The internet loves a duel — butter or olive oil, running or weights, breakfast or fasting, coffee or matcha. As soon as two things can fit in the same frame, someone will explain which one wins, as though human life were an elimination tournament.
Matcha has been handed a very convenient role in that contest. Coffee is supposedly the nervous old world: a sharp energy spike, trembling hands, one more cup and then a crash. Matcha is its calm younger alternative — the one that promises focus without anxiety, and energy that runs flat and elegantly until the end of the day.
As marketing, the story is excellent. As physiology, it is a little more complicated.
Both coffee and matcha contain caffeine. The amount in any given serving depends on the product, dose and preparation, so sentences like "matcha has exactly half the caffeine of coffee" say more about the desire for simple comparisons than about actual drinks. Espresso, V60 and large cold brew can differ drastically from each other; the same is true of matcha prepared with different amounts of powder.
Caffeine, regardless of which cup it comes from, remains the same molecule. Its primary effect on alertness is tied to blocking adenosine receptors, which quiets the signal of drowsiness for a period. Matcha does not contain a special kind of caffeine that knows it was bought at a wellness café.
But matcha does carry a compound that makes this story more interesting: L-theanine.
L-theanine is an amino acid characteristic of tea. Because of it, researchers have spent years exploring the idea that the combination of caffeine and L-theanine may produce a different cognitive profile than caffeine alone. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials published in 2025 found small to moderate short-term effects of the theanine-caffeine combination on certain measures of attention and mood — but the authors simultaneously stressed the substantial uncertainty around the size and consistency of those effects.
That is interesting. It is not the same as claiming that one cup of matcha guarantees three hours of zen focus.
Studies typically use precisely measured doses of isolated L-theanine and caffeine, whereas matcha in a cup arrives as a far more complex product whose composition shifts with cultivar, cultivation, processing and the amount of powder used. It is not serious to promise every guest the same physiological effect simply because the drink is green.
And yet people genuinely report feeling different after matcha than after coffee. That should not be dismissed. Subjective experience depends on caffeine dose, how quickly we drink, whether we have eaten, our tolerance, sleep, stress and expectations — and matcha, alongside caffeine, does deliver L-theanine and catechins. It is therefore possible to have a different experience without needing to turn it into a universal biological law.
The same applies to the much-cited energy crash. Caffeine produces no energy in either coffee or matcha. It shifts the sense of alertness, and when its effect fades, fatigue that already existed can become noticeable again. If we have slept five hours, neither an espresso nor a ceremonial matcha can negotiate with that fact.
At VERA, the framing of matcha good, coffee bad completely misses the point. We love both products precisely because they are not the same. Specialty coffee has its origin, aromatic profile, roast and culture. Matcha has tencha, shading, umami, L-theanine, catechins and its own tradition. There is no reason to demean one of the finest drinks in the world in order to sell the other.
A far more useful question is: what do you feel like drinking right now?
In the morning you may want an espresso. After lunch, a V60. Some days a Matcha Shot, some days a Matcha Raf with coconut milk, in summer a cold Iced Matcha. If you are very sensitive to caffeine, timing and dose are probably more important than the identity of the drink. If coffee makes you jittery, a different dose or a different drink may suit you better. If you love the taste of coffee and it agrees with you, there is no scientific reason to replace it simply because the internet has declared a new winning team.
There is, however, one thing we look at more seriously for matcha than for a simple question of what we feel like drinking today: what we combine it with. Matcha is not only caffeine and flavour. One reason it is interesting is its catechin profile, particularly EGCG — so it makes little sense to us to routinely pair a premium tea with an ingredient for which human evidence exists showing it can reduce the bioavailability of certain galloylated catechins. That is why our matcha menu is not built on cow's milk.
Wellness culture often does a peculiar thing: it takes two good things and persuades us we must choose one. As if olive oil and avocado were in conflict, or as if a person must belong forever to either the coffee camp or the matcha camp.
We would rather leave both on the table.
Coffee and matcha are not rivals. They are two different products with different flavours, traditions and chemical profiles. If both are quality and we understand how caffeine affects us, there is no need to make a cup into an identity.
Sometimes the best drink is the one that suits us better that day. And sometimes, much more simply, it is just the one we feel like drinking.
We claim ours is the best matcha in Serbia. If it is not — we will refund you. VERA, Nikole Spasića 4, Stari Grad, Belgrade.
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