registered with the Rainforest Alliance and observe sustainable agricultural practices.

Matcha being a fragile tea, we are unable to pack matcha in compostable packaging. To preserve freshness, we pack the matcha powder in oxygen free aluminium tins. However, we are now offering refill pouches for the tins. We also aim to reduce our overall carbon footprint using compostable shipping packaging, recycled cardboard boxes and most of our labels are now recyclable or compostable and made with soy-based inks.