Matcha is a drink of precision, beginning with green tea leaves grown in shade, harvested after only a few weeks and ground into a fine powder. That powder is then measured and carefully whisked into hot water or milk so you can best enjoy the vegetal, grassy or nutty notes of the tea.
These are the basics, but learning to make a great cup of matcha might take you years and a drawer of equipment to get right. The Cuzen Matcha Maker promises to speed up that process, letting anyone enjoy a perfectly prepared matcha drink with a built-in grinder and whisking cup.
We spent a month making matcha with the Cuzen Matcha Maker, considering the different flavor profiles and strengths to discover if an automatic matcha machine could help remake your morning routine.
With a built-in-grinder and magnetically driven chasen, the Cuzen Matcha Maker can give novices perfectly prepared matcha drinks on demand, so long as you stick with the company's teas.
What is the Cuzen Matcha Maker?
The Cuzen Matcha Maker is an automatic matcha maker, grinding and stirring your matcha shots for drinking or incorporating into coffee drinks or other recipes. The machine automates the process of grinding tea leaves (tencha) into powder (matcha) and whisking the powder into water to make tea. The machine replaces both a traditional granite stone mill and chasen (a whisk typically made of bamboo); you’ll still need to pour water into the whisking cup yourself, whether cold or heated to temperature with an electric kettle.
To use the Cuzen Matcha Maker, you place tea leaves (you’ll need to use those supplied by Cuzen; more on that below) in the top of the machine and pick one of three strength options (single, single-and-a-half or double shot), then fill the supplied whisking cup with water (dropping in a mechanical “whisk” that looks a bit like a gearwheel), placing the cup on the base of the machine under the dispensing spout. When you push the button, magnets in the machine’s base spin the whisk as the grinder pulverizes the tencha, mixing the powder with the liquid. A single shot takes 90 seconds, while a double shot is ready in three minutes. Besides making drinks, the machine also has a grind-only function if you’d prefer to use the ground leaves in a recipe or brew them traditionally.
What we liked about the Cuzen Matcha Maker
The modern design makes the Cuzen Matcha Maker a showpiece
The sleek white appliance is eye-catching. It even impressed a teenager, and as you may know they’re not prone to giving compliments to appliances. The Cuzen Matcha Maker has a low profile and an intuitive design that is not just easy to understand but interesting to look at. This is a machine that is meant to be on display.
Fresh-ground matcha on demand
Buying matcha in canisters or packets can be a gamble. The powder can lose a lot of flavor if it’s been sitting on a shelf like the spices in your cabinet that have been forgotten. The Cuzen Matcha Maker, like a coffee grinder, ensures you’re using the freshest materials possible in your drink.
It’s easy to use
Some people enjoy the ritual of making a drink with matcha. If you’re not one of them, the Cuzen Matcha Maker takes the work out of your cup. Once you’ve added the leaves to the mill and water to the cup, you pick the strength and hit start. The powder falls into the cup below where it’s stirred automatically. After the machine beeps, you can drink the matcha or mix it with milk or sparkling water.
What we didn’t like about the Cuzen Matcha Maker
It is only meant for use with Cuzen tea leaves
For best results and to avoid damage to the ceramic mill, the manufacturer recommends that you only use its tea leaves (other leaves, Cuzen advises, may be sized differently or have more moisture). Furthermore, the warranty won’t cover damage by “misuse,” including the use of another brand of tea leaves. Given this, we stuck to Cuzen-branded tea during the testing process.
While Cuzen’s tea, which is grown in Japan, is priced similarly to other high-end brands (at close to $1 per gram) and can be sent as part of a regular subscription, this means that whether or not the machine is for you does come down to a matter of your taste for the company’s products.
We liked them, overall: The signature blend was vegetal and potent, holding up to heavy additions like milk and sweetener. The latte blend was lighter, as the tasting notes recommended, and shined strongest in milk without the addition of sweetener. The premium blend had a bright note of umami that could be sipped in the afternoon.
Regular matcha drinkers, like fans of whiskey, have flavors they want to accentuate or avoid. And Cuzen’s blends or single-origin options may or may not be your cup of tea.
The grinder only has a single setting
You’ll want to use freshly ground matcha, as tea, like any agricultural product, is best right after it’s been ground. But the grinder’s output is fixed at roughly 2 grams (about 1.5 teaspoons). While this is likely what you’d need to make a single matcha drink, it’s a lot less than you would need for baking, which is a great application for matcha. This is understandable given the price of Cuzen’s tea (you’d likely want to use a less expensive grind for baking in any case and keep your fresh matcha exclusively for drinks), but more versatility would be a welcome add for enthusiasts of the flavor.
It’s expensive
The starter kit — which does include three sample packages (4 grams each) of tea leaves — costs close to $300, and that’s before you start ordering tea. If you’re OK with prepackaged tencha, a wand-style electric matcha whisk is a fraction of that cost and you could save your budget for matcha. The Cuzen Matcha Maker only has a one-year warranty, something to consider when you’re buying a product that costs as much as a high-end drip coffee machine.
Bottom line
If you’re a daily matcha drinker, this machine is intriguing. Fresh matcha at the push of a button makes it easy to enjoy a cup when you want it. Since we mentioned whiskey earlier, it’s helpful to think of the Cuzen Matcha Maker in the same way as buying a really nice bottle for your home cocktail bar or new tools for your bar cart. While you still may go to your coffee shop because of the way they make your matcha latte, this is a craft matcha experience akin to geeking out on craft cocktails.
The pleasing design and intuitive controls will make this a fit for lots of matcha enthusiasts’ kitchens or coffee bars (so long as you enjoy Cuzen’s flavor profile, it’s likely worth it). But for casual matcha drinkers, the expense, short warranty and limits on experimenting with different teas may put it out of reach.
