Encha Tea Review (2026): Is It Worth It? Best & Worst Matcha Blends

Encha's Ceremonial Grade is stone-ground from the tenderest first-harvest leaves, and it shows: the powder is a vivid, almost neon jade — a reliable visual marker of quality matcha — and whisks into a smooth, low-bitterness cup with a natural sweetness and a clean umami finish. This is the grade meant to be drunk usucha-style, with nothing but hot water (around 175°F) and a bamboo whisk.

Against pricier ceremonial competitors, Encha holds its own on smoothness and color while undercutting them on price — the direct-from-farm sourcing is doing real work here. The 30g tin is the right size to start with; if you drink it daily, the 60g and 500g sizes bring the per-gram cost down further. For straight, whisked matcha, this is our top pick.

Encha's Latte Grade is still first-harvest organic matcha, but ground for a slightly stronger, more robust flavor that doesn't disappear when you add milk. That's the whole point: ceremonial grade's delicate sweetness gets lost under oat or whole milk, so paying ceremonial prices for lattes is a waste. Latte Grade fixes that at a lower cost per gram.

It's a single-ingredient powder — just matcha, no sugar, no fillers — so you control the sweetness. Whisk it with a splash of hot water first, then top with steamed milk. For most people building a daily matcha-latte habit, this is the one to buy.

Encha's Culinary Grade comes from second-harvest leaves, giving it a more grassy, assertive, slightly bitter profile. That's a feature, not a flaw, in the kitchen: a delicate ceremonial matcha would vanish in a smoothie or a tray of brownies, while culinary grade punches through milk, sugar, and flour so the matcha flavor and color actually show up.

Use it for matcha lattes where you don't mind more bite, green-tea baked goods, smoothies, ice cream, and frostings. It's the most affordable grade per gram, which makes sense — you don't want to bake with $1-a-cup ceremonial powder. Don't drink this one straight; the bitterness that helps it survive a recipe makes it harsh on its own.

This is Encha's unsweetened Latte Grade matcha, just measured into 30 individually sealed single-serve packets. Crucially, it's still a single-ingredient product — there's no sugar or filler added for the convenience, which sets it apart from most grab-and-go matcha sticks that are mostly sweetener.

Individual sealing also helps with one of matcha's real weaknesses: it oxidizes and fades fast once a tin is opened. Single-serve packets keep each portion fresh until you tear it. You'll pay a premium per gram versus the tin, but for travel, the office, or anyone who can't reliably finish a tin before it dulls, it's a fair trade. Toss a packet in your bag, add hot water and milk, done.

This blend pairs Encha's first-harvest matcha with hydrolyzed collagen peptides into a single unsweetened latte mix. It's marketed toward keto and protein-conscious drinkers who want to fold collagen into a habit they already have. To Encha's credit, it's unsweetened — the brand resisted the temptation to dump sugar into a "wellness" product.

A few honest caveats. Adding collagen means this is no longer single-origin ceremonial matcha — it's a functional blend, and the matcha flavor is muted by the peptides. Collagen is traditionally marketed for skin and joint support, but the evidence is mixed and we're not making any health claims here. If you already take collagen and drink matcha lattes, combining them is convenient. If you don't, buy the plain Latte Grade and skip this.

We want to be fair: the matcha inside Encha's Sweetened Latte Powder is still first-harvest, and "lightly sweetened" is more restrained than the candy-sweet competition. But this product works against the exact reason to buy Encha — clean, single-ingredient, organic matcha you control. Adding sugar takes that control away.

The math doesn't favor it either: you're paying a matcha price for a mix that's part sweetener, and you can't dial the sweetness back down once it's in the bag. Whisk the plain unsweetened Latte Grade with a teaspoon of honey, maple, or your sweetener of choice and you get a better, cheaper, fully customizable cup. This is the one Encha product we'd skip.