Matcha grinding equipment

Currently, the mainstream grinding equipment on the market is divided into three major categories: ball mills, continuous ball mills, and stone mills.

1 Ball Milling machine

The ball mill is currently the most commonly used for matcha grinding, with a single batch capacity of 20~25kg. After operating for 10~20 hours, the material is discharged at once, averaging 2kg of grinding per hour. The primary drawback of the ball mill is its inability to achieve continuous production, requiring manual feeding and discharging. Additionally, heat generated during the grinding process can affect matcha quality. Therefore, ball mills are typically placed in air-conditioned rooms to maintain a relatively low ambient temperature, thereby controlling the heat.

2 Continuous ball mill

The continuous ball mill is an upgraded version of the ball mill with higher automation, equipped with a cooling unit to control the temperature of the grinding chamber. Typically, it processes 20 kg per hour, with 200 kg of grinding balls loaded in the chamber. However, such a system has higher costs and is suitable for large-scale production

3 Stone Mill

The history of stone mills is long, dating back to manual pushing and pulling. Nowadays, electric motors have been added to achieve electric grinding. Compared to the latter two, stone mills are much less efficient. Due to their slow rotation speed and low heat generation, stone mills produce finer powder. Stone mills can be further categorized into black gold stone mills and blue stone mills. Because black gold stone mills are more expensive, they are made in smaller sizes. For the same size, black gold stone mills cost 2 to 3 times that of blue stone mills. A standard blue stone mill produces 500g of matcha powder per hour, while a standard black gold stone mill yields 50g of matcha powder per hour.