Made with white chocolate, butter, and cream and dusted with Japanese green tea powder, this decadent Matcha Chocolate (or Matcha Nama Chocolate) is simply irresistible. It’s rich with a truffle-like texture and just the right touch of sweetness.
This Matcha Chocolate, or what we call Matcha Nama Chocolate (抹茶生チョコレート) in Japan, simply melts in your mouth.
As I was testing this recipe, I knew I won’t be able to stop eating them so Mr. JOC took them to work. He told me later, “The green tea chocolate disappeared in seconds.” I promise you, it’s really good!
Green tea powder, or matcha (抹茶), has a unique bitter taste to it. The flavor of “matcha” is quite different from the green tea served at Japanese restaurants. Matcha is typically used for making tea at the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. This tea tends to be thick and exceptionally bitter, but it goes quite well with wagashi (和菓子), a traditional Japanese confectioneries that are very sweet by itself.
The color of matcha is a bright, beautiful green color, so if your matcha powder doesn’t have that nice vivid hue to it, your matcha is well past its prime. The green tea powder is also quite pricey, especially if it is of tea ceremony quality, but the culinary grade is good enough for baking and making these chocolates.
As you may already know, green tea delivers a healthy dose of antioxidants and cancer-fighting power. Catechins in green tea are also known to have many beneficial health properties and matcha has greater potential health benefits than other green tea.
In Japan, there are many varieties of green tea chocolate in stores, including green tea Pocky’s, Melty Kiss, Kit Kat, and the popular ROYCE’ Chocolate.
When I made ROYCE’ copycat Nama Chocolate two years ago, I received many requests for the green tea version. I love anything with green tea, so I’m really happy to finally share this green tea version with you this year. Right in time for Valentine’s Day!
The cooking process for this recipe is very similar to the regular Nama Chocolate recipe, but white chocolate is used instead of regular chocolate. My only advice for you is to work fast to melt the white chocolate while the cream is warm.
Rich, yet not so sweet, decadent truffle-like matcha green tea chocolate, it is simply irresistible. If you love green tea sweets, this will be the ultimate treat for you.
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Matcha Chocolate
Video
Ingredients
- 14 oz white chocolate (you‘ll need 4 Lindt White Chocolate Swiss Classic Bars and measure the weight to get 400 g; see Notes)
- ½ cup heavy (whipping) cream (see Notes)
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 Tbsp matcha (green tea powder)
- 2 tsp matcha (green tea powder) (for sprinkling)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients. You will also need 1 8- x 8-inch (20 x 20 cm) baking dish and line it with parchment paper.
- Chop 14 oz white chocolate into small pieces so it will melt quickly.
- Cut 2 Tbsp unsalted butter into small pieces.
- Add ½ cup heavy (whipping) cream into a small saucepan and bring it ALMOST to a boil over medium heat. Keep an eye on the cream; when you see bubbles around the saucepan, remove from the heat.
- Immediately add the white chocolate and butter. With a rubber spatula, mix all together.
- The mixture will start to solidify, so melt the chocolate and butter while the cream is still warm.
- Once the mixture is smooth, sift and add 2 Tbsp matcha (green tea powder) into the mixture.
- Mix and combine together until the color is homogeneous.
- Into a prepared the baking dish lined with parchment paper, pour the green tea chocolate mixture.
- Tap the baking dish a few times on the kitchen countertop to remove any air bubbles. Flatten the surface with the rubber spatula if necessary. Refrigerate for 4–5 hours (or overnight).
- Lift the parchment paper to remove the green tea chocolate from the baking dish. Run the sharp knife under hot water to warm up the knife and wipe it dry completely.
- Slice the 8- x 8-inch (20 x 20 cm) chocolate block into 4 smaller squares, then cut each square into 9 small pieces.
- Dust 2 tsp matcha (green tea powder) on top of the chocolate. Store the chocolate in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Serve chilled.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in the refrigerator for 2–3 days, but it‘s best to enjoy it sooner.
Notes
- Make sure the bowls and utensils you are using are perfectly dry. Even a small amount of water/steam can “seize” the chocolate melting process.
- When buying white chocolate, make sure that it contains cocoa butter because some inferior brands contain vegetable fat. White chocolate should be ivory-colored (white chocolate made with vegetable fat is white-colored).
- The fat content for heavy (whipping) cream is 38%, which is used to whip cream.
- Separation (oil came out of the chocolate) happens when you get the chocolate too hot. When chocolate gets too hot, the cocoa butter separates from the solids, and there is no way to salvage it (although you can bake with it and it tastes fine). The best way to prevent separation is to use gentle heat (simmer on lowest heat) and stir frequently. Since we’re not using a double boiler in this recipe, make sure you do not bring the heavy whipping cream to a full boil. Remove from heat as soon as you saw bubbles around the edges of the saucepan.
- Seizing happens when moisture is introduced to melted chocolate (even a tiny amount of liquid or steam). It happens all of a sudden from a smooth bowl of liquid chocolate to a lumpy, grainy mass of chocolate.
Thank you so much for the recipe – this worked out perfectly after 3 goes, my chocolate kept separating haha. Just as a heads up for chocolate separating, I stirred in a teaspoon of hot cream at a time until it all came back together. Not sure if it compromised the taste but it was still super delicious 😀
I also managed to find the maeda matcha you recommended to use in Australia – it was absolutely gorgeous as the other matcha brands I’ve used weren’t great at all. Hope I can find it again and try more of your recipes!
Hi Berny! Thank you so much for the tip for chocolate separating! Maeda-en brand is pretty good. Not SUPER expensive and their culinary level is pretty good and just right price compared to other brands. 🙂 Hope you enjoy other green tea recipes too. Thank you for your kind feedback!
I made this yesterday and I found that the chocolate, even after being in the refrigerator overnight, was not hard. It was a taffy like consistency and was hard to get off the parchment paper because it was so sticky. Still, it was delicious and my family loved it. I’ll try again to see if I can get it right next time.
Hi Olivia! Thank you for trying this recipe! Usually when the chocolate doesn’t solidly, it’s the type of white chocolate (it there vegetable fat in ingredients instead of cocoa butter?). Hope next time will work! 🙂
I made this chocolate and it is so good! I just used regular hershey’s white chocolate chips, since Lindt chocolate was the only other available bar and was too expensive for me. I took some to school to share with my friends, and they loved it! None of the troubleshooting stuff happened, and this was so easy to make. I’m going to try making the Nama chocolate next!
Hi Sera! I’m so happy to hear yours came out well and your friends also enjoyed it! Yeah it’s simple and easy to make, but it can easily go wrong if you don’t use the right ingredients or missed some instructions… Thank you for your kind feedback. Hope you enjoy Nama Chocolate too! 🙂
Hi, I tried making this with cadbury white chocolate which has the same sugar level as lindt’s. However the end product is way too sweet and is way sweeter than that of royce =( Am i doing something wrong?
Hi Rafael! Hmm I’m not sure. I didn’t particularly felt the white chocolate was too sweet but it depends on the personal prerence. Maybe you can find other white chocolate that’s less sweet than one you used?
Not sure whether if it’s because the Cocoa seperated from the chocs as I overheated it or it’s just me :/ can thickened cream with the same milk fat content be substituted for whipping cream? My chocolates tastes grainy instead of it being smooth too. 🙁
Hi Rafael! Once you overcook the chocolate, it’s very hard to fix it as I mentioned in the Note section.
The two most common problems of working with chocolate are separating and seizing.
1) Separation (oil came out of the chocolate) happens when you get the chocolate too hot. When chocolate gets too hot, the cocoa butter separates from the solids, and there is no way to salvage it (although you can bake with it and it tastes fine). The best way to prevent separation is to use gentle heat (simmer on lowest heat) and stir frequently. Since we’re not using a double boiler in this recipe, make sure you do not bring the heavy whipping cream to a full boil. Remove from heat as soon as you saw bubbles around the edges of the saucepan.
one more thing! despsite adding 2 heaping TBS of matcha powder, my final product still tastes like white chocolate instead of matcha. How do I tell if my chocolate is good or bad? I was using cadbury dream white chocolate.
I checked the ingredients of the chocolate (https://www.cadbury.com.au/Products/Blocks-of-Chocolate/Cadbury-Dream-Block/Cadbury-Dream-Ingredients.aspx) and it uses cocoa butter and doesn’t contain vegetable fat. So this chocolate should be good! Just make sure not to overheat the chocolate next time. 🙂
Can you use dark or milk chocolate instead of white?
Hi Angi! If you want to have green tea chocolate, you have to use white chocolate so that the chocolate will have beautiful green color and flavor of matcha. Dark or milk chocolate will be too strong for matcha. 🙂
Thanks for sharing Nami
i would like to ask something
how to reduce the sweetness from the white chocolate ?
because the end product is too sweet for me
and if i add more cream, it would cost more and very fattening
if i add more matcha it would be too powdery bitter but very sweet
Hi Michael! Hm, that is a tough question! I believe you could probably find good quality white chocolate that is not too sweet, but I’m not sure which brand… Maybe experiment with different kind? It might cost a bit more if you end up with expensive chocolate…
Hi,
Do you know if I can use 5% light cream instead of heavy whipping cream? Will it work?
Hi Emily! Unfortunately that doesn’t work. Sorry! 🙁
Hi~ My hojicha cravings are back and I’ve been searching for tea-based desserts. Would you, by chance, know where to purchase hojicha powder (chain grocery/online)? I would love to make these nama chocos ♡
I’ve never used hojicha powder but I think you can grind (or use food processor) the hojicha and make it by yourself?
Hi 🙂
I tried this yesterday and it turned out awesome although I modified the amount of ingredients cos I used 7.05oz chocolate^^
Hi Mimi! I’m so happy to hear yours came out well! Thanks so much for your kind feedback. 🙂
Thank you for easy to understand and follow recipe! I made it for my husband and give him these for Valentine:) It was yummy and easy to make, I love matcha sweet and these were awesome!!
Hi Payapon! I’m so happy to hear you tried this recipe! Hope your husband enjoyed it. 🙂 Thank you for your kind feedback!
Can I use other brand white chocolate? Like Cadbury?
Hi Alice! I’m sorry for my late response. I was traveling over the holiday weekend and I wasn’t checking email. I’ve never used this brand and I just checked Cadbury website to see their white chocolate ingredients (link below). I don’t think this brand is high quality enough to be able to use it. It includes “vegetable fat” and because of that the chocolate will most likely not solidify. You will need high quality white chocolate for this recipe. 🙂 Hope this helps.
https://www.cadbury.co.uk/products/bubbly-white-chocolate-centre-2350?p=2350
I made this last night. The taste is very good and I enjoyed it very much. I think if I were to make this again I would half the recipe as it is unfortunate that my co-workers and friends have very limited palates —“unfortunate” for them that is. Anyway, the reason that I am writing is that the recipe seemed to work out perfectly no seizing, graininess or separation. But I was wondering if the end product is intended to be so soft. I ate some right out of the refrigerator and it was soft, like a soft fudge. Once it totally came up to room temperature it was practically spreadable. I ended spreading on some thin Korean biscuits to cut a little of the richness. Just as an FYI I think I used tea ceremony grade matcha considering the price. That could be one reason that I am so enamored with the flavor. Also I was wondering about freezing the chocolate? I enjoyed making this recipe as much as other recipes that I have tried on your website. Thank you very much.
It looks like you already addressed the question about freezing. I apologize for not have investigated more 🙂
Hi Cristina! Nama chocolate must be refrigerated all the time as it does melt as soon as you leave it outside for a few minutes. It’s supposed to be like that. It melts in your mouth. 🙂
Your matcha flavor must be amazing… It depends on the brand and quality but yeah sounds like you had matcha heaven. =)
Hi,
I want to make these for my boyfriend but he doesn’t like sweet things too much, so I think the white choco might be too much for him! Can I substitute the white choco for dark? Will the reciepe still work okay?
Hi Brittany! I think the regular Nama Chocolate with dark chocolate might work for your BF. 🙂
https://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/nama-chocolate/
Sorry I completely missed to explain… For green tea chocolate, you need to use white chocolate and it won’t work with regular chocolate as green tea flavor and color will be lost. Hope this helps!
How long can the chocolate last ?
Hi Mavis! It’s about 3 days. I recommend to enjoy it soon. 🙂
Hi! I was wondering about how long they lasted. I see it says you can keep it refrigerated for 2-3 days but eat soon. Is that how long it lasts? I was wondering if it were possible to ship them.. Would there be anyway to extend their shelf life?
Hi Emma! Shipping won’t work… it’ll be too warm and the chocolate will melt. It has to be kept in the fridge all times (except when you are serving). It never lasted more than 3 days in my house, but probably you can keep for 7 days… it has fresh cream in it and I won’t keep it too long for safety reason. Hope this helps! 🙂