Most replayed moment: Coffee vs Matcha | Andrew Kojima & Prof Tim Spector

Summary

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Podcast Summary: ZOE Science & Nutrition

Episode: Most replayed moment: Coffee vs Matcha | Andrew Kojima & Prof Tim Spector
Date: April 14, 2026
Host: Jonathan Wolf (ZOE)
Guests: Andrew Kojima (Matcha Expert), Prof. Tim Spector (Epidemiologist & Nutrition Researcher)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the health effects, science, and nutritional profiles of two increasingly popular beverages: coffee and matcha. The discussion compares their mental, metabolic, and gut impacts, explores why matcha is gaining popularity, and considers whether one drink is “better” for your long-term health.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Coffee and Matcha Affect the Mind and Body

• Coffee: Traditionally seen as the go-to beverage for a morning energy boost.
• Matcha: Contains both caffeine and L-theanine, offering a smoother, calmer stimulation compared to coffee’s sharper “buzz.”
  • Andrew Kojima:

    “When I drink coffee...my mind’s buzzing a bit too much. I don’t find that with Matcha...I feel much more able to sort of pick [tasks] off one by one.” (01:04)

  • Tim Spector:

    “These are a few [chemicals] that have been isolated...definitely have these brain effects...with Matcha you can get some of the benefits of caffeine without it keeping you up at night and making you too wired.” (03:36)

2. Comparing Caffeine and L-theanine Content

• Caffeine Levels:
  • Green tea: 20–50mg per tsp
  • Matcha: 60–90mg per serving
  • Coffee: 100–130mg per cup
• L-theanine in Matcha: Counteracts caffeine’s overstimulation, “maintains sleep quality,” and contributes to a feeling of calm focus.

  “The studies show a bit of variability...but that’s a really encouraging sign.” (04:36; 06:02)

• Notable Personal Story:
  Host shares his son’s experience getting “wired” on coffee for the first time, highlighting how individual caffeine sensitivity varies (02:14).

3. Nutritional Breakdown

• Matcha:
  • High fiber: Over 50% of matcha powder is fiber (10g+ per tablespoon)
  • Contains healthy omega-3 fatty acids and linoleic acids
  • 17% protein content
  • Rich in polyphenols (antioxidants); likely even higher than standard green tea

    “What I really like about Matcha is that it’s got similar polyphenol levels to coffee...but you’re getting a really concentrated hit of them.” — Prof. Tim Spector (06:45)

• Coffee:
  • Decent source of fiber (1.5g per cup)
  • Also high in polyphenols

4. Polyphenol Content and Plant Stress: Why Quality Matters

• Growing Methods Matter: Matcha’s higher polyphenols may derive from harvesting young leaves and traditional shade-growing, both of which boost beneficial plant defenses.

  “It could also be the way they’re picked and grown. Sometimes just selecting the very best quality leaves will also help you there.” — Tim Spector (07:00)

• Metaphor to Human Stress:

  “There’s something about how somehow we’re not evolved to live in too good an environment.” — Host (07:51)
  “We all need a bit of stress in our lives. Just gotta titrate it.” — Tim Spector (08:26)

5. Impact on Gut Health and the Microbiome

• Coffee: Recent research (co-authored by Tim Spector) shows significant, positive impact on the gut microbiome.
• Matcha: Much less studied, especially outside of Japan. Early signs point to possible benefits by analogy with green tea.

  “There are a few little studies...showing it does have definite benefits....Cortisol levels dropping. So some anti-stress effect I think is really interesting.” — Tim Spector (09:20)

• Matcha for Sleep, Stress, and Cognition:
  • Some studies indicate matcha improves sleep (thanks to L-theanine), reduces stress (lower cortisol), and improves cognition, especially in older adults.

    “Some studies of elderly Japanese, quite a big study did show cognitive improvements, particularly in women...just 3 grams a day.” — Tim Spector (09:50)

6. Matcha Health Hype: What Do We Really Know?

• No strong evidence yet for popular claims (e.g., weight loss, cancer protection), but several promising findings.

  “It’s not a cure for everything, but it’s all pointing towards health.” — Tim Spector (10:20) “I like the look of Matcha...we’re going to see more and more of it.” (10:45)

7. Coffee vs Matcha: Which Is Healthier?

• Final Assessment:

  “Probably we have more evidence that [coffee] is healthier at the moment, but I think Matcha is great.” — Tim Spector (10:54)

• Practical Advice: Consider combining both; matcha especially useful in afternoons for calm focus and possibly better sleep.

  “The two together look pretty unbeatable.” (11:18)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Coffee’s “Edge”:

  “He was just sort of wired each time he had one at the morning...it was quite a real drug.” (02:19)

• On Drinking Rituals:

  “I’d like [Matcha] 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.” — Andrew Kojima (01:19)

• On Changing Perspectives:

  “It’s very rare that [Tim’s] that positive about something.” — Host (11:18) “I’m much more positive about it than I would have been, say four or five years ago.” — Tim Spector (11:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:00 | How the personal experience of drinking coffee vs matcha differs (Andrew Kojima) | | 02:45 | Caffeine content in green tea, matcha, and coffee (Tim Spector) | | 04:36 | Nutritional differences in fiber, fats, protein, and polyphenols (Tim Spector) | | 07:00 | Why matcha may have higher polyphenols—methods of growing and harvesting (Tim Spector) | | 08:36 | Recent research on coffee’s influence on gut microbiome and speculation on matcha’s effects | | 09:20 | Studies on matcha’s effect on stress, sleep, and cognition | | 10:54 | Is coffee healthier than matcha? Practical advice on how to use both | | 11:44 | Evidence strengths, optimism, and what’s changed in recent years (Tim Spector) | | 12:26 | Combining coffee and matcha: A potential unbeatable duo |

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Summary: Should You Switch to Matcha?

• Current Evidence: Coffee has a stronger base of long-term evidence for health benefits, notably for gut health.
• Matcha’s Promise: Rich in fiber, healthy fats, antioxidants, and L-theanine; promising for mood, sleep, and cognition—data still emerging but positive.
• Best Approach: No need to give up coffee, but try adding matcha—especially for afternoon calm focus and to vary your nutrient intake.

Prof. Tim Spector’s overall advice:

“The two together look pretty unbeatable.” (11:18)

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Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to

[B]

help you improve your health.

[A]

Today we're diving into some popular drinks. Coffee has long been the undisputed champion of hot beverages. Its bitter taste an essential part of many people's mornings. However, there's a new kid on the block. You might have seen its distinctive green hue cropping up in cafes, supermarkets, even TikTok. I am of course talking about Matcha. So how do coffee and Matcha compare? Do they work differently in the body and is one better for your long term health? I'm joined by Matcha expert Andrew Kojima and Professor Tim Spector to explore the science behind our daily pick me ups and discover whether we should be switching sides.

[B]

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?

[C]

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 or Matcha.

[B]

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. And he was just sort of wired each time he had one at 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 like it 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 too much. And I think that's really interesting the way you're describing against Matcha. Tim, are you able to explain at all what's going on?

[D]

Yeah, so I'm talking about the caffeine amounts in these different products. So you've got your green teaspoon, 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.

[B]

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

[D]

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, 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.

[B]

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, 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? Could you tell me about the nutritional differences between coffee and Matcha?

[D]

Yeah. So 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 fibre, 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 fibre. So if you're putting a tablespoon in, you're going to be getting, you know, over 10 grams of fibre. So fibre 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 come out well, you know, that these healthy fats, you know, are good for the brain, et cetera. 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 at least about 3 grams of matcha before going to bed. 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 these are great antioxidants.

[B]

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

[D]

Well, partly it's because it's more of it is seeping out into the drink. So you 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. 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

[B]

element, growing it in the partly in the dark somehow affects.

[D]

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

[B]

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. 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.

[D]

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

[B]

That's what I bring you, Tim.

[D]

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

[B]

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?

[D]

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 3 grams a day. So that over a 12 week period. So I think, you know, 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 followed up and then we did bigger studies. So yeah, I like the look of Matcha. It's, 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.

[A]

So Tim, what's your final assessment?

[B]

Is coffee healthier than Matcha?

[D]

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 because the two together look pretty unbeatable.

[B]

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 because if I play it back, I think you're saying there's not a lot of scientific evidence yet on this in terms of

[D]

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

[A]

Got it.

[B]

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.

[D]

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.

[B]

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.

[D]

Definitely, yes. You know, my tea time as 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 feeling a bit uptight, you know. So I think we can, we can use both of these potential health health foods. Yes.

[A]

As you can imagine hosting this podcast, running Zoe, juggling family life, it all keeps me pretty busy. So I try as best I can to stay energized and show up well in all those parts of my life by fueling my body with the right food, by exercising, and by adding a scoop of daily 30 to my meals every day. If you haven't heard of Daily 30 yet, it's the gut supplement. Designed by our gut health scientists here at Zoe. It's made of over 30 high quality hand picked plants including seaweed, fungi and different types of fiber. Better yet, it contains ingredients that support gut health, digestion and energy, which is ideal for packed calendars and busy lives. Simply add one scoop a day to any meal for an extra boost of fiber and plant diversity. And because it tastes delicious on just about anything and adds a satisfying crunch, it quite quickly slots into your life, becoming a daily healthy habit you'll always have time for. By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 as a good source of fiber, we're required to say that it contains 4 grams of total fat per serving. Obviously that's all amazing healthy fats from plants. So order yours [e-mail] daily30. Thanks for listening and see you next time.