Talk:Matcha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Matcha article.
Article policies
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Japan, a project to improve all Japan-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other Japan-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Japan To-do:
Food Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.
Notice Much discussion has gone into the spelling of the term 抹茶. Please read the Spelling Debate page under the Archives for more information. Altering the spelling in the main article without consensus will be considered vandalism.
Archive
Archives


Contents

[edit] Pre-Japanese Ritual Use?

Is there any evidence for pre-Japanese use of matcha as a sacrament in Chan buddhism? Alexwoods 12:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have any industrial-grade references on had, but everybody seems to pretty much agree that matcha didn't exist in Japan before Zen monk Eisai brought it in from China, which would seem to imply that Zen (Chan) monks in China were using it before. The "sacrament" wording is likely inappropriate though, so I've excised that bit. Jpatokal 13:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I don't dispute that it was brought to Japan by Eisai, that is well documented. My issue is with the claim that it was used ritually in Chan Buddhism in China at all. Everything I've read on the origins of the tea ceremony, including the Wikipedia page, indicated that it developed in Japan. Alexwoods 14:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

As I recall it was used as an offering, but I don't have a source for that. Exploding Boy 15:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is it spelled "matcha"?

When written in hiragana, its まっちゃ, which when rominized, is maccha. Can someone explain this?? THROUGH FIRE JUSTICE IS SERVED! 21:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

When written in hiragana, its まっちゃ Yes indeed. / which when rominized, is maccha. No. Or anyway not when it's romanized in this way, which for better or worse is the way used within en:WP. And if Japanese weren't romanized in this way, the only obvious alternative would be to romanize it in this way (or a minor variant thereof), which for this word would result not in "maccha" but in mattya. -- Hoary 23:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

"Maccha" is the correct spelling. However, some conservative north americans still hold on to a dated version of the Hepburn system. It is similar to spelling espresso "expresso", a spelling with a history, but not used by the Italians. More info under espresso. ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goatea (talk • contribs) 07:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. There is no version of any standardized system under which まっちゃ is romanized "maccha". Jpatokal (talk) 10:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

No textbook written after 2000 will have matcha in it. Only maccha. When I was in Japan, my profs explained this to me. Ask any Japanese person to write maccha and they will spell it maccha. The government is trying to clean up Hepburn, and the tc was one of the things to go because it's rare inside the country to spell this way. "Kit Kat"'s chocolate bar has maccha spelled on it, etc. It's just the north americans. ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goatea (talk • contribs) 23:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of opinion, why doesn't this article say also spelled maccha? I tried writing that and it got deleted. People should know it's not a spelling mistake to spell it maccha. ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goatea (talk • contribs) 23:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

We won't budge on the issue. Even if we would, we would ask you to prove Wikipedia:Reliable sources which *explicitly* say that maccha is used instead of matcha. We beg ourselves to the US LOC system. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
This non-issue is dead, as explained here. And a redirect from "maccha" to "matcha" fixes everything. -- Hoary (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I totally took your advice and read the archived discussion. I called the Japanese Language Division and they said they don't recognize "matcha" as legitimate. They said only "maccha" and "mattya" are legit. They also said most people spell it "maccha", and they are okay with that.

~~goatea —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goatea (talk • contribs) 06:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The Japanese Language Division, you say? Care to share the phone number? Jpatokal (talk) 07:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh wow... :D TomorrowTime (talk) 08:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The number is +81-3-5253-4111 Ask for the language division. Goatea (talk) 11:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, that's Monbukagakusho's switchboard. I'm almost, but not quite, tempted to try! Jpatokal (talk) 13:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen the spelling "maccha" in Japan. Or outside Japan either, for that matter. Only in a few cases online. "Matcha" is by far and away the most common spelling. And I've never seen any romaji at all on the Kit Kat Matcha: it's written in kanji. Also, as indicated previously, Monbusho has nothing to do with how we write Japanese words in English. Why must we go through this continually?

By the way, it's also worth noting (although it doesn't have direct influence on how we spell it here) that every other language Wikipedia article on the tea spells it like we do, including the Chinese article. Exploding Boy (talk) 17:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that Goatea's sole contributions have been to this discussion. Perhaps s/he's simply a new manifestation of the last objector? Exploding Boy (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence Exploding Boy. It's interesting that there is no way that you guys are open to the possibility that you might be wrong. I mean I don't really care either way. I just thought it was interesting cuz I have seen different spellings and I like the tea. It's kind of sad for all those companies who spell it matcha, I would say. But if you guys think the Japanese government has no rights over the spelling of the word, then enjoy your little matcha club. I'm sure there will be more and more people who start to question this. But as long as the same 5 people keep tabs on this article, I'm sure you can fend them off. Good luck people. And it would be interesting if one of you did try phoning and explained your case to the government. You might come across as open minded to change. Peace. Goatea (talk) 03:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

And for the record, I am a different "objector". Goatea (talk) 03:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do not archive. It is important that this article remains open for others to voice their opinion. Goatea (talk) 07:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This non-issue has been done to death, Goatea. Enough. -- Hoary (talk) 12:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stolen Article

Large parts of this article have been copy pasted from http://www.afternoonteaparty.com/2006/12/08/matcha-green-tea/ --Rektide (talk) 19:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe you're being too rash. That blog entry states this article as one of its sources... TomorrowTime (talk) 20:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with TomorrowTime. Also look at the date the article was received on afternoonteaparty.com (it says December 8, 2006). Then go to the Wikipedia article Matcha (not the Talk page) and click History. Scroll down to the last version before that and click it to see what was on Wikipedia before it was on afternoonteaparty. I think you'll agree the copying and pasting went the other way. Fg2 (talk) 20:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of antioxidant or other health properties

Matcha contains EGCG & Catechins, giving it a uniquely high Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. This is poorly referenced in this post. Matcha is also rich in Chlorophyll

[edit] Korean name

Powdered green tea appears to be used in some Korean products. What is the Korean name? Badagnani (talk) 03:22, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably it's the Korean pronunciation of 抹茶. However I'm not sure we need to include it - whatever it is - in the article as it's not clear how that would be relevant. I don't think matcha is particularly popular in Korea and I note that there doesn't seem to be a Korean-language Wikipedia page for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexwoods (talk • contribs) 13:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Powdered green tea is mentioned at hotteok. I think it's used as an ingredient in some special kinds of noodles too. Badagnani (talk) 18:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So it would be 말차 (malcha). This item shows up extensively on Korean websites: [1] Badagnani (talk) 18:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Good detective work, but I don't see how this is relevant to the article. There is no page for 말차 in the Korean wiki, and only 29,000 google hits, most of which seem to be referring to the Japanese product. By way of contrast, the English term gets over 900,000 hits and the kanji / hanzi over 7 million. The most I would say about that is that Japanese matcha appears to be known in Korea, which is not really information that should be in the article, unless you want to start a section of countries in which matcha is known to exist. It's clearly not a popular drink in Korea the way green tea is. If you feel like putting some energy into this subject, I for one would love to see more info on Wikipedia about native Korean green teas. Alexwoods (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)