Once largely confined to specialist cafés, bright green matcha now appears in everything from supermarket desserts to protein powders, flavoured chocolates and ready-to-drink lattes. Earlier this year, even McDonald’s launched a Vanilla Matcha Frappé, cementing its status as one of the year’s biggest food trends. Yet matcha’s popularity isn’t simply about flavour. It’s frequently marketed as a drink that boosts concentration, reduces stress, speeds up metabolism and even helps prevent chronic disease. These claims are often reinforced by references to its long history in Japanese tea ceremonies and its traditional use by Buddhist monks to promote calm alertness during meditation.