Usucha vs koicha: the short answer
Usucha (thin tea) is 2 g of matcha whisked fast into 60 ml of water until frothy. Koicha (thick tea) is 4 g of matcha mixed slowly into 30 ml, with no foam. Both use water at 80 °C (176 °F), according to Ippodo’s brewing instructions. Koicha has twice the powder in half the water, so it’s four times as concentrated. More preparation styles are in our matcha brewing ratios hub.
Choose usucha if you want an everyday bowl, you’re using a mid-priced drinking matcha, or you like a light, foamy tea with some bitterness.
Choose koicha if you have a top-grade, smooth matcha, you want to taste it at full intensity, and you’re willing to use 4 g on a single small serving.
Most matcha recipes you’ll find online are some version of usucha, even when they don’t use the name. Koicha is the occasional treat and the highlight of a formal tea gathering, where one bowl is shared by up to five guests who drink in turn. Usucha, by contrast, is served as a separate bowl for each guest.
Usucha and koicha ratios side by side, and why koicha recipes disagree
Using Ippodo as the baseline, here’s the head-to-head:
| Attribute | Usucha | Koicha |
|---|---|---|
| Matcha | 2 g (1 level tsp) | 4 g (2 level tsp) |
| Water | 60 ml | 30 ml |
| Ratio by weight | 1:30 | 1:7.5 |
| Temperature | 80 °C / 176 °F | 80 °C / 176 °F |
| Motion | Whisked vigorously for 15 seconds | Mixed slowly for 15 seconds |
| Result | Thin with fine foam | Thick, glossy, no foam |
Usucha water amounts only vary a little between sources: Ippodo uses 60 ml for 2 g, while Sugimoto, Nio Teas and Nakamura Tokichi use 70–80 ml. Koicha is a different story. For the same 4 g of powder, published water amounts cover a more than threefold range:
| Source | Water | Water Temp | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugimoto | 15 ml | About 80 °C | — |
| Ippodo | 30 ml | 80 °C | — |
| Nakamura Tokichi | About 40 ml | — | Mixed slowly |
| Breakaway Matcha | “barely an ounce” | 160 to 165 °F | Added in stages |
| Just One Cookbook | 40 ml | About 85 °C | With 2 tsp (3 heaping scoops) of matcha |
| Nio Teas | 40 ml in one section of its koicha guide and 50 ml in another | — | — |
At 15 ml you get something close to a paste. At 50 ml you get a heavy usucha. Ippodo’s 30 ml sits in the middle, and it’s what we recommend for a first attempt. If you want the full ratio chart for every style, including lattes and bigger mugs, it lives on our matcha to water ratio page.
Texture and taste: frothy thin tea vs thick kneaded tea
Picture two bowls side by side (one caveat: in the formal tea ceremony, whether usucha carries foam depends on the school; the home version described here is foamy). The usucha has a pale green layer of fine foam on top and moves like any other tea when you tilt the bowl. The koicha is dark jade, shiny, and coats the side of the bowl as it slides.
That difference comes from the motion as much as the ratio. In the tea room the two even use different utensils: thick tea is kept in a ceramic chaire and thin tea in a lacquered natsume, and dry sweets (higashi) are served with thin tea, according to Five Colleges’ tea ceremony guide. Usucha is whisked fast to trap air. Koicha is kneaded: Just One Cookbook describes a slow motion with gentle 360-degree turns and says plainly that you’re “not making a frothy consistency.” Whisking koicha hard just makes bubbles in something too thick to hold them.
Taste follows texture. Usucha is lighter and brighter, and some bitterness is normal and even expected. Koicha concentrates everything, so a good one tastes sweeter and fuller, with deep umami. Just One Cookbook calls it sweeter and fuller-bodied than usucha.
The flip side: koicha also concentrates every flaw. A powder that tastes pleasantly grassy as usucha can turn harsh and astringent at four times the strength. That’s the main reason grade matters so much more for thick tea.
Which matcha grade you need for koicha
Koicha needs a smooth matcha with low bitterness. Sugimoto describes the right powder as “smooth, rich in umami, and low in astringency.” Sellers that make the distinction usually point you to their top blends for koicha, priced accordingly. Ippodo, for example, tags specific premium blends for thick tea.
Usucha is far more forgiving. Almost any matcha sold for drinking will make a decent bowl, and many mid-priced powders are designed for exactly that.
One warning before you spend money: “ceremonial grade” is a marketing term, not a regulated classification, in Japan or anywhere else. As Ikkyu Tea explains, any brand can put it on a label. So a tin marked “ceremonial” is no guarantee it will work as koicha. A seller that names specific blends for koicha, as Ippodo and Sugimoto do, tells you more than a grade label does. Our guide to ceremonial vs culinary matcha covers what to look for instead.
There’s a cost angle too. At 4 g per bowl, koicha uses twice the powder of usucha, from a pricier tin. A 30 g tin gives about 15 bowls of usucha or about 7 bowls of koicha; our cost per cup of matcha breakdown prices both.
Caffeine per bowl: usucha vs koicha
Because koicha uses twice the matcha, it carries roughly twice the caffeine. A 2020 review in Molecules puts matcha at 18.9 to 44.4 mg of caffeine per gram. Multiply by the dose:
- Usucha (2 g): about 38 to 89 mg
- Koicha (4 g): about 76 to 178 mg
The range is wide because products differ, and a single product label rarely tells you where it falls. For a sense of scale, USDA data puts an 8 oz cup of brewed coffee at about 95 mg, so a bowl of koicha can match or pass a cup of coffee in a 30 ml serving (matcha vs coffee caffeine, side by side). If you’re sensitive to caffeine, keep koicha to earlier in the day.
You can put in your own grams and grade with the matcha caffeine calculator, or read the full breakdown in how much caffeine is in matcha.
How to make koicha at home, and when to choose each
If you can already make usucha, koicha is a small step. Using Ippodo’s numbers (or the koicha ratio calculator for several guests):
- Sift 4 g of matcha into a warmed, dry bowl. Weigh it if you can; a heaped spoon can easily be off by a gram, and koicha shows it. Our teaspoon to grams guide explains why.
- Add about a third of the 30 ml of 80 °C water and work the powder into a smooth paste with slow strokes.
- Add the remaining water and keep kneading slowly, turning the bowl, for about 15 seconds. No fast whisking.
- Stop when it’s glossy and evenly thick with no dry lumps. Drink it right away.
Breakaway Matcha also adds koicha water in stages, starting with a few drops to form a paste, and it makes lumps much less likely. If you make koicha often, a sturdier whisk helps: Nio Teas suggests a 32-prong chasen for kneading, and Sugimoto sells a thick-pronged “chu-araho” whisk made from white bamboo for koicha.
So which should you make? Use usucha for your daily bowl and for any matcha you’d also put in a latte. Nio Teas even recommends a koicha-style paste as a latte base, because kneading the powder into a little hot water first reduces clumps; see our matcha latte ratio chart for milk amounts. Save koicha for your best tin, a slow morning, or when you want to know what a powder really tastes like. If a koicha comes out bitter, try a smoother matcha before blaming your technique, since bitterness in matcha often starts with the powder.