If you’re looking to enhance your typing with a switch that truly thocks, you should first start with the KiiBOOM Matcha Lattes. They are a delight to use thanks to their housing and heavy spring. For gaming, they’re fantastic for those wanting to make meaningful keypresses without resistance or concerns of accidental presses.
A short while ago, KiiBOOM sent me a LOOP65 mechanical keyboard to review. The long and short of my review is that I just loved the keyboard to the point of almost switching to a 65% keyboard as a daily driver (even though I use many more buttons for gaming). That said, one thing stood out from the LOOP65 – its switches. Aside from how KiiBOOM has consistently impressed me with their keyboards’ build quality and acoustics, the switches in the LOOP65 were thocky, smooth, and had just the right amount of tension I personally prefer in my keyboard switches. When I got the opportunity to review these switches in other keyboards, I was excited to put these switches through their paces. They sounded and felt fantastic in the LOOP65, but what about in another keyboard?
This review might be shorter than some of our prior peripheral reviews, but this should be expected. This is a review about mechanical switches, and only mechanical switches. As such, expect me to talk at length about their thockiness, feeling, and most importantly, compatibility with gaming. Without further ado, let’s get to it.
Like other mechanical keyboard enthusiasts, I am on a perpetual journey to uncover the true THOCK of a mechanical keyboard. The audible thock that emerges when using a keyboard is a sensational sound – it’s our white whale when navigating the deep waters of the mechanical keyboard landscape. That said, when something comes along that sounds delightfully thocky, it’s worth sharing.
KiiBoom’s Matcha Latte switches are linear 5-pins and come pre-installed on a LOOP65 keyboard, but they can also be purchased separately for $15.99 for a set of 35 switches (~46 cents per switch, if I am mathing correctly). Future versions of these switches will be coming soon, but this specific set of switches are heavy, featuring a 55g spring (operating force of 55g). They have a slightly sensitive pre-travel of 1.6mm, which is great for gaming.
Like most switches these days, the Matcha Lattes’ housing is composed of a blend of PC (polycarbonate) and nylon. Nylon housings generally produce a deeper “thock” sound than PC, but they’re not as pleasant to “break in” after long-term use. Most switch manufacturers use different variations of nylon, PC, and POM (discussed below) in their switches’ housing, meaning that two nylon-housed switches may have entirely different sound profiles and feeling. I digress, though, these switches’ construction blends together a composite of thockiness and linearity that makes for smooth typing.
The Matcha Lattes’ housing is a soft green, which makes sense given their namesake. From afar, these switches stand out and are similar in color to an iced matcha latte (green tea mixed with milk). Most users won’t be able to see the color of these switches when they’re fully covered by cherry-style keycaps, but should you use shinethrough or fully transparent keycaps (like those on KiiBOOM’s Phantom-series of keyboards), the soft green will stand out from the keyboard. KiiBOOM describes these switches’ darker green stems as being similar to a shade of mint – I’m leaning more toward forest green. Yes, I’m that nitpicky.
The Matcha Lattes’ forest green stems are made from POM (polyoxymethylene). I love POM stems due to how they are constructed to be self-lubricated by design. Even more, they tend to have slightly less friction than PC and nylon. The resultant feel of the stems ends up being smooth when pressed down and released. My only complaint is that the stems have a light degree of wobble in each direction (north, south, east, and west). It’s not enough to cause slippage and/or concerns of keycap instability, but it’s noticeable coming from other switches with dustproof/box mounts instead of the standard cross mount (+) that are seen on most switches these days.
Minor wobble aside, the Matcha Lattes feel and sound sublime. I’ve used my fair share of linear switches, and these take the cake when it comes to their smoothness of use and resultant thock sounds. Their PC and nylon construction facilitates a pronounced thockiness while the POM’s self-lubrication ensures that each press is silky smooth. During my own testing, I was able to get a plastic-framed keyboard (with gasket mounting) to emit deeper sounds with these switches than anything else I’ve used before. When testing them with an aluminum-framed keyboard, the deep thocks persisted, albeit louder with a slight echo.
The current version of the Matcha Lattes come with a heavy 55g spring, but future versions will come with a lighter spring (38g, 45g). In practice, a heavier spring means that more operating force is needed when pressing down on the switch. Typists and competitive gamers might not enjoy a heavier switch because of the potential of strain on the fingers, but if you have heavy keycaps (say, ceramic keycaps?!) this wouldn’t be an issue. On the other hand, a heavier spring means that there’s less of a potential for false positive inputs, so if you’re the kind of typist/gamer who is a haphazard typist, then you’ll be in good hands.
For the sake of science, I tested these switches with my personal set of Cerakey’s V2 Ceramic Keycaps. These keycaps are slightly heavier than other PBT keycaps, but you can still use them with lighter switches. In practice and my experience, the majority of the keycaps’ (letters, numbers, and function keys) weight slightly impacted a switch’s operating force. Put differently, a heavier keycap meant that switches were easier to push. For the Matcha Lattes, being paired with ceramic keycaps like Cerakey’s resulted in an operating force similar to Gateron’s Dopamine Blues and Epomaker’s Wisteria Linears (both of which have an operating force of ~45g). Of course, the Matcha Lattes weren’t able to adequately support the heavy ceramic spacebar, so stick to using a far heavier switch for the spacebar alone.
If you’re familiar with switches and are trying to compare these switches to other, and potentially more notable, brands of switches, the closest comparison I was able to find in testing was the Akko V3 Creamy Yellow Pros. The Creamy Yellow Pros have a slightly lesser total travel and operating force but a higher pre-travel. They’re notable in that they are heavier switches that produce a prominent thocks, making them frequently recommended amongst Redditors and other mechanical keyboard hobbyists. When testing them side by side, the Matcha Lattes’ sounds were deeper and far more satisfying. I’m sure that if you were to mod the V3 Creamy Yellow Pros, you could get a similar acoustic profile, but the Matcha Lattes produce this sound out of the box. The only drawback with the Matcha Lattes is that they have a smidge more wobble, but most won’t notice it.
The Matcha Lattes lack any form of LED diffuser or condenser, meaning that LED shinethrough is sharp. When fully installed (with keycaps, too), light shines directly upward to the point of the LED being visible from certain angles. The lack of a diffuser is unfortunate because of how the light is not spread and uniformly distributed across the keyboard. The matcha green housing does not spread light, either, so if you’re looking for a switch that can distribute light out-of-the-box, you won’t get that from the Matcha Lattes.
Let’s face it, though, if you’re considering purchasing a standalone set of switches for your keyboard, you’re most likely focused on a physical or audible fine-tuning rather than visual adjustments. I just hope that future iterations of this specific switch have a light diffuser to make keyboards truly glow.
Seeing as we’re a gaming website, I tested out the switches playing games of various intensity. For consistency’s sake, you can take a gander at my original review of the KiiBOOM LOOP65 (which uses these switches!). However, there are a few elements that bear repeating if you’re considering swapping out your current switches for the Matcha Lattes.
The Matcha Lattes were more than adequate for higher-intensity gaming. As mentioned earlier in this review, heavier springs require slightly more force, meaning that I made far less mistakes when playing FPS titles like ANGER FOOT and VALORANT. This came at the cost of being able to peek and make rapid fire inputs, but I prefer accuracy over quantity when it comes to these games. For everything else (meaning lower- and medium-intensity games), the Matcha Lattes held up quite well. When I was playing NINZA and replaying Cult of the Lamb, my fingers were able to glide over the keys and get the smooth yet satisfying THOCK.
If you’re looking to enhance your typing with a switch that truly thocks, you should first start with the KiiBOOM Matcha Lattes. They are a delight to use thanks to their housing and heavy spring. For gaming, they’re fantastic for those wanting to make meaningful keypresses without resistance or concerns of accidental presses.
