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Global Japanese Tea Association, with Simona Suzuki · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:06
Hello and welcome to the Specialty Match Podcast.
0:08
My name is Ryan. This is Micah Ho Zongjun, who
0:11
also goes by Sam. Hello.
0:12
And we're the cofounders of Sanko Matcha Products.
0:15
Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey,
0:17
Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts.
0:20
And this episode we have Simona Suzuki from Global Japanese Tea
0:24
Association. Welcome, Simona.
0:26
Hi. Hi.
0:27
Thank you for having me. So happy to have you and I'm so
0:30
happy that the Global Japanese Tea Association exists.
0:33
It has been like a go to resource since the very
0:36
beginning and all of the conferences and all the English
0:39
language content and the community, it's really so happy
0:42
to have you on it. So you guys were a dream guest
0:45
for a long time. Yes.
0:47
Indeed, happy we found the time to do it together and thank you
0:51
so much also for being part of it.
0:53
It's great to have you and I'm very, very happy to hear such
0:56
positive words and yeah, such positive feedback.
0:59
So thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you.
1:01
And thank you for all the people I've gotten to meet meet to the
1:03
association too. Actually, just the other day I
1:06
met someone in France because I live in, I'm based in Paris.
1:09
And through the association, we connected, we sat down over bowl
1:13
of matcha and three hours later we're still talking.
1:16
So it was, you know, it's a, it's a great way to find like
1:19
like minded tea people. That's the music to our ears.
1:23
You know, it's all we want to do to connect people through tea
1:27
and, and to help this community grow and, you know, help support
1:30
each other and, and build new projects together.
1:33
So amazing, I'm happy. Thank you so much.
1:35
We'd love to learn more about how did the Global Japanese Tea
1:39
Association start, because you're one of the founders.
1:42
We'd love to learn about the origin story.
1:45
And also maybe a little bit background information about
1:47
yourself too. Simona up to you and get
1:50
involved in the first place. All right, well, so about
1:54
myself, so I come from Europe, also from a small country,
1:59
Lithuania, and I got involved in tea since, let's see, I think
2:04
2013. He was always kind of in my
2:07
background. In my family, we used to drink
2:10
tea, but back then we didn't have a good choice.
2:13
It was just a black tea bag, you know, But it kind of was always
2:17
in the background. And for a while, I didn't pay
2:20
much attention to it. But after finishing studies and
2:23
starting to work, it kind of started to pop up a little bit
2:27
in the front. And I realized that this is
2:30
something I've been interested in and I would like to explore
2:33
more. And during university years, I
2:36
also made some Japanese friends who brought some Japanese teas,
2:41
you know, to share with with friends in a circle.
2:44
So, yeah, I got kind of intrigued by Japanese tea at
2:47
that point and wanted to learn more.
2:50
And, you know, I came to Japan in 2013 for that purpose, for
2:56
learning about tea, basically interning on a tea farm.
3:01
You may have heard Abubu tea. That was my start, yeah.
3:06
And yeah, they invited me to stay on work after that, which
3:10
was not expected. I thought I was just coming for
3:14
like a three months journey, learning and going back.
3:18
But yeah, they offered me to stay and I worked there for
3:21
quite a while, for eight or nine years looking after the
3:24
international side. Yeah.
3:26
So that was also very much a learning journey and kind of
3:30
getting to understand the tea industry, the tea world and also
3:34
the challenges that were already present at that time and done
3:38
with how disconnect the Global Japanese Tea Association is that
3:42
with the like minded people. Actually we all connected at
3:45
Abubu. So one of the Co founders of
3:48
Abubu Matsu is also our Co founder for the Global Japanese
3:52
Tea Association, the ME and then another team member Anna, who
3:57
also was an intern at Abubu for a little while.
4:02
So the three of us, we kind of started talking about the
4:06
challenges and the situation with tea in Japan maybe since
4:10
like 2015, 2016. So those ideas were already
4:14
starting to brew, but we didn't have like a concrete path or
4:18
what exactly we should do. And having spent time in Japan,
4:21
but also our team was travelling around the world to hold
4:25
workshops and events. We were observing what was
4:28
happening in different countries.
4:29
So a lot in Europe, but the other team members have been to
4:33
other parts of the world too. And we kind of noticed this
4:36
mismatch with what was happening in Japan, how like the demand
4:41
was going down and people were kind of turning away from tea,
4:44
seeing it as old fashioned and those kind of things.
4:47
And then going outside of Japan and really seeing the opposite,
4:51
how people are curious and interested and they want to
4:54
learn more or they want to try they're, yeah, curious to try
4:58
different kinds of these. And we just saw like something
5:01
has to be done with this mismatch to connect the two
5:04
sides and, and to help, you know, each other for building
5:08
these kind of bridges. So those were the early ideas we
5:13
started working on, and then the association got finally
5:16
established in 2019. So yeah, it took a little bit of
5:20
the thought process and like trial and error to find the path
5:25
forward. But here we are now six years
5:27
later, still working on it, but having already this beautiful
5:32
tea community and a lot of support from our members, our
5:35
students and and everyone around that, it's great to see like a
5:40
developing and kind of blossoming to where it is now.
5:43
Wow. So interesting it all sort of
5:45
was started and incubated at Oh Boo Boo.
5:48
It didn't fully realize that or sort of by Boo Boo alumni like
5:51
but through this network and and the exposure, there's some like
5:56
serious magic in the air at Oh Boo Boo.
5:58
Sam and I were there a couple months ago and just, it feels
6:03
like the cultural exchange that happens there is like so
6:08
different than anywhere else we've ever seen actually in any
6:12
tea. I mean, we've been to tea in
6:15
sort like tea trips in Taiwan and mainland China and Korea,
6:19
but we've never seen anything like what's going on in Ububu or
6:22
in the rest of Japan for that matter.
6:24
Yeah, Wonderland, right? Yeah.
6:26
Pretty interesting. It's almost like kind of like
6:29
New York or California like tech startup type of vibe, you know,
6:35
super cool. We found it very complicated.
6:38
But we got to, we got to spend quite a bit of time there and
6:40
chitchat and it's really cool. Just all of the vibes and some
6:44
of the people there listen to the podcast.
6:46
So it was, I don't know, it felt like everyone sort of half knew
6:50
each other because we've been kind of observing what's going
6:53
on from afar to just even through like Instagram.
6:56
Yeah, and then you get the feeling already.
6:58
But visiting and meeting everyone, Yeah, you'll see it
7:01
with your own eyes. There's a real vibe in the air
7:03
because like both Zhongjun and I worked at a startup and it was a
7:07
sort of a very scrappy early days startup, like 5-6, seven
7:11
years ago. And at one point, like we just
7:14
didn't make enough money. We all had to live together.
7:16
So we had this sort of Co living, Co working situation and
7:21
like there was kind of the there's a magic, communal magic
7:24
in the air in those environments and you don't feel it that
7:27
often. But like even with that group
7:29
there, you could feel it like all the interns are living
7:31
together. They were just about to go to
7:33
tea class, like after their work, like talk about like
7:37
commitment and then like everyone upstairs.
7:41
I don't know it's it was so. Cool, you're locked in and just
7:44
extra benefit that there's tea all around.
7:48
In a unique environment. So when you started to sort of
7:52
formulate what the Global Japanese Tea Association is now,
7:57
how did you decide, like, what the mission and vision would be,
8:01
but also like, what to do and what not to do?
8:03
Because like, our experience, like starting things sexually,
8:06
what not to do is like maybe even more difficult than
8:10
deciding what to do. So how did the Global Japanese
8:13
Tea Association form in its early days?
8:15
Well, you know, I have to say it was trial and error.
8:18
So talking about the mission, as I said, our idea was really to
8:22
try to connect people and community is very, very big
8:25
aspect of it. And by now we have like 3 core
8:28
pillars that we try to focus on. So the community building,
8:33
education and information sharing.
8:35
Because of course if people can speak Japanese, it's much more
8:38
accessible. But beyond that, with the
8:40
language barrier, it can be much more challenging and tricky to
8:44
find like real and trustworthy information about Japanese tea.
8:49
So we kind of lined out these as our pillars on which we want
8:54
wanted to base our activities. And the mission itself is really
8:58
basically to expand the Japanese tea world through global
9:01
collaboration. So connecting people in Japan
9:04
and connecting people abroad. And that was, I would say, more
9:08
or less from the start, but it definitely was a learning
9:12
experience, especially thinking that we started in 2019 and then
9:17
2020, everything crashed. Yeah.
9:19
So we had a lot of things we wanted to do from the start,
9:22
especially focusing on education and giving people a chance to
9:26
learn and to understand Japanese tea.
9:29
And we envisioned holding, like, classes in different parts of
9:34
the world, in different countries and cities, and then
9:37
suddenly everything shuts down. So that really almost tripped us
9:41
up. But we stumbled onto the online
9:45
option, online method. And yeah, that was kind of not
9:49
our primary idea and not primary goal because T is best when it's
9:53
shared on when we are together. But when we couldn't do that,
9:57
the online became our go to alternative.
10:00
And actually it worked better than we expected or we imagined.
10:04
And by now we also have like a large group of students that
10:08
have completed our classes by joining it online.
10:11
And yeah, some of them later come to meet us and tell us that
10:16
they also didn't expect the online to work, but it somehow
10:19
eventually did. So there was a lot of learning
10:22
to do as a new organization. Of course we don't know
10:26
everything before we start, but also because we found ourselves
10:30
in that kind of situation in the world where things were like out
10:34
of normal and where we had to really adapt and, and try new
10:38
things. But yeah, I guess in the end we
10:40
are grateful for it because we learned, you know, different
10:43
ways and and we were able to connect with probably more
10:47
people than we would have been otherwise.
10:49
So yeah, it's challenging, but we try to adapt and we try to go
10:55
forward as much as as we can. That's awesome and it's working.
10:59
It's like it's, it's like even the community like online in
11:03
that space, it's really special just to have a place for
11:06
everyone at the industry to connect.
11:08
And any listeners who are are not part of the community should
11:11
highly consider joining. And there's a great circle group
11:14
and always some interesting discussions.
11:16
Yeah. What's the usual cadence for
11:19
this type of, you know, lectures or meetings?
11:22
Like do you send out team that dance and people like drink the
11:25
same tea over the camera? Yeah.
11:28
So at the moment we have now both versions.
11:31
We do it both in person and actually in 10 countries around
11:35
the world, students can join in person classes with our
11:38
teachers, but those who are maybe a little bit further away
11:42
or maybe it's not easy in terms of like schedule or timing on
11:46
those kind of things. Then we have the online as well
11:49
that started during the pandemic, but it it carried on.
11:53
And in those cases, we basically have a set that students would
11:57
receive. So it's like a set of T Ware and
12:01
a set of T and we are bringing together, we are explaining it
12:05
different topics along with it, but we are also trying to use
12:09
together. That's very, very big aspect of
12:12
our approach to education. It's not just kind of listening
12:16
passively, but it's really engaging with tea to understand
12:19
the teas, to understand how to make them, how to store them,
12:22
and also understand them a bit more broadly where they come
12:26
from, what are the regional differences, what are maybe some
12:29
lesser known teas as we are advancing for the levels of the
12:34
courses. Yeah, so, so basically making
12:37
and drinking tea is a very big part of it and we make sure that
12:40
everyone has it. That's.
12:43
Awesome. What's it been like managing
12:46
both sides of the community? Because you have the
12:49
international base, which are tea educator brand owners,
12:53
people who just love Japanese tea.
12:55
It's like a big mix. And then there's the farmer side
12:58
of that. What's it like?
13:00
Because I'm sure it's very different, like cultivation,
13:02
community cultivation styles between these two sides.
13:06
Yeah, definitely. Well, as I said, we try, we want
13:10
to and we try to involve everyone related to tea.
13:14
And we are also not limiting even to tea professionals.
13:17
We are very much open to, you know, tea lovers, enthusiasts,
13:21
because it all can start from just One Cup of tea and we never
13:25
know where it will take up. So we try to engage everyone as
13:29
much as possible and to create the space where we can interact
13:33
and learn from each other. And here in Japan also, we try
13:37
to grow the community as well. So perhaps the more active
13:41
members are the ones that can speak the different languages.
13:46
Communicating in English is much easier with everyone from abroad
13:50
being so active, but we try to involve the tea farmers, tea
13:54
producers as much as possible. We have had quite a few projects
13:57
over the years to try to put spotlight on them and to
14:01
highlight their hard work that they are doing for us to enjoy
14:06
the teas. So I don't know if you already
14:08
followed us back then, but in 2000, 21, we had a Japanese tea
14:15
marathon, which was a project kind of aligned with Tokyo
14:19
Olympics. And it was, well, a bit of a
14:22
virtual marathon. We were not actually running,
14:25
but we covered 15 tea producing prefectures during the time of
14:30
the Olympics. So we tried to steal a little
14:34
bit of the viewership from the sports fans and turn them into
14:38
tea fans. And every day we invited tea
14:41
producers from each of those tea regions producing prefectures to
14:46
introduce about their region, their town, their own history,
14:51
the teas they produce. So we held it in a live event
14:55
format where people could join us from anywhere.
14:59
And we had two, 300 people joining these live events each
15:02
day. Yeah.
15:05
And yeah, we really wanted to kind of highlight the
15:09
regionality of tea, the variety of tea, and also of the people
15:13
that are doing this work that are making the teas for all of
15:16
us. So that was one of the projects.
15:18
But over the years we had quite a few others where we really try
15:23
to involve the tea producers and and kind of show, you know, the
15:27
faces behind the teas as much as possible.
15:30
Interesting. What, what was the, I guess
15:33
motivation of these tea farmers joining, you know, this kind of
15:37
talk, like are they just happy to share their, you know, tea or
15:42
to everybody or like do they want to also network and be
15:45
connected with the outside market?
15:47
Like what's like some of the common motivations?
15:50
Probably both things or even. Yeah, a little bit of curiosity,
15:54
what is this new thing, you know, that no one heard about
15:57
and like, what are we actually doing?
15:59
This online event, You know, back in 2021, it was just the
16:04
beginning of all Zoom and all of these other online tools.
16:09
So I think there was a bit of curiosity, what are we doing and
16:12
what is this going to be like? But also I think they were
16:16
curious to see, you know, because a lot of the people that
16:20
joined were from outside of Japan.
16:22
We had some participants in Japan, but it was more
16:24
international audience. So to understand like what the
16:27
international audience might be interested in and to get a
16:31
little bit of feedback as well from them.
16:34
We couldn't send the key to every single person that joined
16:37
the online events, but we were able to create 200 sets that we
16:42
sent to those who signed up first, so people could actually
16:45
taste the tea along the conversation, along the event.
16:50
Yeah, So the tea producers, they could get very much real
16:54
feedback right away. From.
16:56
You know, 300 people drinking their teas at the same time.
17:02
So I think that was also part of the motivation as well.
17:06
And later on, we were super happy to hear that those people
17:10
who joined the events, they were then coming back to Japan maybe
17:15
a couple of years later and connecting with our producers
17:18
and some of them even becoming customers and buying the tea.
17:22
So it had a bit maybe longer lasting and bigger effect than
17:27
we probably envisioned from the very beginning.
17:31
Instead of or on top of having a fun event to enjoy and to learn
17:34
about tea eventually then it created some meaningful
17:37
relationships and even some business connections out of it.
17:41
Yeah. Very cool, like I wasn't aware
17:43
that of its existence at the time, but it is legendary.
17:46
I've had, I've heard several tea brand owners and matcha founders
17:49
talk about this marathon. OK.
17:54
So that's it's had a pretty large effect.
17:56
Sometimes it's still ripples and we are surprised to see some
18:01
people have saved the tea up till now.
18:03
Sometimes they send this picture is not like, oh we still have,
18:06
you know, one package remaining or something.
18:08
Very, Yeah, it's very interesting.
18:10
How difficult is it to find like independent farmers?
18:13
Because like, we're trying to source tensha at the moment and
18:16
we're learning more and more about the supply chain in the
18:19
industry. And it's LED us to the
18:22
realization like, like it's really rare to find someone that
18:27
like manages plants that are in the earth all the way through
18:31
something you sell to a consumer.
18:33
And like like this sort of oh, Boo Boo business model or like
18:38
some of the very vertically integrated farmers is, is super
18:41
uncommon. So how do you, how, how does the
18:44
association engage to with farmers that might just be in a
18:47
very like narrow segment? Or is it more with the
18:51
independent farmers that have more control over the process?
18:55
Yeah, so, well, I think especially now it's even more
18:58
tricky, right, Without much a boom and all the things that
19:02
have happened in the past year, but even before that, that is
19:06
actually true that yeah, the farmers that are able to do
19:09
everything themselves in house are quite rare.
19:13
And and there is even a term for it in Japanese that describes
19:17
that kind of style where you do everything yourself.
19:21
So GN means farming by yourself, GSE means processing by
19:26
yourself, and then Jihan means selling by yourself.
19:29
So there is a term for it. But in the end, the farmers that
19:33
are able to do all of it themselves are still quite rare.
19:37
And I think that can be explained looking how the
19:40
industry works in Japan that usually tea farmers even now are
19:46
small family units having like a small plot of land and and
19:50
farming within the family. It's most often so could be two
19:55
people, husband and wife, or maybe 2 generations parents and
19:58
kids family. And with that, their focus is
20:01
usually on the. Production itself, so farm work
20:06
and if they have their own factory, processing in the
20:08
factory. But when you think about selling
20:11
tea yourself, that includes quite the range of other things
20:15
that would be necessary, like, you know, having some additional
20:20
skills like maybe building a website or marketing.
20:25
Like how do you spread the word about your tea and operations?
20:30
Yeah, actually being able to send it.
20:32
And this is still within Japan. It's still a bit of a challenge.
20:36
But if you think internationally, that's another
20:38
layer, which is international regulations and language
20:43
barriers and all of these things.
20:45
So for small family units, that's definitely not easy to
20:49
do. And the farms that tend to be
20:51
able to do this better are normally a little bit larger.
20:54
So that have. Yeah, larger production and
20:58
often also a little bit of employed workforce.
21:02
So part of the team that is dedicated to to those tasks
21:07
specifically. But The thing is that with the
21:11
challenges in the industry, like we talked to, you know, the
21:13
decreasing demand and those kind of things, a lot more of these
21:16
small farmers, they are getting more interested to do it
21:20
themselves, take a bit more ownership, a bit more control
21:24
over it, but it's still a challenge.
21:26
How do you sell it? Like do you do that online or do
21:30
you create some direct relationships and then figuring
21:33
out all the operations and all of that site?
21:36
So it is still rare when we talk with, for example, auctions in
21:41
Japan that have the data and information about the T cells.
21:44
We've heard that in Kyoto area, probably about 70% is still sold
21:49
through the traditional system and maybe about 30% would be
21:55
direct. Yeah, but that includes also
21:58
working directly with wholesalers, not, you know, not
22:02
only having the online shop and less, yeah, it's much, much less
22:07
when you think about direct retail or or even international
22:12
sales. Yeah, that's even even less.
22:16
Well, when are you seeing farmers trying to get more
22:20
vertically integrated? How do they usually do it?
22:24
Do they bundle together to form some sort of some sort of a
22:27
cooperative or do they get like subsidy from the government?
22:33
Yeah, yeah. There are a few different ways
22:38
to actually both of these and and more than that.
22:41
So some may be looking for like support from the government,
22:47
like there are some programs that can encourage certain ways.
22:50
For example, now there is a lot of talking without much of boom
22:54
and without much of demand support and more of the switch
22:59
from like closely to producing tension and and those kind of
23:03
things. A couple of years back, the big
23:05
conversation was also focusing more on export and organic tea.
23:09
So there were programs for producing, you know, are
23:12
switching towards organic production.
23:14
So there are various like government programs to support
23:17
it, those kind of initiatives. And then on top of it, of course
23:21
some are looking for their own ways and maybe they are getting
23:26
like some personal support from volunteers.
23:29
Like some farms might be open to domestic or international
23:33
volunteers who might have that kind of experience or, or can
23:36
help with like overcoming language barriers and and those
23:40
kind of things. So yeah, involving people maybe
23:43
outside of the industry as volunteers or later on even
23:48
inviting them as staff members to help handle that side as
23:51
well. So whatever is whatever is
23:54
available, whatever is close by, I think everyone is trying to
23:57
grab on any straw that's available.
24:00
Interesting. Yeah, it.
24:01
Is interesting if we talk about like before the matcha boom,
24:05
like what were some one of the worries of the industry like?
24:09
Well, from especially from a sustainability perspective.
24:12
Like I remember hearing a lot about farmers getting very old
24:16
and you know, they don't have a succession plan for their farms.
24:20
But what were some of the other concerns like, you know,
24:23
actually around the global Japanese Tea Institute?
24:25
So quite a few, quite a few challenges, quite a few
24:29
difficulties. And that all I think starts with
24:32
like the decreasing demand for tea.
24:35
You know how younger generations are kind of shifting away and I
24:39
think everything else we observe is a kind of after effect.
24:42
So yeah, the decreasing demand means that people are willing to
24:48
payless for tea. The price is falling.
24:50
So that means also less incentive for the farmers for
24:55
farming right now to continue and also for the younger
24:59
generations to take up the tea business because tea used to be
25:03
very much a family business, pass it from one generation to
25:06
another. But when you don't see like
25:09
exciting future or like positive future in tea, that's much less
25:14
encouraging to step into and to take over family business.
25:18
Like you said, exactly that leads to the aging tea farmer
25:22
population and struggles with succession.
25:25
But on top of it, of course, in more recent years, there are
25:30
other challenges like increasing costs for tea production, like
25:34
getting even the materials you need to farm fertilizers and
25:39
other things. The costs rose quite a lot in
25:42
the past few years, possibly connected a little bit with the
25:46
war in Europe and yeah, kind of ripples across the whole world
25:50
from there as well. So like fuel costs, material
25:54
costs, like those kind of things are increasing while the price
25:57
for tea is decreasing and demand is.
26:00
Decreasing, yeah. So, so yeah, quite a big squeeze
26:05
happening there. And then if I keep on going,
26:09
because the list is quite one labor shortages, right.
26:14
So, so the helpers, finding helpers on the farm like
26:20
seasonal workers, those kind of things are also not that easy to
26:23
do. Yeah.
26:24
So many things compound and all together it's quite a bit of a
26:28
challenge in the tea industry that possibly the last year was
26:33
the only time with this matcha boom, with this matcha crease,
26:37
where things started to seem like they're shifting in a
26:40
different direction, not down the slope, but maybe we see
26:44
something else upwards. But I guess the shortage issue
26:48
is just going to be intensified by all of these new demands.
26:52
And it's interesting how like all of these demands are
26:55
basically driven by matcha or tensha and people, if they want
27:00
to move away from all of these challenges, they have to shift
27:04
to tensha production because it's more lucrative.
27:08
Like have you seen this whole shift hurting like other loose
27:12
leaf tea productions and how how do people think about?
27:15
It Yeah. So this much a bloom of the past
27:19
year is a very unexpected and unseen situation.
27:24
But that has taken over the tea industry.
27:27
So I think people are still a little bit puzzled and sometimes
27:31
not quite sure how to react. And there is definitely a shift
27:36
from loose leaf tea towards the other team matcha production.
27:41
We could see that and and like the statistics of the auctions
27:45
and the T sales of this year. And in a way I think it's a kind
27:50
of two sided coin. So on one side, of course, it's
27:53
finally good to see that there is a demand, there is interest
27:57
and maybe it can somehow uplift the industry.
28:00
But of course, there is the other side of the coin that some
28:04
part of it suffers switching away from like loose leaf teas.
28:08
The production of those teas have decreased quite a bit
28:12
already this year. And yeah, we will see what
28:15
happens in the coming years if if this is short lived or if
28:18
this is a kind of longer trend as well.
28:23
Yeah, it's very disturbing here what's going on because even the
28:27
other day, just like very anecdotally, I heard of a great
28:30
farmer in somewhere in Kagoshima, forget where.
28:33
That's like like proclaimed that like they do a bunch of gokhoro
28:37
that like everyone loves and they're like just totally
28:40
switching to tensha. Like that's like pretty active
28:43
culture destruction because of the matcha boom.
28:47
It's like these dynamic, I guess with any change you have winners
28:50
and losers because it's just the nature of change.
28:54
But it's still it's almost worrying to see what's going on
28:58
because like there is this shift to try to adapt to the demand,
29:01
but that has to come with the expense of something.
29:04
And then what do you, what's the position within Japan about
29:08
other countries, particularly like places like South Korea and
29:12
China to help like kind of alleviate some of the pressure
29:16
on the system, especially at like the latte grade end of the
29:20
market where you do you start to see higher and higher quality
29:24
being produced outside of Japan's borders?
29:26
Is it a threats? Is it a good thing?
29:29
I'm sure there's mixed opinions too, but we'd love to learn sort
29:32
of a perspective that you have on that.
29:35
I think depends who you ask and it's definitely a mixed bag for
29:39
sure. And I think the quality is one
29:41
of the big questions because if the same name is used right,
29:45
Macha, but the quality is all over the place, then it lowers
29:49
the expectation or creates a kind of worse expectation from
29:54
the consumer side outside of Japan.
29:57
So that can still be worrying, even if it has been, I think,
30:00
improving over the years. But it's probably still not
30:04
exactly the same, comparing Japanese matcha to, well, the
30:07
tea that carries the same name, Matchaf, produced in other
30:10
countries. But on the other hand, it is
30:12
true that Japan itself cannot really cope with the demand that
30:17
we have seen around the world because the production of matcha
30:21
is still quite small within Japan statistics maybe is like
30:24
about one or two years back, but the production was just about 6%
30:29
of total Japanese tea production.
30:31
Yeah, one or two years back. So you can see that the quantity
30:36
that Japan can make of much is not that high compared to the
30:40
demand. And even if people are switching
30:43
in the last year and probably from here on a little more as
30:47
well, that's still not enough to answer all the requests for.
30:51
Sorry, might have used for late. So we have heard from some
30:55
producers or some factory owners saying that they are actually
30:59
appreciative that there are other options because they
31:02
cannot already answer to the existing customers all the time
31:05
and often cannot take new customers as well because of
31:10
this limited stock that they have and limited production that
31:14
Japan has. So I think it's kind of
31:16
inevitable, but it's yeah, A2 sided coin as well, yeah.
31:20
The boom is really crazy. We were at some of the Chinese
31:24
Macho Tensha production facility talking to themselves and even
31:29
they are not taking new customers.
31:31
Oh wow OK so even though they are getting over 1.
31:35
Yeah, yeah. And in Korea too, we were in
31:38
South Korea and Korea and the Hadong area visiting attention
31:41
factory there. And they're also like have
31:44
experiencing it just pretty crazy demand.
31:47
You know, I'd say the, the quality on average outside of
31:51
Japan is much lower if you look at average quality.
31:54
But definitely we found some things that objectively taste
31:58
pretty good, which leads to some very interesting dynamics.
32:01
We've also noticed a lot of Japanese investment and like
32:04
people are, we've heard this both from Japanese tea farmers
32:08
or people who work in the industry in Japan, but also on
32:11
the Chinese side about the level of Japanese involvement.
32:14
So even in, you know, there's some cold capitalist way to put
32:18
it would be there's money to be made for the Japanese tea
32:22
industry, you know, helping these people.
32:24
Like we've heard that like a lot of the tea equipment
32:26
manufacturing companies are making a lot of money setting up
32:29
tensha and sencha factories abroad and probably all of these
32:32
consulting fees or Co ownership. So maybe it does help like
32:36
infuse money into an industry that desperately needs it to to
32:41
be able to grow and to make even more investments in Japan, but
32:45
but elsewhere. It's it's very interesting and
32:47
fascinating to see. Like we said before, it's
32:50
something very new, very unexpected, and people are just
32:53
trying to find the best ways forward.
32:56
And yeah, some of these things are maybe a little bit
32:58
surprising to hear, but thinking of the capitalist world, maybe
33:05
only natural. True.
33:07
We've been thinking a lot about this too, because we're hearing
33:10
a lot of perspectives that it's destroying Japanese tea culture,
33:13
and I'm curious to get your perspective.
33:15
Like, I think especially the Global Japanese Tea Association,
33:19
from everything I've seen, you've guys done a really good
33:22
and interesting job managing the tension between spreading
33:26
Japanese tea culture abroad while leaving a lot of space for
33:30
it to breathe. Like, I, I love all of your
33:33
educational materials. You're not like, this is the
33:35
right way. This is the wrong way.
33:37
Like, it's very, like, here's the context.
33:39
You decide for yourself. But like, where does Japanese
33:42
tea culture stop and start? And to what degree can, you
33:47
know, people like us who are outside of the Japanese system
33:51
engage in it and but then also kind of make it our own?
33:54
Yeah. I think it's it's very important
33:57
question and of course there are two sides, right, the tradition
34:00
and the innovation. And I personally think and also
34:04
as the association we agree on that as well that both are very
34:08
much important. So we do want to preserve the
34:10
culture. We want to understand how T
34:12
developed and we want to appreciate what has come to us
34:16
from like centuries ago. But we also understand that we
34:20
live in a changing world and we want to welcome new ideas and we
34:23
want to welcome like innovative projects as well.
34:28
So it is very much balancing between the two sides.
34:31
But yeah, trying to preserve the culture as it is and also
34:36
opening it to a new ideas and and new projects.
34:39
And we have had some projects in in that sense as well.
34:43
So a couple of years back we had a project called Japanese Tea
34:47
Innovators, where we tried to highlight 30 people who are
34:52
doing some like interesting, unique, maybe slightly different
34:56
things around Japanese tea. And to show that Japanese tea is
35:01
not old fashioned, is not something to be left behind.
35:04
But it can be also interesting and exciting and new and fresh
35:08
and to see it and find a new eyes.
35:10
So yeah, I think we we want to appreciate the past, but we also
35:15
want to adapt to the current situation, to the current times.
35:19
Because even if we look historically, you know, the teas
35:22
we have now like Sanchez Yokra, they were not there like 1000
35:27
years ago. So it was like a development
35:29
gradually through time. What we think of traditional and
35:33
historic now was something new and innovative back in the day.
35:38
So yeah, I think we just have to have our mind open and yeah,
35:42
accept new ideas and and try to welcome new ideas.
35:47
Yeah, yesterday's innovation is today's tradition.
35:49
It's yeah, exactly. Oh, I would love to learn more
35:54
about some of these innovations. Can you share some like
35:57
innovations that got you excited?
35:59
Oh yeah. Well it basically was a very,
36:02
very broad range of things. We included because we wanted to
36:06
show the kind of the multi phase of Japanese tea from
36:11
cultivation, from production all the way to the culture and and
36:15
those kind of things. So there's 30 projects that we
36:19
highlighted, but to mention a few, one of them would maybe we
36:25
have to have like a few separate sessions.
36:29
But yeah, some of the interesting things would be for
36:32
example, trying to grow tea in Hokkaido, which is the most
36:36
northern northern islands typically.
36:38
And in common sense, you would think that climate is not very
36:42
suitable for tea cultivation there because it's cold, it
36:45
snows a lot in winter and those kind of things.
36:48
But one of the participants in the project, the tea farmer who
36:53
is from Miyazaki or Rajasan, together with a tea company,
36:58
Lupitia, they collaborated to expand the northern line of tea
37:03
cultivation and try to grow tea in that kind of environment and
37:08
see how it will do. And of course, when we think,
37:10
you know, about the climate change and maybe how the future
37:14
of tea will be, maybe, yeah, with the change in climate,
37:17
maybe the lines will naturally move more north side.
37:21
And it's just an early attempt to see what what would happen in
37:25
those situations. So it was very interesting.
37:27
It, it, it was a very challenging project.
37:29
They did not succeed immediately.
37:31
Quite a few tea trees got sacrificed for the learning
37:35
purpose, but they are still working on it.
37:38
And yeah, we are hoping to try some of the tea from the
37:42
northern island. Is it through some sort of the
37:46
greenhouse system? Or no, no, no, no.
37:50
Just out in the soil, out in the elements.
37:55
There's some, yeah. Yeah.
37:58
OK, his talk is available on YouTube and one of the tea
38:02
conference Association. Actually, I remember listening
38:06
to that talk and like they face really unique problems, I think
38:10
because they like cover the root systems to like insulate them
38:13
during the winter. And apparently it's warm enough
38:16
that actually it attracts rats as like Earl and ground.
38:19
So like it's like they really have to rethink like they have a
38:22
lot of problems that just other tea producing regions don't have
38:27
that are unique to that area and the type of agriculture you need
38:30
to it's like really interesting. Yeah.
38:33
And like fault of our selection, I think was very.
38:35
Difficult, so let's attach a link to that talk, yeah?
38:39
We'll post it in the show now. Thank you so much, very cool.
38:43
These these talks are amazing and and a lot of the innovators
38:47
have these talks that during your conference really enjoy it
38:51
and I thank you for making it English and Japanese.
38:55
Yeah, we we try our. Best.
38:56
So we had them on the project a couple of years ago, but we try
39:01
now to invite them whenever possible to events to present
39:04
and to introduce these, you know, ideas on projects they are
39:07
working on so that more people can hear about them and get
39:11
excited and get curious. Yeah.
39:13
So that was like one example from the cultivation side, but
39:17
thinking maybe about the culture side, where another project we
39:21
featured was a portable theorem. I don't know if that came to
39:25
your eyesight, but basically a frame made out of bamboo that
39:29
you can assemble and disassemble wherever you like.
39:32
And you can bring it, you know, by the river on the mountain top
39:35
and have a that kind of travelling tea room that can.
39:38
Yeah, you can experience tea ceremony basically anywhere in
39:42
the world. So, yeah, things like that.
39:45
And of course, now I think there are also a lot of topics in the
39:49
West about like cooking with tea or pairing with tea or mixology.
39:53
So those kind of topics were also coming up in Japan and we
39:57
featured quite a few of them through that project as well.
40:01
Yeah, very. Cool.
40:01
I really enjoyed the talk on the looking at T genetics.
40:05
That was the ultimate mash up of innovation and history and
40:09
culture. Sam, I don't know if you saw
40:11
that one, but they were using genetics like genetic sequencing
40:15
technology to look at Zyri lineages and compare it to the
40:19
stated history about the way T moved early in Japan and was C
40:25
propagated. And they found some findings
40:27
that might have been different than what's in the history
40:29
books, which was really sort of a bombshell talk.
40:33
It was really interesting. And the technology they
40:37
developed the the scientist because I said developed
40:41
together with the team. I think we'll have also quite a
40:44
lasting impact in the tea industry as well, because what
40:48
they have been able to do with with that DNA technology is also
40:52
to shorten the path for creating new cultivars.
40:56
I don't know if you know, he mentioned a little bit of that,
40:59
but maybe didn't go in as much detail.
41:02
But typically it can take like 20 to 30 years from the to
41:05
restart until the cultivar is ready to register because it
41:09
takes like planting, waiting for the new tea Bush to grow.
41:14
And I'm harvesting the leaves, trying to process and doing it a
41:17
couple of years to understand what what works and what
41:20
doesn't. But there's technology using the
41:23
DNA basically enables to see some of the features that the
41:28
tea may have from almost a single leaf of the plant.
41:32
So you just planted, you wait for one leaf to come out, and
41:36
then you can analyze and see like the properties that he may
41:40
have. So that can shorten, Yeah, the
41:43
typical timeline from like 20-30 years down to maybe 1010, 15 or
41:49
something like that. So that can help us adapt faster
41:54
to change in conditions like we talked climate change or like
41:58
insect dangers, disease dangers, those kind of things or changing
42:03
preferences for the flavor, the taste of tea a little bit faster
42:08
than was possible until now. So I think that will be also
42:12
very interesting to follow and see how it develops and the
42:15
effect it will have. Pretty interesting.
42:17
Have you seen any international collaboration over this kind of
42:21
thing, like between like East Asia or even like between Europe
42:25
or America and Asia? You mean and like the tea
42:29
research? Or yeah, tea research, tea
42:31
related research. So I'm myself not in academia,
42:35
yeah, I cannot say precisely. I would imagine there is some
42:38
collaboration at like university level.
42:41
But what we've heard from like T research institutes that are
42:45
often funded directly by prefectures or by Japanese
42:49
government, they tend to be a little bit cautious, especially
42:52
in development of cultivars because it becomes.
42:56
A bit of. A legal interior protection.
42:59
Intellectual property and all that.
43:01
Yeah, that's true. So we heard of people trying to
43:05
reach out from different countries, from, you know,
43:08
Europe or North America, looking for Japanese cultivars to plant
43:12
in those places. But it's yeah, not, not very
43:17
easy because of the legal fiber things.
43:20
Interesting. Very interesting.
43:21
So when it comes to the association, what are ways that
43:25
people can help or get engaged on either side to either support
43:29
the work you're doing or to be actively involved in the
43:32
community? Well, first thing we would say
43:34
is to join us in the community, be part of it because yeah, we
43:40
are all growing together. We are all learning from each
43:42
other. And I think it's definitely a
43:45
place to connect with like minded people from different
43:48
parts of the world. And yeah, to to be part of this
43:51
trend and to help to create the future for Japanese tea because
43:56
we are all contributing to. So, yeah, the biggest thing
44:00
would be please join us. But otherwise, yeah, people can
44:04
follow us through the website, through the social media.
44:07
We share as much as we can information about Japanese tea.
44:11
And when we have some activities available for everyone to join,
44:14
we also try to share that as well.
44:17
So just to be in the loop, follow us and and be part of the
44:20
community. That's awesome.
44:22
And the scope of your activities are the conferences you have the
44:26
tea education courses. I know there's a bunch of like
44:28
tea meetups all over the world. I went to one in Paris this
44:31
summer where Matusan was presenting, which is super cool.
44:36
I got to have a bowl of tea prepared by him.
44:38
That was a special moment. And then I guess the online
44:42
events like the tea marathon, is there anything else within the
44:45
scope of the activities of the association that I missed?
44:49
Yeah. So we have some things that are
44:51
routine. So, yeah, like the courses, the
44:53
education side that we hold very regularly, then the membership
45:00
activities, events that we also hold regularly and some of them
45:05
are organized by our team. Like you mentioned Mudson was
45:08
travelling this year. He is quite active.
45:11
He's been to Europe, to France, but actually just a couple of
45:16
days ago he came back from Nigeria.
45:18
There was a key festival there. So that was a new experience
45:23
and, and, and the new kind of journey.
45:25
But yeah, our team tries to travel so much as I'm going to
45:30
different places. But also, I don't know if you
45:32
connected Anna or another team member, one of the founders who
45:37
is based in Spain. And she really represents us
45:41
also in in many different events in Europe, going to tea
45:44
festivals on trying to bring people together who attend and
45:48
and treating opportunities to kind of hang out together and
45:52
and get to know each other. So, yeah, these things kind of
45:55
happened routinely and we try to do as much as possible, but we
45:58
are also happy to see that things start to spring up on
46:01
their own. So our members themselves, you
46:04
know, go somewhere, travel somewhere and then they meet
46:07
each other and we spend time together and then we have some
46:11
things that are a bit more project based.
46:14
Yeah, like the marathon we talked about before or like the
46:19
tea innovators project we did before.
46:23
So every year or every other year we maybe have like a a
46:26
different new project that we want to focus on and and
46:29
highlight different side of Japanese tea.
46:32
So we try to announce them whenever they are available and
46:35
and they come up. But yeah, we are never short of
46:39
things to do, as you know. I'm sure.
46:42
Well, yeah, back for like same things like community building,
46:45
education and foundation sharing all all of it is based on that
46:49
for the different activities and different projects.
46:52
Awesome. And as we move into the future,
46:54
where would you like to see sort of, I guess both the state of
46:57
the Japanese tea industry, but the association as well and like
47:01
you know, the next 5 to 10 year time horizon, how do you see
47:04
that progressing? So for the end, we really hope
47:08
to have a bit more positive energy in there to not have or
47:13
not feel so grim about it. And especially I think it's
47:18
important to involve younger generation.
47:20
So I haven't mentioned that, but we have another project for the
47:24
university students called Japanese Evangelist Project,
47:28
where university students come to learn with us about Japanese
47:31
tea and then they travel abroad and they hold like the
47:34
activities for their new friends or classmates or things like
47:38
that. So we would really like to see
47:42
that kind of new energy, new excitement for Japanese tea here
47:46
in Japan with the younger generations and the wider public
47:50
as well. Through small steps, through
47:52
small projects. We are trying to go there, but
47:56
in terms of association and the bigger picture for us as well,
48:00
we would like to still mesh the two sides closer together, the
48:05
Japanese side and the international side, create more
48:09
projects, create more chances to collaborate together, to kind of
48:13
interact with each other. Because I think that's really
48:15
important to make the world of tea even more open and even more
48:20
accessible where we are right now.
48:22
Yeah. So the current trends I think
48:25
are helping a little bit. People are getting more curious
48:28
about Japanese tea at the moment, mostly matcha, but we
48:32
hope that those will open the door to see and to notice and
48:36
explore other teas as well. Yeah.
48:39
For sure, we hope so too and we're so happy that you guys
48:42
exist. I can't think of any other like
48:44
community tea community that just has such a wide reach in
48:48
connecting people. And like there's that primary
48:51
effect. But like as you said, people are
48:53
meeting offline. People are like learning and
48:56
then educating their, their local markets abroad.
48:59
You have all of these Japanese students who are learning how to
49:02
brew in AQ suit, bring that to whatever country that they have.
49:05
And if you just think about the secondary or tertiary
49:08
implications of that, the, the impact is huge.
49:11
So just as someone who's a member of the TEA community in
49:14
general, I'm very grateful for all of the what I'm sure is an
49:17
insane amount of work behind the scenes and putting this all
49:21
together and for building this community.
49:23
So thank you so much. Thank you so much for both of
49:27
you and for having such kind words.
49:29
Maybe we don't always realize the impact or how things ripple
49:34
out from what we do, but we really, really appreciate you
49:37
being part of it. And yeah, you know, it all
49:41
depends on all of us. So the more people are involved,
49:44
the better we can do. Absolutely.
49:47
Yes indeed, the more tea we can drink.
49:50
Yes, the brighter, greener future.
49:52
But thank you so much for coming on.
49:54
We really appreciate your time and thank you to the listeners
49:57
as well. If you enjoyed this, please
49:59
consider sharing with a friend and follow with the the work of
50:02
the Global Japanese Tea Association and join the
50:05
community. It's a great community.
50:08
We'd love to see you there and thank you so much for listening.
50:11
Thanks. Thank you.
50:12
See you in the future. See you.
50:13
Bye.