Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / Interview with Chaseki, Tom

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Interview with Chaseki, Tom · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast.
0:02
My name is Ryan, this is my cohost Songjin.
0:05
Hello, hello And we're the Co founders of Sanko Macha
0:07
products. Yeah.
0:08
So we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey,
0:11
Macha, share startup stories and interview experts.
0:14
And today, we're happy to have Tom from Chasaki.
0:18
Welcome, Tom. Thank you for having me.
0:21
Thanks so much for joining. So I guess kicking off, could
0:25
you tell everyone a little bit more about Chasaki and your
0:28
mission? Yeah, sure.
0:29
So Chasiki we, we founded my, my wife and I, we founded Chasiki
0:34
in in the summer of 2018, officially launched our first
0:39
shop in November of 2018 based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
0:45
And the back story is basically I, I have a very strong root in
0:51
tourism and the hospitality. I used to work in Thailand as
0:55
general manager of several four and five star hotels.
0:58
I realized that no matter which position I actually have, I'm
1:03
still just an employee and I really cannot do the things that
1:06
I would like to do. Like I cannot fulfill the
1:09
visions that I have. So I decided to resign and do my
1:14
own thing. That was around May, June of
1:18
2018. A good friend of mine is the
1:22
YouTube Mark Weens. And he had the idea that I could
1:25
maybe do a blog or yeah, yeah, A blog video.
1:31
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Mark for over 10 years
1:35
now, and yeah, yeah, yeah. He he he was the best man at our
1:38
wedding. And he was the one who actually
1:43
ignite the spark of doing something around tea.
1:47
I I do personally love coffee and tea and when I moved to
1:50
Thailand I realized that there was a lack of matcha and good
1:56
coffee unless you live in Chiang Mai.
1:59
I was based in the South of Thailand at the time, close to
2:02
Phuket and I had to drive almost 100 kilometers just to get a
2:07
decent coffee. Matcha was not available at all
2:11
so and Mark had the idea to maybe write a block or do
2:15
YouTube video or like a channel around matcha and tea.
2:20
What's his content? I I'm actually I'm not as
2:22
familiar with. It Mark is a food Blogger, so.
2:26
Oh, OK, I think you've showed me some of these.
2:28
And so he, he had this idea to do something around tea and that
2:33
gave me the spark or the idea to actually go into that field.
2:37
Obviously the competition here in Chiang Mai with coffee is
2:40
quite high. And I just realized living in
2:44
Thailand, I had to order my matcha from Japan.
2:46
It was a quite a hassle because the import duty here in Thailand
2:50
is really relatively high. It's 60% on top what you already
2:54
paid and and at the time there were just a few shops in Bangkok
3:00
that offered a decent quality matcha, which was seven sons.
3:05
I think at the time they already had the piece Oriental and
3:09
double dog. I think that's how it called,
3:11
but it was not really satisfying.
3:13
So I started ordering my stuff from Ian, which was also a guest
3:16
on your podcast not too long ago.
3:18
And after ordering a few times, he offered me a wholesale
3:22
discount or basically an account as a wholesale agent.
3:27
And so I started ordering stuff from him.
3:30
And yeah, that was around summer when my wife and I decided to do
3:35
something around with tea. That was basically how Chaseki
3:39
started. And then we went to Japan to
3:42
source all the products. Ian really helped us a lot
3:45
during that time because he had all the connections that we
3:48
didn't have. And so, yeah, on on site in
3:53
Japan, we decided to source the products from Shogokin Tea Farm,
3:58
which has a very long history. And in terms of flavour, it was
4:02
what I personally enjoyed the most.
4:05
And yeah, so and the rest is history.
4:08
We opened mid of November, shortly after everybody knows
4:12
COVID happened. We just signed a contract for
4:16
our second branch in Chiang Mai two weeks before the 1st
4:19
lockdown. And it was quite challenging
4:24
because nobody knew what's going to happen, how long the whole
4:28
thing lasts. Then we opened, we were overrun
4:31
by people, We had to hire more and more staff.
4:34
And then we had the second lockdown and overnight it felt
4:37
like somebody turned off the revenue stream.
4:39
And yeah, so, but nonetheless, we, we, we managed to survive
4:46
basically through teaching. So during the pandemic,
4:51
obviously a lot of people couldn't travel.
4:53
People were not allowed to go into another province without
4:56
paper documents or proper documentations.
5:00
And just before the 2nd lockdown, we started teaching
5:03
workshops here in Chiang Mai and people were interested in this.
5:07
And this is basically we just opened at the right time,
5:09
basically. Yeah, there was this movement
5:13
that started, people were more and more interested in matcha
5:17
and not just the the green tea powder that you'll find at
5:19
Starbucks, but like decent quality matcha.
5:22
And it was this mystery about this, this, this product,
5:26
Everybody talked about it. Everybody said it's like super
5:28
healthy, but nobody really knew anything about it.
5:32
So over the time, I gained knowledge, and that was our main
5:37
focus, to provide as much knowledge as possible to
5:40
newbies, to open the gate into the world of matcha.
5:44
You want to call it like that? And during the pandemic,
5:47
everybody stopped teaching. We were the only ones, and we
5:49
did it online. And yeah, so that was our way
5:56
into the matcha market here in Thailand basically.
5:58
Was it mostly like local Thai consumers or a lot of expats
6:03
too? What was sort of the balance of
6:06
people who are really interested in the workshops?
6:10
In the beginning that the first round of workshops that we did
6:13
was mainly foreigner. The the very, very first
6:20
workshop we did in 2019 and that was mainly foreigner.
6:26
At the time, obviously, there was no pandemic and everything
6:29
was normal. And that was also one thing.
6:34
Like when we opened Chasseke, our main focus was mainly on
6:37
expats living in Chiang Mai and tourists.
6:40
And when we transitioned into the low season, I quickly
6:43
realized that this is not a sustainable business model and
6:47
that we would have to focus on the domestic market.
6:49
And so we switched our marketing completely from foreigner to
6:54
100% Thai. And we just saw any foreigner
6:57
that would walk into our shop or took our courses as the cherry
7:01
on top of them of the IC. If, if you, if you start a
7:05
business, obviously there are a lot of obstacles that you're not
7:09
aware of when you start the business.
7:12
And these were some of them. But it's a learning curve,
7:15
right? It's, it's a learning process
7:17
and you need to adapt. I think that's part of life in
7:20
no matter what situation you're in, you can use that for your
7:23
business, but it also for your personal life.
7:26
So you will face obstacles and it depends on you if you
7:30
challenge them and if you overcome them or not.
7:34
Yeah, So absolutely. Yeah, right.
7:36
So Tom, when you first started to focus to the domestic Thai
7:41
market, what did you find are the things that will attract
7:44
Thai consumers into Mata and how have you seen, you know, these
7:49
interests change in the past few years?
7:52
In the beginning there wasn't really a market yet.
7:54
It was a lot of educational apart from our side and what we
7:58
did was basically we welcomed everyone to our tea house and
8:02
people sat down. We just shared tea with them.
8:07
At the time, we were also selling Chinese teas, a lot of
8:10
poo ERS, especially Wan poo ERS. So we were doing like tea
8:14
sessions and we're drinking a lot of gushu poo ER and, and
8:21
attracts people. It's kind of interesting because
8:23
when you open that kind of business, you attract a certain
8:25
type of people into your business and you repel others.
8:30
So yeah. It's a natural filter.
8:32
Yeah, it's a natural filter. And also with the pricing that
8:34
we had was for the domestic market, especially here in
8:37
Chiang Mai, it's a different economy than in Bangkok.
8:41
And our prices were relatively high.
8:44
So that was a natural selection already.
8:46
And those who came in usually had questions.
8:49
It's like, oh, what is this? Where do you got your products
8:51
from? And what we did from day one was
8:55
basically story selling. We, we told the the people that
9:00
were interested in our products about the tea farm, the tea
9:04
master himself, how long they have been existing and who they
9:08
supplied to in the past. Because Shogun has a very strong
9:12
history. They supplied to Emperor family
9:15
and the samurai elite in Japan and they've been around for
9:18
almost 200 years now. And Kobayashi San is running the
9:22
business in H generation. So and this was something that
9:25
was attracting people to us. So it was not just like, oh, you
9:28
want to buy the matcha. It was like, oh, OK, this is
9:32
like a part of the Japanese culture.
9:34
It's a part of the history and it's healthy and has all these
9:37
benefits. And over the time we were
9:40
learning from our customers what they actually want.
9:45
So we had to actively listening to them.
9:48
What were the questions that keep on repeating?
9:51
And so we had a portfolio basically of information that
9:55
people have been asking in the past which where we're providing
9:58
from them to every customer. And over the time you just grow
10:03
our business six years ago is not the business that we have
10:05
today because also the customer has developed, you know they
10:09
have more questions. In the beginning, nobody asked
10:11
about cultivars that much. Now more and more people are
10:16
just going for the cultivar. They want to have single
10:18
cultivars, single origins. And so it's a, it's a developing
10:22
market basically. When did that shift start
10:24
happening with the single origin single cultivar like awareness?
10:29
Because for me it's really recent.
10:31
I didn't even realize they were cultivars until 2022.
10:35
I should have. I'm really into tea love poor,
10:38
like love other products, but it just never occurred to me at
10:42
all. But but I think it's because
10:44
like, the first place I ever bought Macho was like Harney and
10:47
Sons and Epoto and like, it's, it's not on the label.
10:52
I never thought about it. So obscure name for that they
10:56
didn't tell you anything. About the first time that we
11:00
really got confronted with a customer that was asking for the
11:05
cultivar, it was sometime mid or late 2019.
11:10
And that's when I started to ask our suppliers about cultivars,
11:16
which was relatively new to them, I would say, because they
11:21
were kind of shy. They didn't really want to
11:23
provide that in at the time as well.
11:26
He was like, who who cares about cultivars?
11:29
It's just a macho that they're going to get.
11:31
And it's like, yeah, but that's what people are asking now.
11:33
You know, they want to know what kind of cultivars they've been
11:35
using. With that understanding or with
11:37
that demand in the market, we started to dig deeper into that
11:42
and got more aware of cultivars and what the cultivar is
11:46
actually doing and that there are a lot of differences.
11:50
For example, in Asahi, it tastes completely different to an Uji
11:53
Hikari, and Okomidori is completely different than
11:55
Samidori or samidori. Basically, we started to have
11:59
our own personal preferences and that's what we started to
12:03
communicate. And around that time, when we
12:06
started to have the online workshops, that was our main
12:09
focus at the time. We wanted to provide a large
12:12
option or a large variety of different cultivars that people
12:16
could try in the workshop. That was how we structured the
12:19
workshop from the beginning, basically just on the cultivars.
12:23
So you get to try the Yabukita, the Oko Midori, Samidori,
12:26
Samidori Goku, Uji, Hikari, and also the difference in how they
12:32
grow the the tea. Basically, you can have a
12:34
samidori which is shaded with just canopy, and then you can
12:39
have a samidori which is shaded the traditional way with bamboo
12:44
and you can taste the difference.
12:46
Right. So that was our focus on our
12:49
workshops, Yeah. Wish we had.
12:53
I wish we were aware of it, yeah.
12:55
We would, yeah. We would have definitely been
12:58
consumers. Was it?
13:02
What was the reaction when you went to go ask for a single
13:05
cultivars? Like was it an easy ask?
13:08
Were they reluctant? It was, it was not easy.
13:11
It was more like repelling. It was like, why you want to
13:13
know that? And I had to ask several times
13:17
to actually get the list of cultivars that they're using in
13:21
the matches that we've been selling.
13:24
So it was we had to be very persistent and keep on asking,
13:29
which is typical in I think with if you do business in Japan, it
13:33
is not necessarily like, Oh yeah, come in and I'll just show
13:36
you everything. It is very protective.
13:40
And especially if you knew in this industry people you need to
13:44
gain the trust do. They share like the percentage
13:48
of different cultivars that went into or it's still a secret that
13:54
they. Well, The thing is with our main
13:56
supplier at the time we show you can, they have only two, they
14:00
have only two matches that are blended with two different
14:04
cultivars and all the other matches out of their portfolio
14:07
are all single cultivars. Oh, OK, OK.
14:11
Interesting. So for example, the Imam
14:13
Mukashi, which is the lowest end of the ceremony of great Matcha
14:18
is a single cultivar Yabukita. Then the next higher grade is
14:24
the Izumi Noshiro, which is an Okomidori cultivar.
14:28
Then you have a blend, which is the EY Noshiro, which is a
14:32
Okomidori and the Yabukita, but they don't share the percentage
14:36
of what they use. Kobayashi Sanhi actually
14:40
explained it to us and he said basically matcha is like wine.
14:44
If you have a good wine that you, for example, you go to the
14:47
supermarket and you buy a wine from Ernest Gallo from
14:50
California and you like that. And if you go to the and you
14:54
want to buy another bottle of that, you expect the wine to
14:57
taste the same way. You don't want to have a
15:00
different flavor profile next time when you buy that bottle.
15:03
And they do the same thing with their tensha.
15:07
Because tea is a natural product, it is impacted by the
15:11
environment, by soil, by the weather basically.
15:15
And one harvest can taste fantastic and the other one next
15:19
year might lack in terms of depth and flavor.
15:23
And what the tea master is doing, they use tensha from
15:26
previous years and blend the same cultivars.
15:30
For example, you have a Yabuquita from 2023 and the
15:34
Yabukita from 2022 and Yabukita from 2021, which they store or
15:40
it's basically it's frozen and they take it out to blend the
15:47
the Yabukita single called Duvar with different Yabukitas from
15:51
different years and also from different plantations in Oji for
15:55
example. And by blending the tensha, he
15:59
has the vision of how it should taste like and he just blends
16:02
everything together until it matches the taste profile that
16:05
they want. I actually didn't realize that
16:07
some of the poetic name products were single cultivars.
16:11
I always assumed that they were blends of cultivars, but they're
16:15
really just blends of vintages. I think it depends on the tea
16:17
farm or the tea garden. Shogi Akin is one of the few
16:22
that actually use single cultivars in most cases.
16:25
So is the intention behind the same name blend different
16:31
between two producers? Is it a flavor?
16:33
Or is it just a poetic name that can have two completely
16:36
different intentions depending on the producer?
16:39
Does the name mean anything between producers I guess?
16:41
I I think the name itself doesn't mean anything between
16:44
the producer. I think it just has a historical
16:46
name that comes from ancient times or previous times, but
16:51
honestly I do not know and this is something that they probably
16:54
would not really share with me anyways.
16:57
It's just the way they've been doing it.
17:00
It is very. Confusing it it is.
17:03
It is still after being in business like six years now, it
17:08
is still sometimes very confusing.
17:12
The entire tea industry in Japan.
17:14
It's it's, it is it's very protective.
17:16
They don't really want to share too much and they also don't
17:19
really necessarily want to sell to you if they don't know you.
17:23
That's in many cases you have to go through it through an agent.
17:26
If you start off or you're lucky and you find a tea farmer or tea
17:31
master that is a younger generation and more open minded
17:35
to do business abroad. How do you find Thai people
17:38
like, like their preference towards different cultivar?
17:41
It's like, you know, in Japan, like people are super into these
17:44
umami bomb, you know, hyper umami tea from Uji.
17:49
It's definitely get sold at a premium price.
17:52
But does that preference translate into the Thai market
17:55
too? Or do people prefer some other
17:58
flavour? Profile, There is a big
17:59
difference between the US and European market to what we've
18:02
been experiencing here in Thailand.
18:03
I think outside of Japan, honestly, I believe that
18:07
Thailand has the biggest market and is probably even above Japan
18:11
in terms of matcha consumption and being completely crazy in a
18:15
good way about matcha. And the the questions that we
18:21
get that we get from our customers depends usually on
18:25
where they are in their personal journey.
18:28
Like if somebody starts off, people usually tend to go with a
18:31
cheap option. They just want to experience a,
18:35
a decent matcha. A lot of people don't really
18:39
necessarily like the the nori seaweed flavour or the saltiness
18:43
in in the matcha, which is typical rather in in lower grade
18:49
matches. And the higher the quality gets,
18:52
the more nuttiness and creaminess and floral and fruity
18:56
notes that you get. And we call it you climb up the
19:00
mountain and once you reach the top of the mountain, you cannot
19:02
go back. So once you start.
19:06
Yeah, yeah, Once you start to drink the higher qualities
19:09
matcha, it's very difficult to go back to the lower grades.
19:14
Yeah. The lower grades you usually use
19:16
for like like a crossover drink with coconut water or something
19:22
with fruit where you definitely do want to have a little bit
19:24
more stringency or bitter notes to balance the sweetness.
19:28
And if you if you prefer your matcha pure as a clear matcha,
19:34
like an Americano ice Americano option of of the matcha or as an
19:41
usucha or koicha, you definitely go with the higher qualities.
19:46
And once you experience that, you don't want to go back.
19:51
No, understandably, I believe that you also supply to a lot of
19:54
different coffee people. How does the specialty coffee
19:58
scene in Thailand approach matcha?
20:02
Because in the States and in Europe it feels at worst it's an
20:07
inconvenient thing that they have to do because people demand
20:10
it. And at best it's, you know,
20:13
they're using a, a whisk, they're preparing it everything
20:16
for border. But in Thailand, it seems like a
20:19
whole another level. At the specialty coffee places,
20:21
at least that I've seen, it's much, much more sophisticated.
20:27
Yeah, it is. I think that it has to do with
20:29
the coffee culture in Thailand. I mean, Thailand has become
20:34
maybe maybe powerhouse is too much, but Thailand definitely
20:38
has its spot on the map now in terms of good quality coffee
20:42
that has been grown here in Thailand.
20:44
And they gained a lot of knowledge about roasting over
20:47
the past 2025 years. And over the time they have
20:51
identified the trend that a lot of people are actually looking
20:54
for alternatives to coffee. And so a lot of those specialty
20:59
coffee shops, they adapt and they add more and more matcha to
21:05
their menus. And many of these owners or
21:09
business owners of these coffee shops, they actually come to us
21:12
or send their staff to us. We just had three employees from
21:17
a very, very big specialty coffee house in Bangkok and they
21:24
took the course with us because obviously they already have
21:27
matcha in their portfolio, but they just want to improve their
21:30
game and provide more quality to their customer base.
21:35
And so it is definitely something that the owners of
21:41
specialty coffee shops are looking into and they are aware
21:45
that there is a demand for this. It's not necessarily like a
21:49
matcha specialty shop like us that we really have the focus on
21:54
the cultivars and different tea regions, but the specialty
21:58
coffee shops, they definitely amp up their game and provide
22:01
more higher quality matches now as they did in the past.
22:06
And the the specialty coffee scene seems to have exploded.
22:08
We started doing a lot of work in Bangkok in 2019, and I
22:13
remember our first trip there, we really were searching for a
22:17
good cafe to work out of with great coffee program.
22:21
Very few. Yeah, it seemed like there was
22:23
very few. Like there was like 1 decent one
22:25
in Central World we found, and there were a couple others
22:28
scattered around. But now it feels like every
22:31
corner, it's like China, it's like every corner of this
22:34
specialty coffee. And now they're serving tons of
22:37
matcha too. It's just like great, like place
22:41
to bring people into the category.
22:43
I mean, this is not, this is not an approved information, but
22:46
this is just my personal reference.
22:49
Throughout the pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs that
22:53
have been working in the hospitality industry.
22:55
A lot of people are looking for alternatives to do their own
22:58
thing. They just want to open their
23:00
business, their own business. They want to be independent.
23:04
So they're looking for an alternative to turn their
23:09
hobbies into a business basically.
23:11
And a lot of jobs are related or connected to the tourism sector.
23:17
And after the pandemic was over, a lot of hotels have been
23:22
complaining and still now today are complaining of lack of
23:26
staff. People are not interested to
23:28
work in the hospitality sector anymore because it's actually
23:31
hard work and you're not really get paid much.
23:33
And a lot of them of the younger generations, they have something
23:37
saved up or they got money from their parents, which they invest
23:41
into their own business. A lot of mom and pop shops,
23:44
basically they launched their own business through delivery
23:48
apps like Grab or Food Panda. More and more people are crazy
23:52
about matcha and specialty coffee, and I think that's one
23:56
of the reasons why it's mushrooming everywhere.
23:58
It's not just tea houses, but but coffee, specialty coffee as
24:02
well. Yeah.
24:03
And 100% like 2019 there were not many shops around.
24:08
Now Bangkok is flooded with specialty coffee.
24:11
The. Startup culture in Highland
24:13
seems to be very grassroots. Yeah, it does.
24:17
Yeah, that's a mindset for many people, you know, being
24:19
independent, not relying on the government, not relying on a pay
24:23
paycheck, but to do your own thing and follow your passion.
24:27
Yeah, it's amazing that the infrastructure there is, is
24:30
there because like I imagine like 10 years ago, you didn't
24:33
have all these services where someone from Grab could come
24:37
pick up your order and like you can basically set up infinite
24:40
number of those kitchens. And like the capital
24:43
requirements have really changed with the incredible, almost
24:47
unthinkable infrastructure that exists within Thailand and the
24:51
rest of Southeast Asia. But like in the States or when
24:54
you're in Europe, like just don't understand the level of
24:57
infrastructure and the quality of the services that are like
25:02
embedded by technology. Like just like yesterday night,
25:06
like we ordered some fruit and I think it was $5 and it was
25:09
delivered in 20 minutes straight to our door.
25:11
It's incredible. It just doesn't exist in like
25:15
anywhere like in Europe or in North America.
25:19
Right, That is definitely something that I've experienced
25:22
myself. After I moved to Thailand in
25:23
2017, I was quite stunned by by the advanced technology that
25:30
they have here. I mean, still, after all,
25:33
Thailand is considered as like a borderline country.
25:37
It's like it's not first world, it's not third world, it's
25:39
somewhere in between. But in in many cases, Thailand
25:43
is far more advanced than the countries in the West.
25:47
Really incredible, very unique type of ecosystem that is, I
25:51
think allowing specialty matcha to flourish.
25:53
It's like really cool seeing something so grass roots.
25:56
What what's your plan for the future of Chassafi like?
25:59
Is there any expansion plan? What's the current thinking
26:03
right now? We opened a branch of Chassafi
26:06
two years ago in Bangkok. In RE that was a joint venture
26:10
program that we did back then with a partner of ours.
26:13
Unfortunately, things did not really work out the way that we
26:15
planned. The concept that we have with
26:17
Chaseki is a matcha slow bar. Basically, people come, sit
26:21
down, they want to have the experience with our matcha
26:24
barista. And then usually people sit down
26:27
and they enjoy their matcha. They spend time here, read their
26:30
books or do some work on the laptop in Bangkok.
26:34
In Ari, it is a completely different customer base because
26:38
white collar workers, they go to work in the mornings and on
26:42
their way to their office they grab something to go.
26:46
And during that one hour they need to get lunch, they need to
26:48
eat and they want to have maybe another pick me up drink with
26:52
caffeine. And a lot of people chose
26:55
matcha. But since everything has to be
26:57
prepared fresh in front of the customer, it didn't really match
27:02
their needs. So we decided to recline and we
27:05
closed down the shop. But we, we learned our lesson.
27:08
So shortly after we closed the the shop in Bangkok, we opened a
27:12
new branch under the umbrella of Chasiki here in Chiang Mai,
27:16
which is called Nagare and Nagare.
27:18
It's like a match of speed bar at a lower price tag, different
27:23
clientele that we that we target and this works perfectly fine
27:27
and it's very easy to scale. We just opened our 2nd not a 3
27:32
weeks ago here in Chiang Mai. And the plans for Thailand will
27:36
be basically we will return to Bangkok with Chasseke but also
27:40
with Nagare. Nagare will be kind of like the
27:43
Starbucks option, cheap and for grab and go.
27:47
And we also have plans to get into the US market.
27:50
So we started to supply former students of ours that live in
27:54
the United States now and we are actually working on a project
27:57
with friends of ours to bring Chasseke to the United States.
28:00
Very likely first state will be very likely Texas and then we
28:06
will see from there, right? Texas seems like it's booming.
28:10
Yeah, it is. Already has a very interesting
28:12
food scene from what I've heard. Oh, yeah, yeah.
28:15
And I think it's it's quite yeah.
28:18
We would definitely go with Texas.
28:23
Right. Cool.
28:25
Looking forward to this. Yeah, Hopefully you guys come to
28:28
these Eastern. Right.
28:29
Yeah. And another project that I'm
28:31
working on, it's, it's still in the making.
28:33
This is related to the to the question that you asked before
28:36
about the vision that we have with Chaseki.
28:39
So obviously we are always planning to improve and to grow
28:44
as a company. And I have AI, have a relatively
28:46
strong marketing background, and I have a lot of mentors that
28:49
I've been learning from over the past six years.
28:51
And basically all of them are saying like, you can grow to a
28:55
certain point, but then you stagnate and you cannot really
28:58
grow until you start to contribute.
29:00
Matcha is such an incredible product and we want to make
29:03
matcha more accessible to more people and take this stigmatism
29:07
away. Kind of like, you know, that
29:09
it's difficult to get good matcha.
29:11
So we, we are planning to build a movement around matcha and
29:15
Japanese tea and get more and more people on board, provide a
29:18
platform for education. Basically what we're doing now
29:21
in Thailand, do it internationally, have these
29:24
workshops where we teach everything that we know over
29:27
deliver and go all in and not holding back anything.
29:31
And I think that's one of the reasons why the tea culture in
29:34
Japan is slowly fading away because they're holding too much
29:37
for themselves and, or it seems like they're afraid to share.
29:40
And it's also the codex that they have the, the, the
29:43
honorable part, if I would sell to you, because, you know, I
29:47
already sell to someone in your region and therefore I cannot
29:50
sell to you, which is in my, in my opinion, bunkers because you
29:55
want to run a business and you want to make, you know, there's
29:58
demand. People want to have your
30:00
products. Why not, you know, share your
30:01
products with the world and make it more accessible?
30:05
So this is what we are working on in the background at the
30:07
moment. And there will be more stuff
30:09
coming soon. Sign us up.
30:12
We're so aligned. It's not just such an incredible
30:15
product. It it's such a shame that
30:17
they're all these barriers. It's.
30:20
That was that was the reason why I reached out to you.
30:22
I found your podcast with Ian by coincidence on Spotify one
30:29
morning. I was there and usually all the
30:32
podcasts that I saw in the past about Matcha were not related to
30:35
Matcha at all. It just had the name in in the
30:38
0. Yeah.
30:40
In the name of the podcast. But then it was about personal
30:43
development, lifestyle stuff. My diary.
30:47
And so I was first I was skeptical and I was like, oh,
30:52
wait, this is with Ian. Oh cool.
30:53
This is this is legit. And that's why I reached out to
30:56
you. And then I saw your website, saw
30:58
the the CHA one that you're working on and the desktop
31:02
matcha mill, which I definitely want to have for our shop.
31:05
So yeah, we are actually looking for people that are more in open
31:11
minded in yeah, try to make matcha more accessible to
31:16
everyone without the traditional approach, I think.
31:19
I think if you start to love matcha, you automatically become
31:22
more interested in the traditional part.
31:24
And I think that's the way that it should take, not you have to
31:27
learn the tradition to be able to drink matcha, not.
31:30
The other way around, yeah. And especially the traditional
31:33
first approach, it's really hard to be compassionate about it
31:38
because there's like, you don't learn.
31:39
Like I studied tea ceremony for three years, four years, and I
31:43
didn't learn anything about tea. Like I didn't learn anything
31:45
about matcha. Like I said, it's really almost
31:48
not related to the product that is Matcha, which is, yeah, we're
31:55
totally aligned. Tea is not really it's.
31:58
Just an element. Of child of you.
32:00
Yeah. Right.
32:01
It's an element. And I mean, if, if I don't know
32:05
if I, if I would be Japanese and I want more people to be
32:07
interested in the culture and to protect this, this culture that
32:12
is slowly fading away now I would be interested in to find
32:17
new ways to reach people, you know, instead of keeping
32:21
everything for myself. And the average tea drinker in
32:24
Japan is like 60. Plus most people do not drink
32:28
matcha anymore. They just drink bottle tea and
32:30
the young generation, they're only interested in coffee,
32:33
especially coffee and soda pops and stuff like that.
32:36
And the the tea industry in Japan, they're actually blaming
32:40
the consumer. It's like your fault.
32:42
It's your fault that you don't drink matcha anymore and you
32:44
have to drink it in a certain way or you have to drink your
32:47
tea in a certain way. Instead of being like, you know,
32:50
let's take a step back, see what is going on and adapt to the new
32:54
environment and to the new situation.
32:57
And I experienced that first hand during the pandemic.
32:59
I was helping a friend of mine and during the time I started to
33:03
learn a little bit about tea ceremony with him.
33:05
And I really liked the idea, the approach.
33:07
And I offered him to help him to take his tea ceremony online
33:13
because we already had kind of the experience from our own
33:16
workshops. So I helped him to build a
33:20
funnel, basically selling his online course.
33:23
And he as a tea master, he faced a lot of problems as well
33:28
because it is an very traditional approach.
33:31
And when he started to make advertisement for this new thing
33:35
on his social medias, a lot of people turned away from him.
33:38
We never said that you're going to learn the entire tea ceremony
33:40
in six weeks. It's just open the door for you
33:43
to see what is possible, to give it a try for a small amount of
33:47
money. And maybe this sparks the
33:50
interest in to learn more and then you can actually decide
33:54
which direction you want to take because some people might be
33:57
more interested in the Enchu, the warrior style.
34:00
You know, some people will want to do the almost a second.
34:04
Yeah, because it, it is so different.
34:06
And the philosophical underpinnings are so different,
34:10
right. Because you don't, you literally
34:11
don't know what you're signing up for and there's no way to
34:14
know. And then you're stuck.
34:19
Exactly. No, it's.
34:22
And this is basically my personal vision for the future.
34:25
I've probably will not happen overnight, but this is the mid
34:29
to long term really to build a platform, a community, a safe
34:34
house basically for everyone that wants to learn more about
34:37
matcha, wants to learn more about the tradition.
34:40
But first you need to get familiar with the product
34:43
itself, how it works, what you actually prefer and what you
34:46
like. And then you might take the path
34:48
down some kind of a tea school and really go into the
34:53
traditional approach of the tea ceremony.
34:55
And also, you know, maybe you're going to take the course as a
34:58
new Hansha tea master. Yeah, which is also difficult
35:04
nowadays, you need to speak Japanese to be able to learn
35:07
that there is no other option, right?
35:10
And so if you're if you're not capable of speaking Japanese,
35:13
this is a door that is already closed for you.
35:16
And I think if there would be a new approach on these things to
35:19
make it more accessible for everyone that is interested in
35:22
this, everybody would profit in my opinion.
35:25
Yeah, yeah. Prices would go up for tea.
35:28
People would buy more products, and everyone, yeah, would
35:32
benefit from it, the tea farmers that are still around.
35:35
And it might be more interesting for a younger generation to get
35:38
into this, into this area, into this field, you know?
35:41
Yeah. Yeah, and profit in so many
35:44
different ways, not just economically, but culturally.
35:47
The cultural exchange that can happen just opens people's
35:50
minds. This type of tea practice when
35:52
you bring it into your life. Right.
35:55
Right now, everyone. Should just like focus on trying
35:58
to make the pipe larger so that you know, like everyone can get
36:01
a larger slice. Right.
36:05
And even that sometimes it's difficult like I can, I can tell
36:08
you stories like some of the supplies that we have now or the
36:12
tea farms that we have in our portfolio.
36:15
It took us a very, very long time to actually get that
36:18
listed. It was almost impossible in the
36:21
beginning. They're like, no, we're not
36:23
going to sell to you. We already have two people in
36:27
Thailand, one in Bangkok, one in another region and you have to
36:30
go through them. We're not going to sell.
36:32
It's like but but why? You're the choices that you had
36:39
in Chiang Mai. That case, refrigerated case was
36:43
the largest like retail presence of diversity of matcha that I've
36:48
ever seen in one place. Like I mean, it is prolific what
36:51
you guys offer and the choices it was, it was crazy to me.
36:55
I've never seen so many choices that were like clearly and
36:58
obviously fresh, single origin, traditional and innovative.
37:02
Like it really was the whole gambit of things to taste and
37:07
look at and buy. It was that was really cool to
37:09
see. It was.
37:12
Yeah. So, yeah, at the moment we have
37:14
55 different types of matcha and we are going to list a new
37:20
shipment is on the way with a new tea farm.
37:22
And so that will be another, I think 10 additional types of
37:27
matchas that we will have in our portfolio.
37:30
And it's ever growing like in my we got strongly impacted by the
37:35
philosophy of Ian because his idea of, you know, me life was
37:40
to actually work with small and medium sized tea farms to help
37:44
them to sell their products. And I really like that approach.
37:47
Why should I work with a big company that is already making a
37:51
lot of money through bottled teas or to OK kind of quality
37:56
matcha, if I can go to the ones that have a long tradition and
38:00
long history and the story behind it and a lot of knowledge
38:05
and culture. So that's what we've been
38:09
focusing on. And yeah, we, we, we ever grow
38:13
like depending on the demand that we have when we started
38:17
with three types of matcha in the beginning from Shogo can and
38:21
that was in 2018 and now we have 55 wow and steady growing.
38:26
So I guess like one last thing before we wrap up.
38:30
You're starting a podcast. I wanna wanna talk a little bit
38:34
about it and give everyone a bit of a preview or.
38:37
Spoiler Yeah, right. Well, yeah, the podcast that is
38:40
in the planning will be launched very soon, very likely within
38:44
the next two weeks. And it's, it's interesting
38:47
because you guys have kind of like the same concept as what we
38:51
are going to do. So it will be a portfolio of
38:55
different approaches. We will have guests on our
38:58
podcast, people like you guys. Then Ian will be on our podcast.
39:04
Obviously TS will be there. We would like to have more tea
39:08
farmers from Japan to give them a voice to our podcast.
39:13
And yeah, so it might be difficult with with with the tea
39:18
farmers itself. But in the past we did live
39:20
events with tea masters and we have a live translation like an
39:25
interpreter. So that is an option that we are
39:28
thinking about. But basically, yeah, talking
39:31
about cultivars, talking about different types of matcha
39:34
regions, different approaches, how to make matcha, not just the
39:40
classical usucha or koicha, but also being open for crossover
39:45
drinks with fruit juices and all that kind of stuff.
39:47
This will be basically the the main topic of our podcast.
39:52
So a broader variety of topics, tea regions, culture, tea
39:59
masters, and to yeah, give them a voice basically.
40:04
That's awesome. It'll be so nice to have like
40:07
more a lot more interviews that are accessible.
40:11
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The other one is Ricardo's.
40:14
I think that I found that I'm like back listening and there's
40:17
like so many valuable Nuggets in there that it's the more, the
40:21
more the better. Yeah, I think so too.
40:24
And I think if you, if you provide more, if you, if you
40:27
take that curtain that, that you know of this mystery around Mata
40:32
and the tea culture in Japan away and make it more more
40:36
modern, I think this would be something that a lot of people
40:40
are interested in. And again, like I'm, I'm
40:42
personally, I'm overwhelmed by the fact that there are almost
40:46
no YouTube channels or podcasts around this topic.
40:51
Right. There's.
40:52
Like, no, James Hoffman the coffee guy, there's like no
40:56
equivalent in Matcha. It's really surprising, you
40:59
know? I mean, just like I, I know
41:01
Ian's Facebook group, there's another T group here in Thailand
41:05
from POP that's going to be another thing which happens
41:08
within the next week. I think we already have the
41:11
group, which is our group is called Matcha Club Thailand.
41:15
But we already have now and we founded a new group which is
41:18
called Matcha Club International.
41:20
And we will invite a lot of our members into the Matcha Club
41:24
International. So this will be a platform for
41:27
everybody that might be interested in learning more
41:30
about Matcha Matcha cultivars. It's a free space where you can
41:33
exchange knowledge, your photos. We have all kinds of events
41:37
where we give away stuff for the photo of the month.
41:41
And yeah, so this will be hopefully also a a way to to get
41:45
more people into our universe. Wonderful.
41:49
If people want to find your podcast, what should they
41:51
search? Or we can link it too in the
41:53
notes. Yeah, because it doesn't exist
41:55
yet. And I can provide the
41:57
information to you once, once it's live, OK?
41:59
We'll we'll link it in the show notes as soon as we have.
42:02
I can send you all the information also to the Facebook
42:05
group and all that. OK, cool.
42:07
Wonderful. And.
42:08
You need to keep me updated on the desktop, Milner.
42:12
Oh, we will. We're actually going to go
42:13
check. It out and and the Tao one, we
42:14
definitely want to sell that here in Thailand.
42:17
Oh, cool. Awesome.
42:19
Yeah, we will. We will.
42:21
I tried it. It was it was amazing.
42:22
I it was so easy to form the the the usucha with that Chavan.
42:26
It was very interesting to say this.
42:31
I closely like it. I have a hard time going back.
42:35
I was just trying a normal bowl the other day and it's like, oh
42:38
wow, it's just the zigzag. It's driving you crazy.
42:41
I've been just doing it the one way for too long.
42:43
It's yeah. But I think like especially when
42:47
when people start with matcha, I think they want to take the
42:50
traditional approach with nice Roku and all that.
42:54
But I think especially when it comes to specialty matcha places
42:59
and you prepare a lot of matcha throughout the day, that's the
43:01
thing that you need. It's it you get the thing done
43:04
in half of the time and it's so easy.
43:08
And the experience that the consumer has is much better if
43:11
you have a nice thick Creamer like a foam on on top of your of
43:15
your matcha. And that's definitely something.
43:18
Thank you for your endorsement. Appreciate it.
43:21
I already, I already told Ryan and I was like, dude, I need to
43:24
get some of them. We definitely want to sell and
43:26
we have the platform. It would be awesome.
43:28
All right. I think that's all we have time
43:29
for. Thank you so much, Tom, for
43:31
joining. And if you'd like this podcast,
43:34
please consider giving us five stars or sharing.
43:36
It and a thumbs up. And a thumbs up and we'll see
43:40
you on the next one. Thanks so much for listening.
43:42
Thank you for having me, it was a great pleasure.
43:45
Thanks.