Sometimes, whisking hot water with vibrant green powder makes for a delectable liquid treat. This is not news in Japan … but on the internet, it’s a newfound obsession.
Last fall, the traditional Japanese tea, better known as matcha, unexpectedly became a global sensation. Las Vegas hopped on the bandwagon, and the tea soon was available in all kinds of products … from lattes to ice cream, cakes, and more. The viral demand for matcha, however, is so high that suppliers are facing a shortage. In Japan, they call it the “matcha boom,” according to Leo Lukidi.
Lukidi is the owner of Tea & Whisk, a Las Vegas business that sells teas from around the world. He says this boom is a serious issue for suppliers, because matcha takes years to cultivate — one of many things many consumers don’t realize.
During his fifth sourcing trip to Japan, Lukidi took some time to talk to Desert Companion about the popular beverage. He set the record straight on some common misconceptions and shared fascinating facts about the matcha process. Here’s a selection, in his words (which we edited for clarity).
Manufacturers are struggling to supply high-quality matcha, not the low-quality kind. That’s because the higher the quality, the more time consuming it is to process. These factors determine matcha quality:
- The harvest season: Better quality matcha is harvested during the spring. If the weather is great, then you have good raw material.
- How long it's aged: The tea leaf is just like fruit, right? When you have some fruits, you want to just let them sit until they’re ripened. Same thing with the leaf.
- When it’s ground: There’s a big difference when you get matcha right after its grinding. You want your matcha freshly ground for better quality.
Matcha needs at least 1-2 years before it's ready to consume – not including the tea leaves’ growth time.
Sometimes people think they’re drinking matcha from the leaf that is harvested this year. That’s actually not true. It's often harvested last year or two years ago, the manufacturer freezes the leaf — that raw ingredient, what we call tencha — and then that becomes the supply for next year. From empty soil, it (tencha) can take three to five years to grow.
Matcha is just another drink in Japan … and “ceremonial matcha” is simply a marketing term.
I've been to Japan five times now. Among Japanese citizens, matcha is just another beverage. They don't look at it as this holy grail or some product that they have to drink daily. And the term “ceremonial” doesn’t even exist in Japan.
Uji isn’t Japan’s only matcha hub.
As long as people see the word Uji, which is the most famous place to get matcha, then they will be happy. But people need to start looking for matcha from other regions. Shizuoka and Kagoshima — they make a lot of matcha (for a lower price than Uji too!).
Japanese matcha suppliers are limiting sales. But don’t worry, they’re catching up.
They are building more matcha factories at the moment. Remember, the only one that has (supply) problems is the highest quality one. Waiting for the leaf is the challenge. So this year, they've been trying to tell a lot of farmers to grow more tencha.They’re limiting everybody, and I have to limit my customers too.
Don’t believe everything you see online.
This is the big one: I don't think it was out of stock (last fall, when it was rumored to be). At that moment, I was kind of worried, is it true? But it wasn't. I was still able to get matcha. So, I'm guessing that maybe one or two shops were out of stock, and some people probably made a video, making a big deal of it.
