Cold Brew Matcha: Ratio, Method & What Cold Water Changes

Cold brew matcha ratio: the quick answer

For cold brew matcha, shake 2 g of matcha (1 level teaspoon) with 240 ml (8 fl oz) of cold water in a sealed jar for about 30 seconds, then pour it over ice. That works out to a powder-to-water ratio of about 1:120. Nio Teas uses almost exactly that dose (2 g per 235 ml). Breakaway Matcha goes lighter, with 1.5 g for an 8 to 12 oz serving. Hot methods and ratios live in our matcha brewing ratios hub.

Those doses differ by close to 2×, which is why cold brew recipes taste so different from one another. Here they are side by side:

Note that Ippodo’s version isn’t cold brew at all. It’s a regular hot-whisked bowl chilled with ice, so it’s much stronger per sip. The other three skip heat entirely and drink more like a light iced tea.

If you measure with spoons instead of a scale, our matcha teaspoon to grams guide explains why 1 level teaspoon is about 2 g and how a heaped spoon throws that off.

How to make cold brew matcha: the shaken jar method

This takes under a minute. You need a jar with a tight lid (a mason jar or shaker bottle), a small sieve and cold water.

• Step 1, measure: 2 g of matcha per 240 ml of water. Weigh it on a 0.1 g scale if you have one.
• Step 2, sift into the jar: cold water breaks up clumps far worse than hot water, so this step matters more here than for a hot bowl. Nio Teas sifts first for the same reason.
• Step 3, add cold water and seal: filtered or tap water straight from the fridge. Leave at least a third of the jar empty so the liquid has room to slam around.
• Step 4, shake hard: Breakaway says about 10 seconds; Nio says at least 30. Go by sight. Stop when there are no specks on the glass and a thin foam has formed.
• Step 5, pour over ice and drink: the powder doesn’t dissolve, it hangs in suspension, and it settles to the bottom if the glass sits. Give it a swirl before the last few sips.

What goes wrong? A leaky lid is the classic one; jars with a rubber gasket hold up better than thin plastic shaker caps. Gritty green sludge at the bottom usually means you skipped the sieve. No jar at all? A handheld milk frother in a tall glass does a decent job in 15–20 seconds.

Shaken vs infused cold brew matcha

There’s a second method that’s closer to true cold brew. Nio Teas describes it: put the matcha in a tea strainer over a glass, pour the water through it, dip it a few times so all the powder is wet, and steep for about an hour (overnight for a bolder flavor). Then lift the strainer out.

The difference matters. With the shaken method you drink every particle of leaf. With the infused method, some of the powder stays in the strainer, so you’re drinking an extract, much like cold-brewed loose-leaf tea. You also lose track of the dose, since you can’t know how much powder made it through the mesh.

Our take: shake for everyday drinking. It’s faster, the dose is known, and the texture is better. Try the infused version only if you want the softest possible cup and don’t mind not knowing the caffeine figure.

What cold water changes: caffeine, EGCG and theanine extraction

The research on cold-brewed green tea is clear about extraction. In a 2018 review in the Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly, Manami Monobe writes that cold-water brewed sencha has much less bitterness and astringency than hot-water brewed sencha, because EGCG and caffeine are difficult to extract in cold water. EGC and theanine, by contrast, are easily extracted in cold water.

Here’s the part most cold brew matcha posts miss. Monobe was describing steeped sencha, where the leaves go in the bin and you drink only the water. Matcha isn’t steeped. It’s ground leaf suspended in water, and you swallow the leaf. Whatever caffeine didn’t dissolve is still in the particles you’re drinking.

So shaken cold brew matcha does not lower your total caffeine intake. A 2 g serving carries the same caffeine hot or cold. Using the published range of 18.9–44.4 mg of caffeine per gram of matcha from a 2020 review in Molecules, that’s roughly 38–89 mg per 2 g glass. The matcha caffeine calculator estimates it for your dose and grade, and our guide to how much caffeine is in matcha explains why the range is so wide.

What cold water does change is taste. Less EGCG and caffeine dissolve into the liquid in the moment you’re tasting it, which is the likely reason cold matcha tastes softer and sweeter than a bowl made with boiling water. We couldn’t find a study measuring whether cold suspension changes how quickly your body absorbs caffeine from matcha particles, so don’t treat cold brew as a gentler option for caffeine.

The infused method is the exception. Because you strain off some powder, you likely do consume less caffeine. How much less isn’t published for matcha.

Cold brew matcha batch table: glass, liter and pitcher

At the 1:120 starting ratio (2 g per 240 ml), scale like this:

For a lighter, Breakaway-style batch (about 1:237), cut the powder roughly in half: 4.2 g per liter.

Watch the caffeine in a big batch. A 2-quart pitcher at 16 g holds about 300–710 mg of caffeine in total (16 × 18.9 to 16 × 44.4). Split across eight glasses that’s fine, but it adds up fast if one person works through the pitcher in an afternoon. The FDA cites 400 mg a day as an amount not generally linked to negative effects for most healthy adults; pregnant people and anyone sensitive to caffeine should ask their doctor.

Shake large batches in rounds of a liter or less, in a jar no more than two-thirds full. For scaling servings with the hot-whisk method instead, use the matcha batch calculator. Drink shaken matcha the same day; the color and aroma are best fresh, and the powder needs re-shaking every time it settles.

Iced matcha lattes, sweeteners and grade for cold drinks

Iced lattes. Shaking matcha straight into cold milk works, but it clumps more readily than in water. Ippodo’s iced latte takes the other route: whisk about 3 g of matcha into 100 ml of 80 °C water, then pour it over 100 ml of cold milk and ice. Our matcha latte ratio guide covers cup sizes, and the iced matcha latte calculator scales it.

Sweeteners. Granulated sugar barely dissolves in cold water. Use simple syrup or honey thinned with a splash of warm water, and add it to the jar before shaking.

Grade. Because cold water keeps the bitter fraction in check, cold brew is forgiving of mid-priced powder. A vivid first-harvest matcha still tastes better, but the gap is narrower than in a hot bowl. Our ceremonial vs culinary matcha comparison explains what the labels do and don’t guarantee.

If you prefer a hot bowl to cool down instead, our matcha water temperature guide shows how to hit 80 °C before you add ice.