What Cup Should You Drink Matcha From?

The bowl you whisk in and the cup you drink from do different jobs, and one vessel rarely does both well. A wide bowl gives the whisk room to move. A tall glass holds enough milk and ice to be worth drinking. This page is about the second one.

What cup should you drink matcha from?

Drink straight from the bowl for plain hot matcha, and use a 350-400 ml glass or mug for anything with milk in it. The vessel needs to hold the finished drink with headroom, feel safe at the temperature you are pouring, and be wide enough at the rim to drink from comfortably.

Usucha, the thin matcha whisked with water alone, is drunk from the chawan it was whisked in. Anything with milk or ice gets built in a second vessel, and that is the cup. The step-by-step guide to making matcha at home covers the whisking that comes first.

Why do you whisk in a bowl and pour into a cup?

A bamboo whisk needs a wide, shallow base to move across, and a tall cup gives it neither. The prongs fold against the walls and snap, and the powder stays lumpy at the bottom. Whisk the matcha in a bowl for thirty seconds, then pour the shot into the cup.

Pouring is where a round bowl lets you down. Tip a wide chawan towards a glass and a good share of the shot runs down the outside. The ceramic bowls with a pouring spout are what make the two-vessel routine work. How wide a matcha bowl should be covers the whisking side.

What size cup does a matcha latte need?

Between 350 and 400 ml for an iced latte, and 300 ml is enough for a hot one. Ice takes up about a third of a glass, milk takes 200 to 250 ml, and the matcha shot adds another 40 to 50 ml. A 250 ml tumbler runs out of room before the matcha arrives.

Drink	What goes in	Cup size
Plain hot matcha	2 g matcha, 60-80 ml water	Drunk from the bowl
Hot matcha latte	40-50 ml shot, 200 ml hot milk	300 ml and up
Iced matcha	40-50 ml shot, ice, 200-250 ml water	350-400 ml
Iced matcha latte	40-50 ml shot, ice, 200-250 ml milk	350-400 ml

Most UK mugs hold 250-300 ml to the brim, leaving about 220 ml of usable space. That covers a hot latte and falls short of an iced one. The amounts are in our matcha latte recipe for hot and iced.

Is a glass or a mug better for matcha?

Both work. Glass shows the green sitting on the white, which is the whole reason iced matcha gets photographed, and it lets you see whether the drink has settled. A mug keeps a hot latte warm for longer and keeps the heat off your fingers. Pick by the drink you make most.

• Layers. Poured slowly over cold milk, the shot floats for a minute or two before it sinks. Only a clear wall shows it, which is why café iced matcha comes in a glass.
• Settling. Matcha is ground leaf held in suspension, so it drifts to the bottom while the drink stands. Glass tells you when to stir.
• Heat. Thick ceramic walls hold a hot latte at drinking temperature far longer than thin glass.

Does a matcha glass need to be heatproof?

It does if you pour anything hot into it. Thin soda-lime glass cracks when one side of the wall expands faster than the other, and hot milk meeting a cold glass is exactly that. Borosilicate handles the swing, which is why lab glass and cafetières are made from it.

Matcha water sits at 70-80°C rather than boiling, so the risk is lower than with tea or coffee. The failure case is a glass that has been standing somewhere cold. Run warm water into an ordinary glass and tip it out before you pour.

Does a matcha cup need a handle?

For a hot latte a handle helps, since 300 ml of hot milk makes a thin-walled glass too hot to hold for the first few minutes. For iced drinks a handle does nothing. A glass with a textured or ribbed outer wall gives you enough grip to skip the handle on a hot drink.

If you drink it iced, a straw is worth more than a handle, since it doubles as the stirrer. Our guide to the tools that make iced matcha easier goes through the cold method.

What does Uwhisk sell to drink matcha from?

One glass. The Ripple Glass Matcha Cup holds about 350 ml in heat-resistant glass and comes with a bamboo lid and a glass straw, at £9.99. The ribbed outer wall gives enough grip for a hot drink without a handle. UK orders arrive by tracked delivery in 7-14 working days.

That is the whole drinkware range. One glass, sized for what an iced latte wants. For a second colour or a squatter shape, a homeware shop will serve you better.

Matcha cup FAQ

Sizes, mugs, ordinary glasses, the dishwasher and drinking from the bowl cover most of what gets asked about matcha cups. The answers below repeat the numbers so you can check one without reading the rest. The iced method and the latte recipe sit on their own pages.

What size cup is best for a matcha latte?

350 to 400 ml for iced and around 300 ml for hot. Ice claims roughly a third of a glass, the milk takes 200 to 250 ml, and the shot adds 40 to 50 ml on top. A standard 250 ml tumbler fills before the matcha goes in.

Can you drink matcha from a normal mug?

Yes, and for a hot latte a mug is the sensible choice. It holds heat, it has a handle, and it costs nothing extra. The two things you lose are the layered look of an iced drink and any warning that the matcha has settled at the bottom.

Can you pour hot matcha into an ordinary glass?

Only if the glass says heatproof or borosilicate. Matcha water sits at 70-80 °C, which is below boiling but still enough to crack thin glass that has come out of a cold cupboard. Run warm water into the glass first, then pour. Borosilicate needs no warm-up.

Do you drink matcha out of the bowl you whisked it in?

For plain hot matcha, yes. The chawan is a drinking vessel as well as a mixing one, and the wide rim is why it feels different from a mug. Once milk or ice is involved the volume outgrows the bowl, so the drink moves to a glass.

Is a matcha glass dishwasher safe?

Borosilicate takes a dishwasher, though the top rack and a lower temperature treat it better over years. Matcha leaves a faint green film on glass that a rinse under warm water removes in seconds if you do it straight away. Dried-on film needs a soft cloth and washing-up liquid.

Why does my iced matcha separate in the glass?

Matcha is a suspension of ground leaf, so it sinks when the drink stands still. A glass shows this as a green band at the bottom within a few minutes. Stir with a straw or a long spoon before each mouthful. Nothing has gone wrong with the drink.

Related: Iced matcha tools and glasses · What size matcha bowl you need

Back to the full guide → How to make matcha at home