So I have a rubber beech tama that's about 82 grams or higher (I don't actually know the exact weight but that's what I'm guessing from playing it). I'm thinking of finding a ken that either matches or is close to the weight of the tama and also has a real nice grain to it. At first I was thinking Zebrano but I want to know if Ash would be a good choice here or if there are any other alternatives
That's a little heavy. You may be able to find one. My ash stuff is pretty light. Don't have any zebrano so I wouldn't know. But purple heart can easily get 80's. Mine is in the 90's. Maybe check it out.
I was very surprised when I first weight my damas a tama that I thought was eighty five grams turned out to be about seventy five grams. Not saying you don't know but you might want to see if you could borrow a friend's scale before you blow twenty dollars on a fifteen gram higher Ken.