The preparation of matcha starts several weeks before harvest, when the tea bushes are covered to prevent direct sunlight. This slows down growth, turns the leaves a darker shade of green and causes the production of amino acids that make the resulting tea sweeter. After being picked, fresh tea leaves are processed the same day. These tea leaves go through six steps: steaming, drying, sorting, drinding with a stone mill. After harvesting, if the leaves are rolled out before drying as usual, the result will be gyokuro (jewel dew) tea. However, if the leaves are laid out flat to dry, they will crumble somewhat and become known as tencha. Tencha can then be de-veined, de-stemmed, and stone ground to the fine, bright green, talc-like powder known as matcha. It takes one hour to grind 40g (1.41 oz) of top-quality Matcha with a stone mill. The result is a finely-textured powder.

Matcha is a type of powdered green tea grown in the shade like gyokuro and which is traditionally used in the Japanese tea ceremony. These days, it is not uncommon to see it used in untraditional ways such as in matcha lattes and other green tea recipes. It is highly valued for it's rich supply of antioxidants and green tea benefits. Traditionally, structures of bamboo covered with rice straw are erected over the tea plants, blocking off 90 percent of the light for 3 weeks. Once harvested, the leaves that will eventually become matcha are steamed in the normal way green tea are, however they are not rolled but instead dried the then put into a wind tunnel type of machine which breaks the inner parts of the leaf away from the veins, resulting in a product known as tencha.