Matcha, coffee and green tea: which is healthiest? with Prof. Tim Spector and Chef Andrew Kojima

Summary

ZOE Science & Nutrition Podcast Summary Episode: "Matcha, Coffee and Green Tea: Which Is Healthiest?" with Prof. Tim Spector and Chef Andrew Kojima
Release Date: April 10, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, host Jonathan Wolff delves into the ongoing debate between coffee and matcha, exploring their respective health benefits, nutritional profiles, and cultural significance. Joined by Professor Tim Spector, a leading epidemiologist, and Chef Andrew Kojima, a MasterChef finalist and Japanese cuisine expert, the discussion offers a comprehensive analysis to help listeners make informed choices about their daily beverages.

Rapid Fire Q&A

The episode kicks off with a rapid-fire segment where rapid answers set the stage for deeper discussions:

• Is caffeine the only benefit of drinking coffee or matcha?
  Professor Tim Spector [00:50]: "No."

• Do matcha and coffee share the same health benefits?
  Professor Tim Spector [01:56]: "Similar."

• Could Matcha help prevent certain cancers?
  Professor Tim Spector [02:02]: "Possibly."

• Could Matcha help to curb a sweet tooth?
  Andrew Kojima [02:11]: "No, not on its own."

• What's the most common misconception about Matcha?
  Andrew Kojima [02:20]: "It's that it's a completely different type of tea."

What is Matcha?

Chef Andrew Kojima elaborates on the uniqueness of matcha:

Andrew Kojima [04:07]: "It's a type of green tea made from the same plant as black tea, but instead of infusing the leaves, you consume the entire leaf ground into a fine powder."

Historical Context and Production

The production of matcha is a meticulous process refined over 900 years, primarily in Japan:

Andrew Kojima [04:38]: "It's grown in shade, which increases chlorophyll content, making the leaves greener and richer in nutrients."

Unlike most teas grown in full sunlight, matcha's shading process enhances its nutritional profile and flavor.

Health Benefits Compared to Coffee

Professor Spector provides a comparative analysis of matcha and coffee:

Professor Tim Spector [16:01]: "Matcha likely has more fiber than coffee, with over 50% of the matcha powder being fiber. It also contains healthy fats and proteins."

Key health benefits discussed include:

• Fiber Content:
  Professor Spector [17:06]: "Coffee provides about 1.5 grams of fiber per cup, whereas matcha can offer over 10 grams per tablespoon."

• Caffeine and L-Theanine:
  Andrew Kojima [14:32]: "Matcha contains L-Theanine which works with caffeine to provide stimulation without the jitteriness often associated with coffee."

• Polyphenols and Antioxidants:
  Professor Spector [19:23]: "Matcha has similar polyphenol levels to coffee, offering robust antioxidant properties."

Caffeine and L-Theanine

The synergistic effect of caffeine and L-Theanine in matcha is highlighted:

Professor Tim Spector [16:05]: "L-Theanine appears to maintain sleep quality, mitigating the overstimulatory effects of caffeine found in coffee."

This combination allows for sustained energy and improved cognitive function without the common downsides of high caffeine intake.

Nutritional Differences

Beyond fiber and caffeine, matcha offers additional nutritional benefits:

Professor Spector [17:03]: "Matcha contains omega-3 fatty acids, linoleic acids, and 17% protein, contributing to brain health and overall nutrition."

Matcha's Impact on the Gut Microbiome

While coffee has been extensively studied for its effects on gut health, matcha's impact is still emerging:

Professor Spector [21:24]: "Matcha shows potential benefits like reduced stress and cognitive improvements, but more large-scale studies are needed."

Practical Preparation of Matcha

Chef Kojima demonstrates the traditional preparation of matcha, emphasizing mindfulness and quality:

Andrew Kojima [28:32]: "We use ceremonial grade matcha, a bamboo whisk called cha sen, and a precise measure of matcha powder to create a smooth, frothy drink."

Notable preparation steps:

1. Whisking: Ensures a lump-free, frothy consistency.
2. Water Temperature: Ideally around 70°C to preserve flavor and nutrients.
3. Serving Size: Typically one gram per serving, measured with a cha shaku (teaspoon).

Culinary Applications of Matcha

Beyond drinking, matcha can be incorporated into various dishes:

Andrew Kojima [42:05]: "Matcha can be added to avocado toast, used as a seasoning with salt, or blended into desserts like granola and matcha cream."

Creative uses include:

• Breakfast: Sprinkling matcha on avocado or incorporating it into scrambled eggs.
• Desserts: Enhancing granola bars or creating matcha-infused creams and mascarpone.

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Professor Spector offers his concluding assessment:

Professor Tim Spector [23:18]: "While current evidence leans towards coffee having more established health benefits, matcha is a great alternative, especially for those seeking a balanced energy boost."

Key recommendations:

• Combine Both: Integrating matcha into one’s diet alongside coffee can offer a balanced intake of stimulants and nutrients.
• Quality Matters: Opt for high-quality ceremonial grade matcha to maximize health benefits and flavor.
• Moderation: Be cautious of commercial matcha products laden with sugar, which can negate health benefits.

Practical Advice for New Users

For listeners interested in incorporating matcha into their routines:

• Start Slowly: Begin by adding small amounts of matcha to dishes like avocado or rice to acclimate to its flavor.
• Choose Quality: Invest in higher-grade matcha for drinking purposes to enjoy a smoother, less bitter taste.
• Experiment with Preparations: Try traditional whisking with hot water or blend matcha with plant-based milks for a creamy latte alternative.

Andrew Kojima [47:08]: "If you're using matcha for culinary purposes, a less expensive grade is acceptable, but for drinking, higher quality ensures better flavor and reduced bitterness."

Conclusion

This episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition provides a thorough exploration of matcha as a potent healthful beverage, juxtaposed with the well-loved coffee. Through scientific insights and culinary expertise, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of how matcha can be a valuable addition to a healthy lifestyle, offering unique benefits that complement traditional coffee consumption.

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Note: All quotes are attributed with corresponding timestamps for reference.

Transcript

[Jonathan Wolff]

Welcome to Zoe Science and Nutrition where.

[Tim Spector]

World leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. There's a battle brewing at your local cafe.

[Jonathan Wolff]

On one side, coffee, the undisputed caffeine champion. And on the other, Matcha, an ancient underdog surging in popularity. This modern day David versus Goliath battle raises the Is Matcha healthier than coffee? While both drinks contain nutrients that help with cognition, metabolism and inflammation, only one packs double the fiber. In today's episode, our guests will reveal Matcha's health benefits and show you two incredible ways to enjoy it. Andrew Kojima, better known as Chef koji, is a MasterChef finalist, a Michelin reviewed chef, and his book no Sushi is an expert guide to Japanese cuisine. He's joined by Professor Tim Spector, one of the world's top 100 most cited scientists, a professor of epidemiology at King's College London and my scientific co founder at Zoe. Whether you're a coffee lover curious about Matcha or a Matcha enthusiast looking to deepen your knowledge, you'll leave today's episode knowing exactly what's in your cup.

[Tim Spector]

Koj, thank you so much for joining me today.

[Andrew Kojima]

Hey, pleasure to be here, Tim.

[Tim Spector]

Welcome along.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Great to be here.

[Jonathan Wolff]

So, Codge, we like to kick off.

[Tim Spector]

Our show here at Zoe with a rapid fire Q and A with questions from our listeners. Are you up for that?

[Andrew Kojima]

Sure.

[Tim Spector]

Tim, you ready?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Absolutely.

[Jonathan Wolff]

All right, starting with you, Tim, is caffeine the only benefit of drinking coffee or matcha?

[Professor Tim Spector]

No.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Do matcha and coffee share the same health benefits?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Similar.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Could Matcha help prevent certain cancers?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Possibly.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Kodge, could Matcha help to curb a sweet tooth?

[Andrew Kojima]

No, not on its own.

[Tim Spector]

And finally, and you know you can have a. Give us a whole sentence.

[Jonathan Wolff]

What's the most common misconception about Matcha?

[Andrew Kojima]

It's that it's a completely different type of tea. There's mint teas and all sorts of teas. It's actually for the same tea that many British people drink, you know, black tea.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Well, look, Matcha is having a moment.

[Tim Spector]

And so I think it's perfect timing to get into this. And as the head of a science.

[Jonathan Wolff]

And nutrition company, I'm getting more and.

[Tim Spector]

More questions about it, like what is it? Is it a superfood? And the biggest question I get all the time is, is it healthy? Is it healthier than coffee? I have absolutely answers to any of these questions, but luckily I have some world experts here with me, hopefully to give me the answers. And at the end of this episode.

[Jonathan Wolff]

We'Re actually going to demonstrate how to.

[Tim Spector]

Make a proper matcha with a world expert in how to do that.

[Jonathan Wolff]

So if you've got any matcha at.

[Tim Spector]

Home and you're listening to this, grab it now. So you'll be ready to join us in a little while.

[Jonathan Wolff]

But before we get there, Koch, I'd.

[Tim Spector]

Like to just start at the beginning. And you touched on this a bit in your quick fire questions.

[Jonathan Wolff]

What is matcha and where does it come from?

[Andrew Kojima]

Okay, so first of all, it's a type of green tea. And all green teas are made from the same plant that any other teas that we might be familiar with, black teas that we drink, typically with milk. And it's a special type of green tea because rather than taking the leaves and infusing those into water, you pick the leaves, specially when you first grow them. And when I say pick, you mean you pick the youngest ones as well. And not just physically pick, and then you ground those into a very fine powder. Takes a long, long time, the whole preparation, which is why it's quite expensive. And you suspend those particles in water rather than infusing other nutrients out of the tea leaves, and you drink that or eat it.

[Jonathan Wolff]

So you just drink the whole leaf.

[Tim Spector]

Rather than like dipping it in and taking it out again.

[Andrew Kojima]

Exactly. Imagine when I make a coffee plunger, you drink that and you get the bits at the end and it's a bit unpleasant in your mouth. Okay. That's because the particles are not very fine. But if you imagine that they were really, really fine, you would just drink that and not notice. That's what drinking match is like.

[Tim Spector]

Amazing. And so tell me, is there some magic process by which you decide which tea leaves? Or I could wander up to a tea plant, pick a few, cut it into little pieces, and like, hey, presto, I have matcha.

[Andrew Kojima]

No. Because it's taken at least 900 years to work out where to grow the leaves, how to pick them, when to pick them, what to do to them before you pick them. And so one of the main things that matcha has over other types of green tea is that it's grown in shade. And they realized this by accident initially, because it was naturally in the shade of other trees, but they noticed that the leaves had more chlorophyll, so they were greener, and so they look and they taste different.

[Tim Spector]

So it's very particular sorts of tea leaves that are picked. And are tea leaves normally not grown in the shade?

[Andrew Kojima]

No, most tea would be grown in full sunlight. And, you know, tea has Moved from China to Japan to Sri Lanka to India to Kenya now as well. And they all share similar characteristics of where they're growing, typically higher up on hills, full sunshine. But what the Japanese did when they realized the tea leaves that were growing in the shade of other trees naturally were fighting for more sunlight, and so they push more chlorophyll into the leaves, and that's what makes them greener. So now what they do is they actually shade them. So traditionally, they would shade them with, you know, bamboo.

[Jonathan Wolff]

And so how is that different from.

[Tim Spector]

The preparation of a green tea or a black tea? People who know me know that I'm a bit addicted to my black tea. What is different here?

[Andrew Kojima]

Okay, so I'll start with black tea for a start. The difference with black tea is that you would collect the tea, you wouldn't be quite so picky on which leaves you choose, and you'd let them ferment and oxidize. As you know from watching leaves, if you just let them die, they'll go brown. And that's why black tea is actually black tea. But Chinese people call it red tea because often when you infuse it, it's more red, red, brown. So that's the main difference. The green tea, you're trying to make sure it doesn't oxidize, make sure it doesn't ferment. And that's the big difference between green and black tea. And then I think the first thing you asked was, what's the difference between green tea and matcha? Well, matcha, you're making sure that you get the particles. And with green tea, you'd infuse it as you would with any other normal tea, what I call normal tea, or tea that we're more used to.

[Tim Spector]

So in a green tea, I dip it in the hot water, I let it sit there for a few minutes, I take it out. So then all I've got is just the water with some stuff that sort of come out of the green tea. Whereas in matcha, I've literally got the entire leaf smashed in very small pieces.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yes. And I think for me, that means that when it goes into your body, if you just put it into water, you're kind of relying on what's water soluble to then put into your body. But by putting the whole thing in, you're opening up more options in terms of what your body can ingest, process and extract nutrients from.

[Professor Tim Spector]

So it's a super concentrated green tea.

[Andrew Kojima]

Correct. Most teas, you would let them dry and you'd crush them, or Roll them. And actually, if you roll them, one of the good things about that is with green tea, you'll see that they almost like little sticks, but they unfurl so they've been rolled. And I think the reason for that is it delays or prevents any oxidation. Whereas other teas, you would leave them to dry out, open, and then you'd crush them and they would, you know, break into little particles. And that's what you've got in tea bags.

[Jonathan Wolff]

And I understand there's another critical part.

[Tim Spector]

Of the process in making matcha that differs from other teas.

[Andrew Kojima]

You steam it first and you don't do that with other types of tea, because if you steam it, two things will happen. One is it won't be able to oxidize a bit. Like, you know, when chefs say, oh, I'm going to blanch my broccoli and it's going to stay green. If you take green beans, let's say homage to, they've got a sort of dull matte color. If you put them into water, hot water, the cells on the surface break and the colour changes and it goes more vibrant and green. Now, if you then continue to cook those for too long, they would lose their brightness again. And, you know, you might remember from school dinners, you know, green beans that are, you know, a mushy pulp.

[Tim Spector]

I definitely remember. This is what happens when I cook the broccoli as well.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah, exactly. They've had all the life and nutrients cooked out of them, and you would be better drinking the broccoli tea.

[Tim Spector]

So explain coming back to the matcha, just to summarize there for the. What has to be done to make this magic work?

[Andrew Kojima]

So you steam them first, and that locks in the colour, locks in the flavour, and then you dry them and then you grind them. And it's no good sticking them in a blender. That's not the traditional way. The traditional way, typically, the artisans will grind them by hand on a granite mill, basically. And, you know, if you've ever watched flour being made, it's the same. You're taking a grain, but in this case a leaf, and you're just rubbing it between two millstones. Effectively. I think it takes an hour to make 30 to 40 grams of a matcha. And that's typically how much I buy in a go. I don't buy more than that because that's probably, you know, if you're drinking every day, a month or two supply, but, you know, it takes an hour for an art science. That's why it's expensive. I've been drinking matcha green tea for 25 years.

[Justine]

Let me tell you a quick story. So Wednesday last week, I went for dinner with my wife, Justine. Now, this would have been a source of anxiety for me in the past, and that's because some foods would leave me feeling really tired and sick for hours afterwards. And as a result, I actually followed quite a restrictive diet. Then I did Zoe and discovered that I'm prone to blood sugar spikes. From my Zoe digital coach, I learned that this doesn't mean I have to restrict what I eat. I just have to be smarter about my food choices. So back to last week at the restaurant. We were eating Italian, which before Zoe would have left me feeling terrible. But my Zoe coach helped me make choices that consider my blood sugar. I started the meal with a delicious Italian salad and then enjoyed some pasta afterwards, drenched in olive oil, of course. And after dinner, I felt great, energized by my food and by the fact that now I don't have to limit the foods I eat and choose between a healthy and a happy life. Whether I'm eating out or cooking. My Zoe digital coach helps me make smarter choices every day. Honestly, it's transformed how I feel. And according to the scientists who continue to develop the digital coach, making these choices now could give me many more healthy years. Why not join more than 100,000 other people giving Zoe membership a shot and tell me what you think to take the first step towards the possibility of more energy, less hunger, and more healthy years, Take our quiz. To help identify changes to your food choices that you could make right now, Simply go to Zoe.com podcast. Whereas a podcast listener, you can also get 10% off.

[Tim Spector]

And does it come from Japan? I mean, have people been drinking it for more than 25 years?

[Andrew Kojima]

Oh, yeah, yeah, way more. I mean, 900 years. It was Buddhist monks brought it over and planted these tea fields and found that the matcha tea was a very good way of not only stimulating themselves, but also keeping themselves calm. And that was good for meditation because I. I don't know about you, but I've been to yoga classes where I've fallen asleep in the last. In the last page. I've even forgotten what it's called. Now I'm feeling very relaxed and I'd like to be medit, but I'm very sleepy as well. Now, the Buddhist monks, when they wanted to meditate, they wanted to be quiet, calm, but they also wanted to be stimulated and mentally alert.

[Tim Spector]

This is in Japan 900 years ago.

[Professor Tim Spector]

But fast forward, I mean, I Went there to Tokyo a few years ago and everything's green. So everything's Matcha. You go to a convenience store, the KitKats are all matcha flavored Matcha Kit Kats. You go to McDonald's, you could have a Matcha version of your burgers and everything was green. So it's a marketing sensation over there. Everything is given a healthy gloss. This trend, I think, is coming this way and I think we are going to see a bit of a Matcha revolution.

[Tim Spector]

I think it feels like here in the West, Tim, coffee is the default choice now for energy. Why is that?

[Professor Tim Spector]

I think it's because the health perception of it as an unhealthy drink is, is fading. People are realizing that it doesn't cause heart attacks, it's not mind altering or, you know, it doesn't cause cancer. All these things we were Talked told about 10, 20 years ago are not true. And actually coffee is now known to be, you know, have a major reductive preventive effect on heart disease. So I think all these things considered and the availability of coffee shops everywhere that have overtaken tea rooms, I think is contributed to this. And the fact also that you can get decaf coffee, which is very drinkable now, whereas before it was sort of undrinkable. So even if you've got a problem with, with caffeine, you can still enjoy coffee. So I think that's why it's been so successful.

[Tim Spector]

I think one of the reasons that a lot of people listening think they drink coffee is like they wake up and they really need this energy boost and they think about coffee as this sort of source of that. Is the experience with Matcha different?

[Andrew Kojima]

Yes, because it's got something else in it apart from caffeine. It's got L Theanine and caffeine and L theanine work in tandem to slightly delay the caffeine release. So you still feel stimulated, but you also have this sort of sense of calmness. And when I drink it, I just feel more able to, you know, when we're being overstimulated by screens and various different ways of people contacting you, messages, emails, whatever. I feel much more able to sort of pick them off one by one. And I drink coffee and tea and Matcha. I see coffee as two things. One is, yeah, you know, I have the sort of Sunday morning waking up thing. I also see coffee as a social thing as, you know, it's become that over 25 years matcha. I'd like it to be more of a social thing, but for me, it's a very personal thing. I take time out of my day to drink my Matcha. I also drink coffee when I'm doing sports. I find that's quite good. When I'm trying to focus, if I'm trying to sit and write something, I find coffee. I can feel a bit distracted by things. My mind's buzzing a bit too much. I don't find that with Matcha. So that's how I differentiate when I drink coffee with Matcha.

[Tim Spector]

Makes me think of my son who just started drinking coffee recently because my father introduced him to it on a trip, took him to Italy and was like, well, you have to drink coffee now. And he came back and he was just sort of wired each time he had one in the morning, because, of course, he wasn't used to it, as I think so many of us have sort of got inured. And it made me write that was quite a real drug. Like, you know, it was like really affecting him and he decided actually he was going to cut it out for now because it was sort of felt like it was. It was too much. And I think that's really interesting, the way you describe against Matcha. Tim, are you able to explain at all what.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah, we're talking about the caffeine amounts in these different products. So you've got your green teas, which have low levels of caffeine in them, sort of 20 to 50 milligrams, then you've got the Matcha, which is the concentrated form, which has about double that, 60 to 90 milligrams on average. And then coffee goes to 100 to 130 milligrams, so it's a sort of gradient, so you're getting relatively less in there. And black tea would be, you know, somewhere between Matcha and green tea. So you've got a range of these caffeines, but we've been hearing about this other chemical, this L threonine, which does seem to counteract some of the overstimulatory effects of the caffeine on the mind. And that's why we're going to get on to some of the studies. But, you know, it doesn't seem to affect your sleep as much as coffee.

[Tim Spector]

So there's another drug here that having a different effect, correct?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yes. I mean, obviously in teas and coffees and, you know, there are hundreds of different chemicals that we're only just discovering, but these are a few that have been isolated, we think definitely have these brain effects. And so you've got these two competing effects with Matcha that are really, really quite fascinating to study and that, you know, you can still get some of the benefits of caffeine without it keeping you up at night and making you too wired. And maybe that's why Matcha seems to be taking off.

[Tim Spector]

I'd actually love to get into that now because I always thought it was the only thing coffee was, was caffeine. And I know, Tim, that you co wrote a big new paper with Zoe on this groundbreaking new research on how much coffee can actually transform our gut. And I know that you've also been reading up on the latest research on Matcha. So I'd love to sort of almost measure them up against each other a little bit because I think for many of our listeners they're like, okay, how does this compare with this coffee that I'm so used to?

[Jonathan Wolff]

Could you tell me about the nutritional.

[Tim Spector]

Differences between coffee and Matcha?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yes, if we start with fiber, coffee's actually a decent source of fiber, 1.5 grams per cup. So if you're having three cups a day getting, you know, 4 or 5 grams of fiber, about a third of the average intake in the US And Matcha probably has more fiber in it than coffee. It all depends on the amounts you're using. But over 50% of the matcha powder is actually fiber. So if you're putting a tablespoon in, you're going to be getting over 10 grams of fiber. So fiber is as good, if not better than coffee. There's less caffeine relatively, but probably still enough to get you up in the morning. It has fats in it that coffee doesn't have. So it's actually a source of omega 3s and these linoleic acids. And these are all healthy fats, interestingly, that are come out. We know that these healthy fats, you know, are good for the brain, etc. 17% of it is protein. Everyone's on about protein these days, you know, these relatively small amounts, but it's all good quality, you know, giving you a few grams of protein in there as well. If you take this all together, then actually nutritionally there's quite a lot good stuff going on with this, with this match in this concentration that seems to be pretty equivalent to coffee, given what we know. And I think there's lots of things we don't know. Well, there's other chemicals are in there, but interesting that the things that it has that coffee doesn't is it has this L threonine, which is this other chemical in there that seems to in studies maintain sleep quality. So people who are taking, I think they take generally about 3 grams of matcha before going to bed. It doesn't seem to stop them sleeping as coffee would. The studies show a bit of variability between people, but that's a really encouraging sign. What I really like about Matcha is that it's got similar polyphenol levels to coffee, these defense chemicals that you get from the bean or the leaf or the plant itself. And so whereas it's more diluted in green tea, you're getting a really concentrated hit of them. And many of them, we still don't understand exactly what they do, but, you know, these are great antioxidants.

[Tim Spector]

Is there a reason why the matcha might be higher in these polyphenols than your average tea?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Well, partly it's because it's more of it is seeping out into the drink. So you're actually, you're getting. Extracting more of them than you would do just by dipping the leaf in. But it could also be the way they're picked and grown. So sometimes from what you're describing, it sounds like the leaf. If you're picking the sort of young leaf rather than the whole leaf, then you're getting more polyphenols than that because it's having to grow faster. It needs more defenses. So sometimes just selecting the very best quality leaves will also help you there. So some of it is the quality element.

[Tim Spector]

Growing it in the partly in the dark somehow affects.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah, well, maybe, you know, they have a tougher life. So, you know, again, we come back to this idea that if they're struggling to survive, that they're producing the best chemicals that make us healthy.

[Tim Spector]

I always love this. It makes me think about us as human beings today, that we live in this environment where for the first time in our history, we're surrounded by food all the time. Right. And our ancestors obviously were constantly worrying about starvation. So at least in the west, you know, we're surrounded by food all the time. And yet, weirdly, we're sort of the least healthy we've ever been. And it makes me think of your tea leaves here, cod, that you're sort of causing them to suffer with the shade and all the rest of it. And then, Tim, you're telling me that actually it gives us the best polyphenols. There's. There's something about how somehow we're not evolved to live in too good an environment.

[Professor Tim Spector]

No, that's right. We all, all need a bit of stress in our lives. Just got to titrate it.

[Tim Spector]

That's what I bring you, Tim.

[Professor Tim Spector]

That's why I'm here. Bring us both stress.

[Tim Spector]

And I know that in your recent paper you were talking about this like quite significant impact that coffee was having on the gut microbiome and this might be one of the ways in which it affects our health. Do we know anything about Matcha and its effects, you know, beyond the sort of the stimulant that we've been talking about?

[Professor Tim Spector]

I couldn't find anything in detail on Matcha. There's a little bit on green tea, but I'd love to do some studies. The problem is Matcha hasn't really been used much in the west and so there aren't the big epidemiological studies. So we have to sort of extrapolate a lot of it from just green tea studies. So we're guessing a lot of the work here. It's all quite new. There are a few little studies showing it does have definite benefits. We've talked a bit about its anti caffeine effect. So the idea of the L Threonine means that you're getting decent night's sleep and sleep quality seems to be improved. Some evidence that can reduce stress as you were suggesting it does for you in some placebo controlled studies. So cortisol levels dropping. So some anti stress effect I think is really interesting. And some studies of elderly Japanese, quite a big study did show cognitive improvements, particularly in the women who were taking not huge amounts, just I think it was 3 grams a day, so that over a 12 week period. So I think everything is suggesting that it's working this way. Metabolic effects, doesn't make you lose weight. They've done some studies on that. It's not a cure for everything but it's all pointing towards help. It's been touted as an anti cancer drug. I couldn't find any really good evidence yet that it does that, but there's reasons theoretically suggest it would do if people were followed up and then we did bigger studies. So yeah, I like the look of Matcha. It's got all the, you know, the things that we want to see in a, in a healthy food. You know, it's made in this artisan way that's really got no real processing in it and it's got all these nutrients of the plants in a really concentrated form. So yeah, I think we're going to see more and more of it.

[Tim Spector]

So Tim, what's your final assessment? Is coffee healthier than Matcha?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Probably we have more evidence that it's healthier at the moment, but I think Matcha is great. For anyone who doesn't like coffee, then that's obviously the go to drink. And I would urge people who do drink coffee to maybe switch to also having Matcha, particularly in the afternoons, et cetera, and start to build up that habit. Cause the two together look pretty unbeatable.

[Tim Spector]

Tim, I mean, I've done a lot of podcasts with you and Koch. He's very rarely that positive about something. So that's actually really interesting. Cause if I play it back, I think you're saying there's not a lot of scientific evidence yet on this in.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Terms of real studies, short term studies, but not long term studies.

[Tim Spector]

Got it. So compared to what you often like to talk about, it seems like there's still quite limited evidence, but the underlying properties of it you really like because they tie to things that, you know, have really good benefits.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Well, that's right, because green tea has been studied and this is just a form of green tea. So if we accept that it's a concentrated, high dose form of green tea, then there's every reason to be optimistic about its health benefits. I think that's what I'm seeing. And in the last five years there have been a number of these studies on sleep and mood and cognitive performance that have been very encouraging. So yeah, I'm much more positive about it than I would have been, say four or five years ago.

[Tim Spector]

And my other takeaway I think is you probably wouldn't give up coffee for it, given the current data about the health benefits. But perhaps reducing coffee, combining the two, you might be saying, is a good outcome.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Definitely, yes. You know, my tea time is my British tea time drink. This could be it. And I might start having my own little tea ceremony. And particularly if it's going to be in this calming effect when you're, you're feeling a bit uptight, you know. So I think we can, we can use both of these potential health. Health foods. Yes.

[Tim Spector]

So I'd love to talk about the reality of drinking matcha in the west now because I have to admit I was quite cynical going into this podcast because when I think about Matcha, I think about somebody ordering like an iced Matcha latte from Starbucks. And I look at this thing and I find it very hard to believe that it is like a health drink. When I think about Matcha. Should I think about something like that iced matcha latte?

[Andrew Kojima]

I think it's a shame that you do, but I'm glad that you do. Because it means that we're sitting here having conversation. I think of Matcha the same way that when I first went to Italy and I'd already developed, acquired a taste for coffee and I saw the way they drink coffee, very small shots. And that's how Matcha is for me. So it doesn't take me very long to make it and doesn't take me very long to drink it either. You know, I saw these Italians come into the bar at a stank or they, you know, they don't even sit down. They sit, they stand and drink it and go. That's pretty much what it is for me. I make, I make it in a couple of minutes, I drink it in a minute. It's a five minute ritual. As I said, it's sort of because fewer people drink it. It's not, I don't see as a social thing, but I'd love for it to be that.

[Tim Spector]

Hi, I have a small favor to ask. We want this podcast to reach as many people as possible as we continue our mission to improve the health of millions. And watching this show grow is what motivates the whole team at Zoe to keep up the really hard work of creating new episodes each week. So right now, if you could share a link to the show with one friend who would benefit from today's information, it would mean a great deal to me.

[Justine]

Thank you.

[Tim Spector]

And Tim, how should I rush out and have an iced matcha latte?

[Professor Tim Spector]

I wouldn't because generally they're absolutely packed with sugar and have hardly any Matcha in it. You know, those large versions you get at Starbucks probably have got six or seven spoons of sugar in it. So that to me would outweigh any benefits of the poor old batcher. And you can tell, you know, cause you've hardly got any fibre in that, which means there's very little Matcha in, in those drinks. So be wary of, you know, suddenly everything having a Matcha Halo, which I think it will do. And you know, I mean a matcha KitKat is still a Kit Kat, it's just green. And I think, you know, we don't know about the quality of the, of the product that goes into them. There's no, you know, no stamp of approval. In the same way when you've got the pure product, you can actually tell. So I think we ought to be a bit nervous about embracing all ultra processed matches.

[Tim Spector]

The team actually did take a look into this just before because I was sort of curious and apparently the ice matcha latte from Starbucks, according to Its own website has 33 grams of sugar in it. So like six and a half teaspoons in that one drink. Now that's quite a lot of sugar, isn't it, Tim?

[Professor Tim Spector]

That is a hell of a lot of sugar. Yeah. Which again, that matcha isn't going to be worth that much amount of sugar. So it's all a trade off.

[Tim Spector]

So I'd love to talk about, like, how you would drink matcha if you want to do it properly. So I'm assuming that Starbucks is not the way that Those Buddhist monks 900 years ago were drinking their matcha.

[Andrew Kojima]

No, I mean, I'd love to show you how, how I do it. And that's, that's very purely matcha and water and nothing else. And if you acquire the taste for that, then you can, you know, experiment putting it into other things. I put it into avocado this morning, for example.

[Tim Spector]

An avocado. Okay. This is fantastic. I have to admit, this is the bit I've been most excited about. Our producers have been sent away to boil the water in advance. I'm hoping that's going to have happened and they're going to come and help and we are going to get our own matcha tasting from a world expert. So thank you, Kosh. All right, well, Koch, you've just gone and delved into your magic box of secrets and brought a whole bunch of stuff up onto the table. Can you tell us what's in front of us?

[Andrew Kojima]

Well, this is the matcha. This is ceremonial grade. Ceremonial grade is the best. This box is 30 grams. I personally do about a gram per serving. It's about 17 pounds. So what would that be about? Just north of $20? It's just over 50p per matcha shot.

[Tim Spector]

So that's about 70 cents.

[Andrew Kojima]

About 70 cents, yeah. So you know, about a tenth of the price of your Starbucks matcha latte. Probably much higher quality. We have to make it ourselves. We have to do the washing up ourselves.

[Jonathan Wolff]

And ceremonial grade has this wonderful ring. Is there a ceremony associated with this.

[Tim Spector]

Or it's just clever marketing?

[Andrew Kojima]

The ceremony develops over years and if you go to Japan, you can see this and you can be mesmerized by the, you know, just the. The beauty and the tranquility of the process. You. You went to one?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yep. No, they're amazing.

[Andrew Kojima]

But there's only really two other things you need, and even then you don't really need them. This is the bamboo whisk. You can see that it's in cross section. It is just a bit of bamboo, but it's been cut into. I've never counted, but, you know, hundreds of very delicate prongs.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Looks a little bit like a whisk.

[Tim Spector]

I think, but made of bamboo.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah, it's called a cha sen. Cha is tea, sen is whisk. And this is a cha shaku, a teaspoon, I suppose, which I would describe.

[Tim Spector]

As a very small wooden spoon.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Hockey stick.

[Andrew Kojima]

It's like a hockey stick. You can experiment how much you like, but this sort of measures a small amount and you could use just, you know, the tip of a teaspoon.

[Professor Tim Spector]

When I was researching this, it seemed to be very different amounts. People use no standard amount per portion. People like more concentrated, more diluted.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah. I think even the instructions say 1 to 2 grams, so there's like 100% difference. So I just put about that much in.

[Tim Spector]

But people have different amounts in Japan. It's not like everyone in Japan always has one teaspoon.

[Andrew Kojima]

Well, it's very. It's very difficult to. To measure the weigh this, unless you're a drug dealer. So, you know, I do it by eye and, you know, maybe make. Put a little bit more. In fact.

[Professor Tim Spector]

This is for three of us, then.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah. For what? So I would do one scoop per person. I'd rather make that last because it is expensive, but I'd rather have, you know, one or two of those a day, maybe even three, rather than just load it all into one. And, you know, I'd rather have more.

[Professor Tim Spector]

And get my fiber in, but, you know, that's.

[Tim Spector]

Well, you could.

[Andrew Kojima]

But you get your fiber in over the day if you have. If you have three of them.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Got it.

[Tim Spector]

I think the first thing I'd say is it's incredibly green. It's really vibrant in comparison to like my normal expectation about like a tea or anything like that, which I would expect to be. And sort of dried and nothing like as strong a colour.

[Professor Tim Spector]

It looks healthy. Doesn't.

[Andrew Kojima]

Would normally be in a Japanese teacup, but for the purposes of this demonstration, I've bought a glass so you can see what we're doing. I mean, one of the first things we do is we use the whisk just to sort of smooth out any lumps. Because I don't know if you've sort of tried this thing with cocoa, it's hydrophobic, so you just want to minimize the risk of that. So just get rid of any clump of Matcha and then the next stage is basically pouring in. I would normally do about 50 mils, which is probably about the Size of these cups, I've brought these along. That's probably more than Italian would drink in, in terms of a shot of coffee.

[Tim Spector]

Tiny compared to my venti at Starbucks.

[Andrew Kojima]

Right. Short, intense, potent. And then this is boiled water, but not boiling. So we've left this to cool down. It's probably about 70 degrees Celsius, probably about 160 Fahrenheit and really not very hot.

[Tim Spector]

So I'm used to tea and generally that's 100 degrees fussy, but it's normally in the sort of 195, maybe 90. Like, to me, 60 degrees seems really low.

[Andrew Kojima]

I think the point of this is that you're going to drink this in, you know, two, three sips. So we want to drink it and then we want to get on with our day. We don't want to sort of, you know, have it there while we go, go back and it gradually comes down in temperature.

[Tim Spector]

So there's something very mindful about this. I've got to be there. I'm making it, I'm going to drink it right now. It's not this thing I'm then just going to carry around with me in this enormous cup for the next two hours.

[Andrew Kojima]

No, exactly. There's a mindfulness to that, making it and drinking it. The other thing I think about coffee is it's a social thing, it's a stimulant, it wakes you up. But tea is more. Hopefully when you drink tea as well, it's like, right, I'll put the kettle on it instantly. I'm calming it. So that's part of the mindfulness process for me. Actually going to put the kettle on, maybe coming back and then letting it steep and then finishing it off and drinking it here. It can all be done. I've taken a very long time over this, but it can all be done in about a minute or two.

[Tim Spector]

Okay.

[Andrew Kojima]

So all I'm gonna do is pour a little bit of water in.

[Tim Spector]

So you've churned in quite a small amount of water there.

[Andrew Kojima]

Just a small amount. Yeah. And now you're just gonna use this whisk to make sure that all those particles are suspended. The water's green because it's suspended in the water. It's not dissolved in the water. If you make instant coffee, it's dissolved.

[Tim Spector]

So it looks really green, but actually just tiny, tiny little bits of tea floating in this water, but they're so tiny that it looks. I have to say, it looks as though now you've got a sort of like a green smoothie.

[Professor Tim Spector]

And it's frothing up, isn't it?

[Andrew Kojima]

It's frothing up. So that's the other nice thing about this. You know, if you do get into drinks, the creamier milky, you know, lattes and things like that, coffee or otherwise, that foam is going to give you the mouth feel of creaminess, but without any cream at all. Just plant and water, simple as that.

[Professor Tim Spector]

But you've got some fats in there. So that, as we mentioned. Yes, that's what the Omega 3s and other ones. So that, that does give it that extra mouth feel.

[Andrew Kojima]

So I'm getting a little bit, a little bit more in.

[Professor Tim Spector]

You've got an inch of water now.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yes, I'm partly making this so I can pour this out and give you, give you a taste, but there we go. I mean that's, that's pretty much it. Would you like to try some?

[Tim Spector]

I would love to try some.

[Andrew Kojima]

Okay, let's try not to this.

[Tim Spector]

Thank you.

[Andrew Kojima]

Tim.

[Tim Spector]

It feels like some sort of high end soup that you've now made for me in a small little tasting cup.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Kanpai.

[Andrew Kojima]

Kanpai. Sip, sip it. You know, two or three sips.

[Tim Spector]

Mmm. It's not as bitter as I thought it was going to be.

[Andrew Kojima]

Good quality.

[Tim Spector]

There's quite a lot of taste afterwards to start with.

[Professor Tim Spector]

With.

[Tim Spector]

It doesn't taste so much like a tea. I feel like the aftertaste after a while, tastes more like a green tea. But it tastes quite different to start with, Tim.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah, well, it's smoother, isn't it? I think it's got that creamy frothiness.

[Tim Spector]

There's more to it. It'd be rather disappointing as a soup, but it's definitely a lot more than a tea in terms of the consistency, which I think, now that I understand, it actually has all these bits of tea in it and you haven't diluted it that much because the amount of water in it is quite small. So I was sort of expecting you to give me a, you know, a sort of mug of this and actually it's a very small amount of tea. So there's still like quite a bit of tea, I guess in this little drink.

[Professor Tim Spector]

But I, I've had longer versions of it and I quite like an Americano equivalent and. Yeah, so you can have bigger shots. I think there's a fair bit of flexibility in how you want to drink it, aren't there? You know, longer or shorter versions of it.

[Andrew Kojima]

I brought, I did bring, bring some cold water as well. I mean, sometimes I just make it with Cold water. And this is a sauce whisk that I have as a chef, and many people have these little whisks, but if you don't have one of these, that. That will do the same. It's sort of aerating. Aerating it.

[Professor Tim Spector]

What's it called?

[Andrew Kojima]

A sauce whisk.

[Professor Tim Spector]

A sauce.

[Tim Spector]

A sauce whisk, yeah. And now you're putting about the same amount of tea, a bit more in.

[Andrew Kojima]

Because I'm going to do this more diluted, perhaps.

[Tim Spector]

Okay.

[Andrew Kojima]

And just. Just to show that you don't have to have it. It's nice to make it sort of traditional and part of the ritual, but you could just put this cold water in because the. You know, for me, the main reason for using hot water with tea is to speed up the infusion. But of course, you're not infusing here. You're just. And you're not dissolving either. You're suspending the particles. Now you can see already that there's a few little clumps of green tea. That is the source whisk is not quite as effective as the bamboo. Traditional bamboo.

[Professor Tim Spector]

You mean the temperature of the water doesn't matter?

[Andrew Kojima]

No, no, that's the. I would say that's the whisk, not the. But you can still see a little bit of a foam there.

[Tim Spector]

And so that's really interesting because I guess I was thinking, well, obviously it needs to be quite hot in order to dissolve it or take the. To, you know, take the flavors out. But you're saying, well, of course it doesn't really matter because actually it's just sort of floating in this. The temperature is really just about my. How I like the taste of the. Of the drink. One of my pet frustrations when I'm traveling in any country that isn't a big tea country, whether it's France or America, is nobody boils the water hot enough to make the tea. But it. With matcha, I can always. I should always be happy because it doesn't really matter what the temperature of the. Of the water is. All right, so it looks like you made about twice as big amount this time.

[Andrew Kojima]

And you could, you know, you could do it. You could. You can dilute it to taste and see where it is. There is a little bit of bitterness, but if you compared lots of matches, you would get some. That the lower quality will be more bitter. The other thing about green teas compared to brown teas is obviously the leaves themselves are oxidized. But if you then do that trick where you're trying to get two cups of tea out of the same tea bag. The second extraction will be more heavy in tannins and therefore more bitter. With green tea, that's less of an issue. Do you want to try some cold?

[Tim Spector]

I would love to try some cold. Thank you.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Feeling more calm already, Jonathan?

[Tim Spector]

Oh, I'm feeling quite hyped up at this point. So no, I don't know. How long does it take to get the benefits of L threonine over.

[Andrew Kojima]

Over the next half an hour. Okay, so that's just cold.

[Tim Spector]

Cheers.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah, it's nice, but I prefer the warm one. There's a different experience, isn't it?

[Andrew Kojima]

For me, when it's cold like that and it's a bit more diluted, it tastes more of creaminess and dairyness.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah.

[Andrew Kojima]

You know, we've changed two variables there, temperature and the dilution. But you could imagine there's some, someone who drops a milk in there.

[Professor Tim Spector]

It is, I get that now. Yes.

[Tim Spector]

It's still got quite a strong flavor I think, doesn't it? If you compare it with any tea, there's a much stronger flavor. So you can see that it's more like coffee in that sense, that it's got that sort of depth and presence to it. And even when, when it's cold and more diluted, I think I still feel that. I agree that it's less bitter, but it's definitely not as bitter as I expected because it's just water. Right. There's no sugar, there's no milks or any of the rest of it.

[Professor Tim Spector]

It's not like coffee. It doesn't have that coffee, that roasted aroma because there's nothing roasted in here. So it really is just the sort of raw plant. So it's more herbal, more grassy, the notes that I'm, I'm getting here. So it's, it's, it's a very different experience to coffee. Except perhaps that mouth feel when you get, you know, if you had a, a frost up sort of espresso or a one with a head on it, that's the only similarity. And then the little bit of bitterness and the, the long follow, isn't it? So the, once you've drunk it, you're still getting those flavors, you know, 30 seconds later.

[Tim Spector]

I think that's one of the things that really distinguishes it from, you know, some mass produced sugar sweetened beverage as they like to say in, in the States. Right. That you get the, the hit of the sugar and flavor, it disappears very fast. Whereas this, I think, like a coffee, you know, like A, like a really good meal, like you're still getting a lot of tastes afterwards. I think this is part of why I imagine some people like matcha and presumably some people also really dislike it. It's definitely got a strong flavor to it.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah. But nothing like coffee, I don't think. It doesn't have that intense bitterness.

[Tim Spector]

Agreed.

[Professor Tim Spector]

So someone like you, who's not a coffee drinker, you probably, you know, happily.

[Tim Spector]

Drunk it without complaining.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yes, exactly.

[Tim Spector]

I feel like a lot of people are drinking matcha, not just with water, but in a way, rather like a replacement for coffee. Do you think this is a disgusting habit? How do you think about that?

[Andrew Kojima]

No, I think it's a real shame if it's loaded with sugar, but one of the ways I like to drink it is just with some warm coconut milk. It's something we haven't really touched on yet. But when you taste it, it actually has umami. It's got that sort of soothing savoriness. And when you then layer that up with something else that's got umami. So like nut milks or. I mean, I did it with avocados this morning. You get this double whammy of umami and that's very satisfying.

[Professor Tim Spector]

How would you add it to other foods? So you talked about your avocado.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah.

[Professor Tim Spector]

But someone is starting out, you know, you've got some spare powder. You, you know, you want to add it to everything you. You can think of. What would you.

[Andrew Kojima]

Well, I'd start with. This is the perfect example. I. My daughter's 12. Now, this, probably 12 is roughly where you should need to be careful a bit. A bit about caffeine and your son as well. But she has exams today and I gave her last night lemon, honey and ginger because she's, you know, on the verge of a cold. Try and get her some good sleep. And then this morning, I know she's not going to have that taste that. But I just sprinkled one gram as I chopped up some avocados. A little bit of salt, little lemon and juice and put that on. On some toast. And that was. That was her breakfast.

[Professor Tim Spector]

I've seen it on eggs. Have you seen. Yeah, you can match our eggs and eggs.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah, you could use it as a seasoning. You could, you know, you could even put it into. One of the. One of the problems is it does clump a little bit, but if you put it in with some salt, fine salt, or even actually crystal salt, it will disperse itself in the salt and there you could use it as a seasoning as well.

[Tim Spector]

Do you feel like the natural introduction to this for someone who hasn't used it before is as a drink and the food follows? Or actually, is it more the other way around?

[Andrew Kojima]

I think that I subconsciously knew about it through food first, because there's another Japanese dish called ochazuke, and that would be green tea with dashi. Dashi is a stock. So again, you've got that double whammy of umami. You've got the. You remind me of the dashi stock and you remind me of the tea and then you combine those and you pour them over rice. And it's a very sort of comforting way of eating leftover rice the next morning for breakfast or something. And I'd had that as a child.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Do you know someone who's curious about matcha? Why not share this episode with them right now? You'll empower them with the latest scientific.

[Tim Spector]

Advice to help them choose the daily.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Drink that's best for them and I'm.

[Tim Spector]

Sure they'll thank you. Now, I think you have brought another show and tell, am I right, Koj, which is a way, in fact, to eat matcha rather than to just drink it. Do you want to tell us what you've just brought out?

[Andrew Kojima]

Yes. Well, I was cooking at the weekend and it was Burns Night. I'm half Scottish and half Japanese, so I did a Japanese crannican. So basically I made a granola that went with a matcha cream, effectively. Now, this is slightly sweetened. It's got eggs, sugar, a touch of butter, double cream and a little bit of mascarpone.

[Tim Spector]

Wow. It's also pretty bright green, I would say, Tim.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah.

[Tim Spector]

In comparison to my average dessert. It makes it seem.

[Andrew Kojima]

So you're not meant to eat the whole lot. It would be. It had lots of other things. You'd find that a bit cloying if you didn't eat the whole lot.

[Tim Spector]

Well, I was just thinking that when you've described the ingredients, it probably didn't sound like the healthiest thing I was ever going to eat, but it looks like. It looks basically like a bit like a mashed avocado. Like a complete blended avocado. Really green. So I'm thinking, Tim, it must be really good for me. And I clearly allowed more than one spoonful. What do you think?

[Professor Tim Spector]

I think you're allowed at least two spoonfuls.

[Tim Spector]

Should we give it a go?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah, let's go.

[Andrew Kojima]

But again, you should get this double whammy of the umami that's in the milk products with the Umami of the matcha.

[Tim Spector]

Oh, wow.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Surprising taste, isn't it? I wasn't expecting that.

[Tim Spector]

Pretty good, isn't it?

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah, it's good.

[Tim Spector]

But I'm definitely inviting code.

[Professor Tim Spector]

It's very rich.

[Tim Spector]

Cook my dinner.

[Professor Tim Spector]

So you've got the sweetness but it's, it's got much more depth on. So yeah, that's, that's a lovely face.

[Tim Spector]

It feels like you can feel a lot of the fat in it. It gives it a sort of smoothness if I compare with what we were just having with the matcha. But you can still get the. Some of the taste of the matcha coming through.

[Professor Tim Spector]

It's easy to blend in with yogurts and creams and cream cheeses and things or not.

[Andrew Kojima]

It's. It is quite difficult. What I tend to do is I would. If I'm using sugar, I put it in with the sugar because that sugar will naturally disperse it.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Right. So like you adding it with the salt when you do this mix. So you putting it with something else first.

[Andrew Kojima]

Yes. Helps. Yeah, exactly. It makes it. Or if I'm not using sugar, I would just make a very small amount of matcha tea and then use it because you, what you don't want to do is put too much water into your cream cheese or whatever else you do.

[Tim Spector]

Tim's very self controlled. I've had two more spoons while he's been talking and I've now put it a bit away. Cause I can tell I'm gonna eat the entire thing if I leave it too close. It was delicious. So Koch, you've given us like lots of different ways to eat matcha. If someone, you know, like me has never tried it before and they're thinking out of this show, you know what? I'm like really sold on this combination of this Beautiful story of 900 years of Japanese monks eating it and Tim talking about the health benefits. If you were trying to advise the best ways to start, what would you tell someone who's listening now?

[Andrew Kojima]

Well, I think the avocado is a very good way. But my daughter didn't even notice it was there. And I only told her in the car on the way to the exam. I think if you want to taste it, try it on some rice and add a little stock. And that's the best way to acquire that taste. The same way that you would acquire a taste for coffee, you might have it with milk first. The French famously teach their children to enjoy wine. They dilute it. So you're just sort of introducing it slowly.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Does it matter? If you buy a cheap one or expensive one to start with, I think.

[Andrew Kojima]

If you're going to use it to put into, to mix with other ingredients, you can certainly buy a less expensive one.

[Professor Tim Spector]

But drink it on its own. When you start, go for the more expensive one.

[Andrew Kojima]

I think so, because it's got less of the bitterness and a bit more sweetness.

[Tim Spector]

And let's say I was like, you know what, I really want to try it as a drink because I see it advertised in all these different coffee shops. Would you have any guide? I have already heard both of you told me not to go to have the Starbucks, venti, whatever, but is there a way that might maximize my chances of having something that you would. You would approve of? Both, I guess, in terms of the quality of the matcha and also the experience, is this as maybe a very easy entry point?

[Andrew Kojima]

Yeah. Just some warm milk. Just again, because it's a powder, add the milk in very slowly at the beginning, even like maybe a bit of cold milk to make it into a paste so you don't have any of the clumps of powder left. And then top it up with warm milk and again you'll get, you get the soothingness, the umami of the milk. And actually, you know, when you taste good milk, it's. It is sweet. You don't need the extra sugar.

[Professor Tim Spector]

Yeah. So I think it's reasonable to start with. But I think there's some evidence that having milk in your teas does interact with the good polyphenols, so they may not be absorbed as well. So use that as a starting point. Then try and wean yourself off the milk and go hardcore, like we've done today, which is. I actually prefer it neat rather than with milk, but, you know, the most important thing is to enjoy it.

[Tim Spector]

Amazing. Well, I'm going to try and do a quick summary. So I guess I start with this amazing idea that there were these Buddhist monks 900 years ago who figured out that, you know, the secret to enlightenment was growing their tea in the dark, picking just the right bits, smashing it up into millions of pieces and then drinking it. I always wonder about how anyone ever, like, figures any of this stuff out. But then amazingly, like modern science says, basically they cracked it. And that's because it not only has this caffeine, it has this other thing, L Threonine, which apparently sort of balances this out. Tim, I think you were saying, sort of improves your sleep quality and so sort of reduces some of those rough edges that comes with the. With the caffeine so there's something real here. It's a drink that's been drunk for a very long time. So it's not just a sort of made up thing. In the last few years. Where they claim comes from the east is actually there is less caffeine in it than coffee. So it is a way to sort of reduce that. If you feel like you're on a bit of a caffeine roller coaster with coffee, which I've definitely been in the past, but there's more caffeine than black tea or green tea. And part of the reason for this is actually it's completely different from a tea. In a tea you're sort of steeping this leaf which might have been fermented in boiling water and it's getting some extracts here you're actually getting the whole leaf. And that one of the reasons I think, Tim, that you were so positive about it is that therefore you're actually getting a lot more plant because you're eating this whole thing. And the plant has got all of these polyphenols. It's got a lot of fiber in it. I think you said probably gonna be more fiber than in your coffee, certainly the way that you drink it, Tim. So there's a lot of health benefits that come from that because you're going to eat the whole thing. And an easy entry point might be to just swap out the way you're having your coffee. Today a lot of people will be having coffee with milk or some sort of milk alternative. And Tim, you're saying, you know, that's a good entry point, but actually the milk is potentially blocking quite a lot of the health benefits. So you really want to end up being able to drink it the way Kodge that you introduced us today. And I think I'm pretty sold I have to make the cold one. I don't think I'm gonna start drinking cold match. It didn't feel, didn't give me that pleasure. I think of like the warm drink. The warm match is really nice. I love the fact that you have this little ceremony of making it. And I think like a lot of people listening, I feel like I spend my life at 110 miles an hour and never stop. And actually even just making a cup of tea is often something I think I like for just a few minutes of stopping. And so the idea that you have to sort of brush with a brush like for a couple of minutes, that is something very lovely about it. I think I'd be totally up for trying that. And in terms of the food, someone else is going to have to make it Koch. So if you're willing to come round and make me that amazing dessert, I'm all sold. Thank you so much, Koj, for coming in and showing us how to do this. We'll make sure we put some links on the website for anybody interested to understand a bit more about that process.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Tim, thank you for taking us through.

[Tim Spector]

You know the amazing science here.

[Professor Tim Spector]

This was a real pleasure.

[Tim Spector]

Thank you both.

[Andrew Kojima]

Thank you.

[Jonathan Wolff]

Now, if you listen to the show regularly, you already believe that changing how you eat can transform your health. But you can only do so much with general advice from a weekly podcast. If you want to feel much better now and be on the path to live many more healthy years, you need something more. And that's why more than 100,000 members trust Zoe each day to help them make the smartest food choices. Combining our world leading science with your Zoe test results, Zoe is your daily companion to better health for life. So how does it work? Zoe membership starts with at home testing to understand your unique body. Then Zoe's app is your health coach, using weekly check ins and daily guidance to help you shift your food choices to steadily improve your health. I rely on Zoe's advice every day and truly it has transformed how I feel. Will you give Zoe a try? The first step is easy. Take our free quiz. To find out what Zoe membership could do for you, Simply go to Zoe.com podcast where as a podcast listener, you'll get 10% off. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolff. Zoe Science and Nutrition is produced by Julie Pinero, Sam Durham and Richard Willin. The Zoe Science and Nutrition Podcast is not medical advice and if you have any medical concerns, please consult your doctor. See you next time.