Matcha or coffee? Two cups, two rituals

That green bowl is everywhere

You walk into a café and half the queue is ordering something green. Your feed is full of videos of matcha being whisked with a little bamboo whisk. Your coworker doesn't drink coffee anymore — it's matcha lattes now. And sooner or later you wonder: should I switch too?

The good news: there's no wrong answer. Matcha and coffee are two different drinks with one shared hero — caffeine. The difference is how much of it there is, and what keeps it company.

Caffeine: it depends on the bowl

Matcha is the whole green tea leaf, ground into a fine powder — you don't steep it and throw the leaves away, you drink all of it. That's why it has more caffeine than regular green tea. How much exactly? It depends. Studies find roughly 19 to 44 mg of caffeine per gram of powder, and a bowl usually takes 1–2 g. So anywhere between about 20 and 90 mg, depending on the powder and on your scoop.

A mug of filter coffee has about 90 mg. A cup of SmartyCoffee has 100 mg — exactly 100 every time, because we top the Arabica up with pure caffeine until it gets there. If you like knowing how much you're drinking, there's no guesswork here.

L-theanine: what the two have in common

Here's something not many people know. One of the reasons matcha is so loved is L-theanine — an amino acid found naturally in tea leaves. Matcha bushes are grown in the shade, under bamboo mats, so their leaves keep more L-theanine than those of ordinary green tea.

SmartyCoffee starts from the same idea, just the other way round: in a cup of coffee, the L-theanine is added next to the caffeine. So the caffeine-and-L-theanine pair is in both — in matcha by nature, in ours by recipe.

Here, the caffeine has company

This is where the paths split. Matcha is one ingredient — green tea, and that's the beauty of it. In SmartyCoffee, 13 more actives are built around the caffeine and the L-theanine:

• Chromium — helps maintain normal blood glucose levels.
• Choline — contributes to normal fat metabolism.
• MCT from coconut oil — just C8 and C10, the medium-chain fats.
• Hydrolyzed collagen — second on the ingredient list, ahead of the coffee itself.
• Coenzyme Q10 — the one people usually buy in a separate bottle.
• Taurine, L-tyrosine, L-carnitine and green coffee — plus Ceylon cinnamon, ginger and black pepper.

There are six B vitamins in here, and they help reduce tiredness and fatigue. With about 1.7 g of protein per serving, the cup even counts as a source of protein.

Taste and ritual

Matcha has a fresh, grassy green-tea taste and a ritual people love: powder in a bowl, a little hot water (not boiling — about 80 °C), and whisking until it foams. A matcha latte is the same thing, made with milk.

SmartyCoffee is coffee: Arabica, smooth on the palate but medium in strength, in Mocha or Choco Fudge. The ritual is shorter: a scoop into a cup of water or milk, a few seconds of stirring, and you're done. Hot or cold, it dissolves in seconds — frappé-style works too. Sugar is under 0.1 g per serving, and the Mocha has no sweetener at all.

So which one?

If you love the taste of green tea and the whisking ritual, matcha is your cup. If you love the taste of coffee but like the idea of caffeine with company, that's exactly what SmartyCoffee is: coffee with L-theanine and 13 more actives around it. And nothing stops you from having both — coffee in the morning, matcha in the afternoon, or the other way round.

How much is sensible

For a healthy adult, up to about 200 mg of caffeine at a time and up to about 400 mg a day are considered safe. That counts everything — coffee, matcha and anything else with caffeine in it. One cup of SmartyCoffee is 100 mg. Not for children, or during pregnancy or breastfeeding.

Want to give it a try? There are two flavors — Mocha and Choco Fudge.