MATSUThe short answer. The matcha itself, at a 3 g latte dose, runs from about $1.17 a cup on a high-volume latte grade ($390/kg) to about $3.15 on a top ceremonial grade ($1,050/kg), producer-direct, shipping billed separately. Most café latte programmes sit in the $1.17–$1.35 band.
- How many lattes do you get from one kilogram of matcha? At a standard 3 g latte dose, one kilogram makes about 330 drinks.
- What grade should a café use to keep margins healthy? For high-volume milk drinks, the workhorse band is Kagoshima Standard ($390/kg, ~$1.17/cup), Uji Standard ($420/kg, ~$1.26/cup), and Uji Classic ($450/kg, ~$1.35/cup) — all built to hold colour through milk and…
- Does a volume discount change the cost per cup much? Yes, modestly. MATSU wholesale terms are 10% off at 5–9.9 kg, 15% off at 10–24.9 kg, and 20% off at 25–49.9 kg, with 50 kg+ custom.
TL;DR: At 3 g per latte, one kilogram of matcha makes about 330 drinks. That puts the powder cost of a latte at roughly $1.17 a cup on a high-volume grade (Kagoshima Standard, $390/kg), around $1.26–$1.35 on the Uji Standard and Uji Classic latte grades ($420–$450/kg), and up to $1.95–$3.15 on premium and ceremonial grades. On a $5–6 menu price, matcha in a workhorse-grade latte is a low single-digit-dollar cost — so grade choice affects quality far more than it dents margin. The real money is lost not on grade price but on drinks that get remade because the powder was too coarse or dull.
How much matcha goes into a cup?
Every number in this guide depends on the dose, so fix it first. These are the working assumptions the rest of the maths runs on — real doses vary by recipe, cup size, and how strong you build a drink, so treat them as a baseline to adjust from, not a rule:
- Latte — 3 g. The standard café dose for a milk drink. Some bars push to 2.5–3 g on iced lattes to keep the colour vivid through ice and cold milk, which raises the powder cost proportionally.
- Usucha (thin, whisked) — 2 g. A standard bowl of straight matcha, same dose as a latte.
- Koicha (thick, whisked) — 3–4 g. A concentrated ceremonial preparation, roughly double the dose, so roughly double the cost per serving and half the servings per kilogram.
From the 3 g latte baseline the arithmetic is simple: 1 kg ÷ 3 g ≈ 330 lattes. A 2 g usucha pour — thinner, whisked with water — stretches that to about 500 bowls; a heavy 4 g iced dose brings it down to about 250. Hold the dose you actually use in your head as you read the table below, because it is the single biggest lever on your cost per cup — bigger than the gap between two adjacent grades.
What does matcha cost per cup, grade by grade?
Here is the full eight-grade ladder converted to a cost per latte at the 3 g baseline, producer-direct, shipping billed separately. The formula in every row is the same: $/kg × 3 g ÷ 1,000 = $/latte. The typical-use column is a starting point, not a rule — plenty of cafés run a premium grade as their house latte, and that is a quality decision, not a mistake.
| Grade | Typical use | $/kg | $ / latte (3 g) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Izumo Reserve | Ceremonial, tasting service | 1,050 | $3.15 |
| Uji Signature | Ceremonial, premium usucha | 810 | $2.43 |
| Kagoshima Premium | Premium & signature lattes | 650 | $1.95 |
| Uji Premium | Premium latte & usucha | 550 | $1.65 |
| Kyoto-Kagoshima Premium | Everyday premium latte | 530 | $1.59 |
| Uji Classic | Café latte workhorse | 450 | $1.35 |
| Uji Standard | High-volume latte | 420 | $1.26 |
| Kagoshima Standard | High-volume & iced latte | 390 | $1.17 |
For a milk-drink programme, the three grades that matter most sit at the bottom of that table — Kagoshima Standard, Uji Standard, and Uji Classic ($1.17–$1.35 a cup). They are built to hold colour through milk and disperse fast on a busy bar, which is exactly what a latte needs. The premium and ceremonial grades above them earn their higher cost per cup in straight preparations and signature drinks where the flavour and colour carry the cup on their own. You can see how the bands map to preparation in the grades explained guide.
From cost per cup to menu price — what does margin look like?
Cost per cup only means something next to a menu price. Take a common example — a matcha latte on the menu at $5.50 — and put the workhorse grades against it. The table below shows the matcha powder as a share of the menu price; remember this is the powder only, before milk, cup, lid, and labour, which together usually cost more than the matcha:
| Grade | $/kg | $ / latte (3 g) | Powder as % of $5.50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kagoshima Standard | 390 | $1.17 | ~21% |
| Uji Standard | 420 | $1.26 | ~23% |
| Uji Classic | 450 | $1.35 | ~25% |
| Kagoshima Premium | 650 | $1.95 | ~35% |
The point of that table is not the exact percentages — your milk, cup, and labour costs decide your real margin, and those vary by market. The point is the shape: even stepping up to a premium grade at $1.95 a cup, the matcha is about a third of a $5.50 menu price. A signature drink built on Kagoshima Premium still leaves healthy room; the grade you pour is a flavour-and-colour decision the margin can easily absorb.
Volume tightens the number further. MATSU wholesale terms discount by quantity: 10% off at 5–9.9 kg, 15% off at 10–24.9 kg, and 20% off at 25–49.9 kg, with 50 kg+ handled custom. A 15% discount on Kagoshima Standard takes it from $390/kg to $331.50/kg — about $0.99 a cup instead of $1.17. Across a few thousand covers that is real money. Full terms and the per-grade figures are in the wholesale pricing guide.
Where do buyers get the numbers wrong?
The cost-per-cup maths is easy. The expensive mistakes happen around it, in the costs that never show up in a per-kilogram price.
- Confusing matcha with cheap green tea powder. A bulk “green tea powder” at a fraction of the price looks like an easy saving on the spreadsheet. It is usually un-shaded and milled from whole leaf including stem and vein, so it is duller and coarser — and it shows the moment it hits milk. Comparing it to a shade-grown, de-veined matcha on price alone is comparing two different products. There is more on that gap in why matcha is expensive.
- Ignoring remake and waste as a cost. A grade too coarse or dull turns a latte khaki or grits out in an iced drink — and those cups get remade or comped. Two or three remakes a day at a $5.50 menu price quietly erase whatever you saved buying a cheaper powder. The honest cost per cup is powder cost plus the drinks you throw away.
- Forgetting colour and dispersion are grade properties. Whether a latte stays vivid green through milk, and whether the powder disperses fast on a bar instead of clumping, is decided by the grade, not the barista. A latte-built grade holds colour and dissolves clean; pushing a coarse culinary powder into a milk drink to save cents costs more in remakes and lost reorders. See matcha for iced lattes for why cold service is the hardest test of this.
- Pricing off the wrong dose. A team that plans on 3 g but actually pulls 4 g scoops for colour is running a third over budget on every cup without noticing. Weigh a dose before you cost a menu — the difference between 3 g and 4 g is the difference between 330 and 250 cups per kilogram.
How do you lock the number down before you order?
The cleanest way to trust your cost per cup is to weigh a real dose of the actual grade and pull the drink you plan to sell. A gram scale, your milk, your cups, and the grade in your hand will tell you your true dose, your true yield per kilogram, and whether the colour holds — the three numbers a spreadsheet cannot give you. That is what a tasting kit is for.
Because MATSU is producer-direct — grower-level sourcing through MATSU, without the usual chain of trading houses, importers, and distributors — the grade you cost your menu around is the grade that keeps arriving, milled from the same de-veined leaf by the same people season after season. That is what makes a cost per cup you can plan on: a drink priced at $6 does not suddenly cost more, or start clumping, because a broker swapped in a coarser lot. A single producer-direct order runs up to roughly 30 kg — around 15,000 lattes at a 3 g latte dose — which is a lot of covers on one predictable number.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a matcha latte cost to make?
The matcha itself, at a 3 g latte dose, runs from about $1.17 a cup on a high-volume latte grade ($390/kg) to about $3.15 on a top ceremonial grade ($1,050/kg), producer-direct, shipping billed separately. Most café latte programmes sit in the $1.17–$1.35 band. That is only the powder — milk, cup, lid, and labour are separate and usually cost more than the matcha. Against a $5–6 menu price, the matcha in a workhorse-grade latte is a low single-digit-dollar cost, which is why grade choice affects quality far more than it dents margin.
How many lattes do you get from one kilogram of matcha?
At a standard 3 g latte dose, one kilogram makes about 330 drinks. A 2 g usucha pour stretches that toward 500 bowls; a heavier iced dose of 4 g, pushed for colour, brings it down to roughly 330–400. Koicha, whisked thick at 3–4 g, yields about 250–330 servings per kilogram. The MOQ is 1 kg per grade, so a first kilogram is roughly a week of covers for a busy matcha bar.
What grade should a café use to keep margins healthy?
For high-volume milk drinks, the workhorse band is Kagoshima Standard ($390/kg, ~$1.17/cup), Uji Standard ($420/kg, ~$1.26/cup), and Uji Classic ($450/kg, ~$1.35/cup) — all built to hold colour through milk and disperse fast on a busy bar. A premium signature drink on Kagoshima Premium ($650/kg, ~$1.95/cup) still leaves healthy room against a $5.50–6.50 menu price. The margin trap is not grade price; it is using a grade too coarse or dull to hold colour, so drinks get remade and thrown away.
Does a volume discount change the cost per cup much?
Yes, modestly. MATSU wholesale terms are 10% off at 5–9.9 kg, 15% off at 10–24.9 kg, and 20% off at 25–49.9 kg, with 50 kg+ custom. A 15% discount on a $390/kg latte grade takes it to $331.50/kg — about $0.99 a cup instead of $1.17. Across a few thousand covers that adds up.
Why is café matcha more expensive than cheap green tea powder?
Because they are not the same product. Cheap green tea powder is often un-shaded, ground from whole leaf including stem and vein, and dull in colour — it looks like a saving at $0.45 a cup until it turns a latte khaki, grits out in an iced drink, and gets remade. A shade-grown, de-veined, finely milled matcha holds its colour through milk and disperses cleanly, so fewer drinks are wasted. The real cost per cup is the powder cost plus the drinks you throw away, and a proper grade usually wins on the second number.
Three ways to begin
Cost per cup is something you confirm on a scale, not on a spreadsheet. Weigh your real dose, pull the drink you sell, and count the cups per kilogram before you commit. No card needed for the catalogue; we reply within 24 hours with grade advice.
Tasting Kit — $99
Three flagship grades — Uji Signature, Kagoshima Premium, Uji Classic — at 3 × 30 g, delivery included. About fifteen lattes per grade: weigh the dose, check colour and yield. Credited in full to a first order of 1 kg or more.
Order a tasting kit →The catalogue
Full specifications, sensory profiles, recommended preparations, wholesale terms, and current pricing across all eight grades ($390–$1,050 per kilogram before shipping) — to your inbox within 24 hours.
Request the catalogue →Grade diagnostic
A short walkthrough that returns a shortlist of grades matched to your drinks, preparation method, and volume — so the cost per cup lands on a grade that fits.
Find your grade →Or order the $99 Tasting Kit — three flagship grades, credited to your first order. See how producer-direct sourcing keeps the cost per cup predictable.