Managing Colour in Product Development

For matcha products, colour sells. It is also the first thing to go.

What removes it

Chlorophyll degrades under light, heat, and air, shifting toward yellow and brown.

Powder has far more surface area than whole leaf, so the change is faster.

Colour originates in cultivation

Depth of green is decided in the field.

Shading increases chlorophyll — with less light available, the plant produces more. Leaves grown under cover run darker.

Starting with a deeply coloured material beats trying to fix it downstream.

Processing constraints

Stone mills turn slowly because friction heat degrades colour and aroma. That constraint is why output sits near 40 g per hour.

Machine milling is faster and generates more heat.

Heated products

Baking shifts the colour. The available responses are limited:

• Increase the matcha to compensate
• Adjust baking conditions
• Apply matcha after baking
• Carry the green in an unheated component

With kanten, dissolve the agar first, remove from heat, then add matcha.

Packaging

Opaque materials, oxygen absorbers, nitrogen flushing.

Matcha is never sold in clear bags because light degrades it. Where a window is wanted for visibility, minimising its area or using an outer box is the compromise.

When colouring enters

Products facing wide distribution may not hold colour through these measures alone. Gardenia extract is a common choice.

Labels declare it with a function name.

Which breaks colour as a signal

With colouring, a product low in matcha can still look vividly green.

Visible colour and matcha content become unrelated.

For the buyer, that leaves the ingredient list. Products without colouring dull over time — deterioration, and also evidence that the colour was the material's own.