Japanese tea is prepared with precision at a minimalist matcha bar in Los Angeles, United States, despite a global shortage brought on by the bright green beverage’s popularity on social media.
All but four of the 25 different matcha options on the Kettl Tea menu, which opened on Hollywood Boulevard this year, were gone, according to Zach Mangan, the shop’s founder.
Telling customers that we don’t have what they want is one of the things we struggle with, he said.
The popularity of matcha “has grown just exponentially over the last ten years, but much more so in the last two to three years,” the 40-year-old explained. It has a deep grassy aroma, intense color, and pick-me-up effects.
It is now “a cultural touchpoint in the Western world,” and it can be found everywhere, from Starbucks to ice-cream flavor boards.
According to Mangan, this has resulted in a nearly doubled matcha’s market over the past year.
There is simply not more to buy, the statement continues.
Demand is exasperating in the Japanese city of Sayama, northwest of Tokyo, where Masahiro Okutomi, the 15th generation who runs his family’s tea production company, works.
He said, “We are not accepting any more matcha orders,” and that I had to state on our website.
The “tencha” leaves are shaded for several weeks before harvest in order to concentrate the flavors and nutrients. This is a labor-intensive process.
After being carefully deveined by a machine, they are then machine-dried and finely ground.
To properly make matcha, Okutomi said, “It takes years of training.” It requires “equipment, labor, and investment over the long term.”
“We just can’t keep up,” he said, “but in the short run, it’s almost a threat.”
Online influencers like Andie Ella, who has over 600,000 YouTube subscribers and established her own matcha product line, have helped to fuel the matcha boom.
Numerous fans were eagerly awaiting a photo with the 23-year-old Frenchwoman at her pastel-pink pop-up shop in Tokyo’s hip Harajuku district or to purchase her cans of strawberry or white chocolate matcha.
Ella praised Matcha for her visual appeal.
133, 000 cans of her matcha brand, which was produced in the rural Mie region of Japan, have been sold so far. It was established in November 2023 and now employs eight people.
She continued, “Demand has not stopped growing.”
Matcha accounted for twice as much of the 8,798 tonnes of green tea exported from Japan as of last year, according to data from the Japanese Agriculture Ministry.
Given the rising demand, Tokyo’s tea shop Jugetsudo, located in the touristy former fish market area of Tsukiji, is trying to keep its stock levels at a minimum.
Although we don’t strictly impose purchase restrictions, store manager Shigehito Nishikida said, “We occasionally refuse to sell large quantities to customers suspected of reselling.”
The craze has grown in intensity over the past two or three years. Customers now prefer to create their own matcha, as they do on social media, he continued.
The US President’s tariffs on Japanese products, which are currently 10%, are expected to increase to 24 percent, but the global matcha market is estimated to be worth billions of dollars.
We must raise prices because of tariffs and shortages. Even though it has not yet slowed down demand, Mangan said at Kettl Tea.
“I want matcha before it runs out,” customers say.
To reduce costs, Japan’s government is encouraging tea growers to scale up their farms.
But that runs the risk of sacrificing quality, according to grower Okutomi, who said it is “almost impossible” in “small rural areas.”
As farmers age and struggle to find successors, he added, the number of tea plantations in Japan has decreased by a quarter from what it was 20 years ago.
