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"Japanese Tea" GI Granted & Startup Update · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:06
Hello, and welcome to the Specialty Match Podcast.
0:08
My name is Ryan. This is Michael Hozunjoon, who
0:11
also goes by Sam. Hello, hello.
0:12
And we're the cofounders of Sanka Match Products.
0:15
Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey,
0:17
Macho, share startup stories and interview experts.
0:20
And this week we are breaking some news.
0:22
The GI label for quote, Japanese tea has been officially granted
0:26
as of slightly less than one week ago.
0:29
There's a few things that we missed in our initial podcast
0:32
episode that we wouldn't have done the the topic justice if we
0:35
didn't talk about here, and we also wanted to react to the news
0:39
more broadly. So before we jump into any of
0:41
the details, what are your thoughts on the fact that this
0:45
is moved from a proposal to the real deal?
0:48
Well, surprise, not surprise I guess.
0:50
I honestly wouldn't see this not being able to go through and
0:55
approved. So yeah, we have officially a
0:59
legal status for Japanese tea now.
1:02
Now, calling anything Japanese tea that's not from Japan is
1:06
apparently not GI. Well, actually it's a little
1:09
more complex and the headline that I wish I saw more of, and
1:13
I'm going to publish a sub stack article about it is that quote
1:17
Japanese tea is now a protected term, comma protecting only some
1:22
Japanese tea. So the biggest omission we
1:25
didn't realize the first time that we recorded is that they
1:28
are completely ignoring any what they call what gets translated
1:32
as fermented. And then there's this whole big
1:34
fermented fermentation versus oxidation, weird semantic
1:39
mistranslation that happens all the time when you're going
1:42
between Korean and English, Japanese and English, Chinese
1:45
and English. But it's pretty clear that this
1:47
cover is basically only green tea.
1:50
So no long no white tea, no wako chop.
1:52
So those who have Japanese produced wako chop under the GI
1:57
rules, it is not Japanese tea, which is a little ridiculous.
2:02
Why it's? Fermentation.
2:04
I was thinking about like our bancha or something.
2:08
So that I had a very hard time looking up.
2:10
So if you really read the rules carefully, they basically
2:13
stipulate there needs to be some sort of kill green step where
2:16
you're denaturing like polyphenyl oxidase and all the
2:20
enzymes that you know, produce the different classifications of
2:23
tea. You know, green tea, long black
2:25
tea, etcetera, which you know, a lot of these like Goishi cha and
2:29
our bancha and all of these very traditional teas that get
2:32
fermented do go through some sort.
2:34
They go through a boiling usually, although the processing
2:37
differs between them. And I thought, well, OK, maybe
2:39
it does meet the definition because I guess it's still sort
2:43
of kind of green tea. But so I did a lot.
2:46
For Wolong you, you do have a pill grain or like a like a heat
2:50
treatment to deactivate the enzyme, right?
2:53
So. It's totally unoxidized though,
2:55
and the way it gets translated, when you run it through machine
2:58
translation, it says unfermented and then it gives some examples
3:02
it's. Classified that in the in the
3:06
document. Wow, that's really strange.
3:08
So, and then I did some digging. It's like, OK, this is goishicha
3:11
and alabancha because I heard from some members of the Global
3:14
Japanese Tea Association that it did not include things like
3:18
alabancha. And they were, there was a lot
3:20
of commentary that it's kind of ridiculous because they're
3:22
literally some of the most Japanese tea in in, in the sense
3:26
that like it was invented there in these mountainous towns.
3:30
And I don't think anyone is copying goishicha or Alabancha
3:34
or all of these different kind of teas, which is strange that
3:37
it's not part of the GI status. And then I wanted to double
3:41
confirm it. So I found this really great
3:43
article about this in Japanese on the Japanese Internet on
3:47
Yahoo. It was written by this very
3:49
interesting author, Tomoko San, who is a Nihon Cha instructor.
3:53
She also studies Urasenge and she, she wrote about the status.
3:57
And actually if you look at some of her other work, it's very
3:59
interesting. She does some very open minded
4:02
comparison of Chinese and Japanese matcha.
4:05
She clearly really knows what she's talking about and really
4:08
kind of enjoyed reading some of her perspectives after finding
4:11
this article. But what she mentioned here is
4:14
that there is some dissent. And she also expressed some
4:17
surprise that things like Wakocha and Ulong are not
4:21
included. And she also confirmed what kind
4:24
of makes sense from first principles.
4:26
But it was the first place that I saw it written.
4:29
And anything that looked officially researched is that
4:32
these post fermented teas are also not included.
4:36
I'm reading this article that she wrote about a comparison of
4:40
Chinese matcha and Japanese matcha, and in this case it's
4:44
Wazuka matcha. Pretty fair comparison.
4:47
Very fair comparison. I was like, really?
4:50
She really went in with less bias than I would have guessed
4:53
from a Japanese tea author. Yeah.
4:55
Yeah, yeah, very cool. So like she and actually just
4:59
just to give everyone some context of that article, which
5:01
is pretty fascinating, so she prepared these all as Usucha and
5:05
compared them to a more like standard Wazuka matcha.
5:09
And she basically, I don't know, indirectly said they were all
5:12
too bitter and astringent for her despite having a decent
5:15
color. Some of them were a little
5:16
yellowish, but I reading between the lines, you can really get
5:20
the sense that this would be something she would be a little
5:23
embarrassed to prepare for someone, especially as an
5:26
ersenge instructor. And that the the other product
5:30
from Wazooka was, you know, much more to what she considers
5:34
classically good. Apparently she took one sip of
5:36
each of the Chinese matchas and couldn't even go in for a second
5:39
sip. But then she prepared them as a
5:41
latte and she was like, wow, actually these are excellent
5:44
lattes and she thinks that they're totally suitable.
5:47
And I don't it's just such a perfect encapsulation actually
5:50
of this Chinese versus Japanese matcha debate isn't really, you
5:54
know, the Japanese have their own context in which they
5:57
consume this, which was her first reaction.
6:00
But that's not really how the rest of the world judges quality
6:04
standards by because it's not even they're not even seeing the
6:07
same painting. When you drink a matcha as
6:10
usicha, its flaws are you can't, you cannot hide behind a flaw.
6:14
It's very noticeable, right? But when you drink it as a
6:17
latte, there's a really fundamental flavor
6:19
transformation and you are no longer looking at the same
6:22
painting, so to speak, because the canvas is completely
6:26
different material. And I really liked that she gave
6:29
it a fair shot. And actually that is how most of
6:32
the matcha is consumed in the world, whether or not we like
6:35
it. And actually even within the
6:37
case of this GI thing with with Japan, you know, the reason it's
6:40
being driven is mostly because of imitation products in the
6:43
matcha space. I really genuinely do not
6:47
believe there are very many people counterfeiting Japanese
6:50
sencha or Japanese bancha. Like it's, there's no economic
6:54
incentive to it. So like the whole backbone,
6:57
actually the whole GI piece is about economic incentives.
7:01
I don't think anyone's copying Japanese wakucha.
7:04
And for reasons that are very easy to understand when you
7:06
taste these, these things like our bancha and goishicha are
7:09
also not being copied. So like they go to what the most
7:13
commercially relevant thing is. Which is pretty interesting if
7:17
you think about it, because in terms of how this document is
7:21
written, it's not necessarily it's not.
7:25
It's the document is not not covering Wakocha or Goishicha or
7:30
the fermented tea. It's excluding all these tea
7:33
because of the term usage specified unfermented tea,
7:37
because if they don't add that term, it's just going to cover
7:41
everything, right. So yeah, that that's very
7:44
interesting if you think about it.
7:46
I should really just call it Japanese green tea.
7:49
That's what should be getting GI Ed, not Japanese tea.
7:54
And they make the argument that quote Japanese tea is, you know,
7:58
historically being sencha and matcha and Goku, etcetera.
8:02
And this is the consumer perception of what Japanese tea
8:06
is. Because also in this Art of
8:08
Yahoo article, the people who were in charge of this GI going
8:12
through were asked in a public setting why Wakocha was not
8:17
included. And I can quote this
8:18
specifically what was said. And this has gone through Google
8:22
Translate. OK, So it says during the Q, the
8:27
Q&A session, I, she asked him. So she was there during the Q&A
8:31
session. I asked Mr. Suzuki a question.
8:34
There was a debate about why Japanese black tea, which is
8:37
currently popular in Japan, is not included in the GI range.
8:42
The images that quote Japanese tea currently has both
8:45
domestically and internationally is green tea.
8:49
Given the long history of green tea culture in Japan, Japanese
8:52
tea was defined as encompassing the category of green tea, and
8:57
that's what they said. Wow, this is just nonsense.
9:00
So in short, the deciding factors for GI registration
9:03
where the Japan has been producing quote green tea for
9:06
hundreds of years since tea was introduced from China and the
9:09
production began in Japan including the long established
9:13
quote matcha. It's I'm being a little bit too
9:16
speculative, please forgive me, but I smell the sense of elitism
9:20
right here because that's an. Interesting tank.
9:24
Yeah, for, for our bancha, for bancha, for Wakocha or for
9:29
Koishicha and also like Hojicha, right.
9:33
Hojicha is included and bancha is also included.
9:36
They are Japanese tea. Yeah it's just these weird post
9:40
fermented teas that are not along with wakocha, oolong and
9:43
white tea. OK.
9:44
Well, interesting. OK, maybe I'm being too
9:47
speculative, but these teas. These are banjo was the every
9:51
man's tea but it is included. OK, OK, interesting.
9:55
Wow, very strange. Why?
9:56
And why not call it Japanese green tea?
9:59
This. Is why not specific or like you
10:04
just be more inclusive? Like they they've gone through
10:07
the effort of excluding other teas, which is very surprising
10:12
because it's not like these tea companies doesn't make other
10:15
teas. So to add to more context, she
10:17
also goes on to write instead overseas.
10:20
When people think of Japanese tea, they think of green tea
10:22
such as matcha and sencha. I don't believe that most people
10:26
think of sencha. This is the story I think the
10:28
Japanese like to tell themselves, and that sencha
10:31
really is only only commercially relevant in the domestic market
10:34
in Japan. Well, but if you include other
10:38
teas, just going to make everything more interesting.
10:41
Yeah. Like, it's a perfect opportunity
10:43
to educate the oversea consumers that there's more about Japanese
10:48
tea, more diversity. Well, OK, so they do go on.
10:51
So furthermore, when I asked whether Japanese black tea and
10:54
other varieties would be registered as GI in the future,
10:57
the response was quote, depending on the response from
11:01
overseas to Japanese black tea, it may be possible to add them
11:05
to the GI list in the future. So they're not close minded
11:11
about it. And then she goes on to write.
11:13
Hearing that makes me want to support Japanese black tea and
11:16
domestically produced oolong, which still has a very small
11:18
production volume. So someone I was having a
11:22
dialogue with someone that listens to the podcast and they
11:24
were reacting to our GI episode that had a little bit of
11:28
pushback that I thought was just incredibly thoughtful.
11:31
And something that they mentioned is that, you know,
11:32
this GI label is going to be seen as premium.
11:35
So it's going, and this is something that this article
11:38
recommend recognizes as well, is that, you know, this GI label
11:42
looks fancy, It looks nice, it looks official, looks premium.
11:47
And when it gets put on a label, it's going to elevate the status
11:50
of the products. And you know, when you compare
11:53
it to like, let's say this tea with, you know, laundered
11:56
Chinese ply or whatever that's being used by some of the more
12:00
shady players being mislabeled, this is Japanese tea.
12:03
I mean, let's say we take that tea out of the system and now we
12:06
have a Chinese matcha product that is being marketed on its
12:09
own merits. If you compare this Chinese
12:13
generic or even non generic matcha product that's being
12:17
sold, that's a ceremonial grade versus this very official
12:20
looking average commercial quality matcha that has this
12:23
beautiful GI label. It's a label that matters in the
12:26
same way that if you don't know very much about wine, seeing
12:29
something that won a gold, the gold medal, or has an AOP or DOP
12:34
designation, you're more likely to think that it's premium.
12:37
So let's assume that that's true, and I think it's a fair
12:40
assumption. It's totally ignoring the T
12:43
types that could use the most help.
12:46
Like Wakucha is not a very big thing internationally.
12:50
These post fermentities are extremely niche.
12:53
You could even argue that are they're a little bit in danger
12:56
of of their preservation because they are so incredibly regional
13:01
and so niche. And same thing with the
13:04
relatively new Japanese Wolong or white tea styles.
13:07
Everything's just so new. And you know, those are the
13:10
industries that argue they need the most help.
13:12
So like if it does give the perception of premiumness, the
13:17
Japanese tea industry is not being very inclusive.
13:20
Yeah, yeah. And for our Banjo and Kovic, I
13:23
think they're arguably the most Japanese tea since you I don't
13:27
think and you can't find any equivalent in China or
13:30
historical lineage of producing those I've.
13:32
Never heard of like lacto fermented or kugee fermented
13:37
teas like these are. Some of them are anaerobically
13:40
fermented like the lacto ones. I think it's really very unique
13:45
heritage. It actually better meets the
13:47
spirit of AGI. It's.
13:49
Totally agree. Totally agree.
13:51
Very strange. It's very strange.
13:54
I mean this is obviously all commercially minded with regards
13:58
to counterfeits. The reason you GI something is
14:00
to tap into the existing infrastructure of countries with
14:04
mutually exchanged GIS and so that you can fight counterfeits
14:08
and mislabeled products. And you know, each of the new
14:12
countries and UK, for example, have existing frameworks to you
14:17
can use the legal and enforcement mechanisms within
14:21
each of these countries to fight back in the same way that if
14:25
Russia selling fake champagne labeled as champagne to to
14:29
Japan, there are enforcement mechanisms in Japan to get that
14:33
removed. And you can utilize local
14:35
frameworks for dealing with that.
14:38
So I mean, this is all very clearly about money because
14:41
they're only doing the commercial ones.
14:44
But I do think it is very outrageous to basically
14:48
implicitly say Japanese tea is green tea, and green tea is the
14:54
only thing we are going to consider as quote Japanese tea.
14:57
I mean this is just crazy. Very dismissive to other tea
15:01
categories. So in terms of how this effects
15:03
matcha, you know, none of our opinions have changed since the
15:07
last time we covered this in a previous podcast episode, which
15:10
we encourage everyone to do. It's a good thing for all of the
15:14
shady players who are importing foreign material and labeling it
15:18
as Japanese tea. So, you know, that's a good
15:21
thing. Anything that has more accurate
15:23
provenance is a good thing for the specialty movement.
15:27
I think there's a good thing for matcha and I think it's going to
15:29
also force the the Chinese. All of that stuff that was being
15:33
exported to Japan was quality checked by tea masters in Japan.
15:37
So it's not second rate material necessarily.
15:40
You know, they'll be what based on the numbers and you know,
15:43
obviously it's very hard to get official statistics on these
15:46
things, but based on what we've read, it feels like it's around
15:49
1000 tons of tensha from China and to Japan.
15:52
It's going to need to find a new market.
15:54
Well, maybe not necessarily right, because they just don't.
15:59
They just cannot label it as Japanese tea or nihongcha, but
16:02
they can continue to do so and the seller without label.
16:07
That's true. It's very true.
16:08
So another thing that's one thing one more thing worth
16:11
noting is if you look at the official math website for this
16:14
GI registration, there has to be an organizing entity behind the
16:18
GI. And in this case The Who behind
16:21
the story is the Japan T Central Association, which is chaired by
16:27
someone who originally comes from Shizuoka.
16:29
And then I get a little curious who controls and funds the Japan
16:34
T Central Association because there's curious what whether or
16:38
not there were commercial interests that were being mixed
16:41
up into what is officially considered a public interest
16:44
group or organization. And so it has 10 full time
16:48
members, 3 come from industry federations of tea producers,
16:52
tea merchants and tea exporters, 4 prefectural tea chambers,
16:57
Shizuoka, Kyoto, Kagoshima and MIE, which about makes sense.
17:02
Those are the biggest places by volume and importance for all of
17:05
these Sancha and Matcha and three companies, Ito and Santori
17:10
and Mitsui. Yeah, Mitsui is one of the
17:12
largest Japanese commercial conglomerate and encompasses
17:17
Mitsui Group, encompasses a lot of sectors, manufacturing,
17:21
banking, farm and a lot of that. I smell money.
17:25
I smell money. Well, yeah, it's hard to make
17:28
any connections actually. I was looking for a deeper story
17:31
in gossip or misaligned incentives here.
17:34
And actually I think it's a pretty balanced group.
17:36
Like you do have like the majority being represented by
17:42
the larger T producing prefecture, T chambers,
17:46
Shizuoka, Kyoto, Kagoshima and Nye.
17:49
And then you have the industry Federation's which actually I
17:51
don't know that much about. And this is really going to send
17:54
me down a new rabbit hole. And three from the biggest
17:57
corporate interests, it actually does feel a little bit balanced
18:00
to me, but definitely around quote big T we think about like
18:04
big agriculture, big whatever. And this is definitely
18:07
representing big T interests in Japan.
18:10
Oh yeah, big time. So yeah, I don't know what to
18:12
think about that part either. And I was trying to dig up more
18:15
about how this group was funded etcetera, but didn't really find
18:18
anything really worth mentioning here.
18:21
Well. One thing that that we can be
18:23
for sure is that they are not going to lack any money or fund
18:27
and this is going to last, which I guess is good and then maybe
18:31
eventually it will cascade down to other tea categories and
18:34
other small players. Yeah, just they made-up a very
18:37
weird collective decision so that, you know, it's talked
18:40
about protecting Japanese tea, but really it's only some
18:44
Japanese tea. Like, this actually could have
18:46
been such an interesting moment for the country to come together
18:49
and recognize the diversity tea and like, the beauty of the
18:53
various tea that's been produced in Japan and even in Japan
18:56
historically. Actually, Wakucha is not that
18:59
new of a style to Japan. I mean, it's new if you compare
19:02
it to like, matcha, but, you know, it has 100 plus year old
19:05
history. And for these post fermented
19:07
teas, I actually have no idea how old they are, but no one
19:10
else is making them. So that's the most Japanese of
19:12
all the Japanese tea. Yeah.
19:13
Yeah, maybe I'm not being too speculative, Brian.
19:17
There is segregation of categories, I guess.
19:21
Yeah, it's, it's a little sad. Yeah, it's a little weird.
19:24
It's a little sad. It also feels like 1/2 measure.
19:28
Also all the things that were in our previous recording about why
19:31
not actually do this by region like Uji, You know, Uji is just
19:35
so fundamentally on GI able based on all of the materials
19:38
that we've posted in the past. So, you know, basically they
19:42
just don't produce enough tea and so much tea that's labeled
19:45
as Uji, it's coming from Uji and people believe it comes from Uji
19:48
even though that's technically not what the trademark
19:51
definition says. But that's still the reality of
19:54
consumer perception and the spirit of AGI is it, you know,
19:58
it's actually from that place. So it's kind of breaks the rules
20:03
and there's just too much being fought over in Uji.
20:06
Whether or not it could be GI able, whether or not they get
20:08
this UNESCO heritage status for the Yamashiro region and Count
20:13
encompassing the Uji and the 8 counties or 7 counties around
20:19
Uji including Wazooka, JoJo. Quiltanabe, etcetera.
20:23
And then of course, you have the trademark definition, which
20:26
expands 4 different prefectures. So yeah, all of this is weird.
20:31
I think it's primarily about money.
20:33
It's to leverage the institutions that exist in the
20:37
reciprocal GI countries to remove fake products, which I
20:41
think is a good thing. If you're a consumer in Spain or
20:44
in Portugal or in France or in London, having the tea that is
20:48
falsely labeled as Japanese tea getting removed from shelves is
20:52
a good thing. It's a good thing for Japan.
20:54
It's a good thing for Japanese tea.
20:57
So I think the net benefit of this is very good to the
21:01
consumer. And I think that there is some
21:04
net harm to the domestic industry by basically saying
21:08
Japanese tea is green tea and green tea is Japanese tea, at
21:11
least implicitly. That's what they're saying,
21:13
yeah. Well, consumers can be informed
21:16
and educated, located at any time and they're open to it.
21:19
So there could be changes in the future.
21:22
I wonder if you could get Japanese tea wakucha removed
21:26
from European store shelves being labeling itself as
21:29
Japanese tea like what happens in those edge cases?
21:34
One of some massive troll wants to go like prove how ridiculous
21:39
this is and try to get all of this tea that is not green tea
21:44
but is indeed Japanese tea removed from shelves like.
21:49
I guess it will be difficult to find them in the first place.
21:52
Yeah, that's true. But yeah, very weird.
21:55
So that's the double edged sword as we see it with this Japanese
21:58
tea designation. Yeah.
22:00
So that's our take. I don't know, Sam, if you have
22:02
anything to add. No, no, no.
22:04
It's interesting to see how everything is going to unfold.
22:07
Yeah, exciting news. Overall probably not beneficial
22:10
overall I hope. Agree.
22:12
Let's all support even though we're the specialty matcha
22:15
podcast. Let's all support some some of
22:17
the Wakocha oolong and post fermented tea producers that we
22:21
can. So if you do know a vendor, give
22:23
some of those teas some love. They need it.
22:25
You know, we're on we care about much on the special too much
22:28
podcast, obviously, but we also care deeply about broader tea
22:31
culture and seeing it not being recognized at an official level
22:35
is a little sad. So let's all asset, our Yahoo
22:39
article suggests. Let's let's go out and support
22:41
those producers. Agreed.
22:43
So before we leave, we wanted to give a brief update on our
22:47
startup progress. Sanko Usu one, which is our
22:51
countertop matcha mill. We have started manufacturing
22:54
and which is incredibly exciting.
22:55
It has been perpetually delayed for 1000 different reasons, but
22:59
we have parts that are being cut right now, the assembly lines
23:03
being finished. We're working on compliance and
23:06
in about a week the assembly line should be starting if we
23:10
approve the design of the assembly unit, which really
23:14
means our company is finally actually getting started.
23:17
How does it feel? Sound.
23:19
Well, I don't know. At this point, I'm a little
23:23
hesitant in making any judgments or expectation, but it feels
23:28
good, it feels good, it feels solid.
23:30
It's visible milestone that we have achieved and we can't wait
23:34
to, you know, deliver all these units out into the world and
23:37
seeing the idea of fresh meal matcha being shared.
23:40
By many and we really have the world's best beta program
23:43
partners. Really every single person
23:46
throughout this whole process who, you know, took a bet on us
23:49
and believed in the product and believed in the vision has just
23:52
been so unbelievably supportive and helpful.
23:55
And we're laying the foundations and we hope to be a really
23:57
wonderful growing community of people in the matcha industry
24:01
that are able to to mill their own product.
24:04
And we will be doing our first conference in September.
24:08
So we'll be in Bangkok at one of the larger coffee conferences
24:12
that's happening in Thailand in September.
24:13
So if you're Bangkok based, we'd love to meet up.
24:16
And we think it's a pretty appropriate first place for us
24:19
to be attending a show with the mill and and doing some demos.
24:23
We've talked about Thailand and and matcha culture in Thailand
24:26
so much and it's, it feels, you know, neither of us have ever
24:29
lived there, but it feels a little bit like a a bit of a
24:32
homecoming, at least from how much the Thai matcha community
24:37
has given us. It feels really nice that that
24:40
and appropriate that that's the first place that we're going to.
24:43
Terms of specialty, Mata, it really is the home of specialty
24:47
and it's it's a place that, you know, if we can conquer, then we
24:52
can really conquer the rest of the world.
24:53
Indeed, indeed. So we're super excited to be
24:56
partnering with Chaseki there and we'll be at their booths in
24:59
early September. I think the date is September 10
25:02
through 13. We couldn't be more excited or
25:04
more grateful to be doing this. Then we can't wait to to meet up
25:08
with all of our friends in Thailand.
25:10
And then we will be doing the in person implementations to the
25:14
first seven people who purchased a meal and which is going to be
25:17
taking us all over the place, which we will give updates on
25:21
and would love to do some live reporting about what's what's
25:24
everything like on the ground in those various places.
25:26
So after two years of talking about it, it finally feels like
25:30
our company is getting started. Yeah, feels great.
25:33
Too long, too long. You also might see quite a bit
25:36
more content about why fresh. We think fresh milled matcha is
25:39
better and you can absolutely believe that there is a bias and
25:43
some of this content. However, we do firmly believe it
25:47
and we wouldn't have spent so much time and money bringing
25:49
this infrastructure to life if we did not believe that it is a
25:54
better way to do things. And we even believe that the
25:56
Japanese tea producers would all agree with us that if it would
26:01
be possible to fresh mill everything locally, it would be
26:06
better. I don't think we've met anyone
26:09
that would disagree with that sentence.
26:11
It's just the infrastructure structure has not existed for
26:14
that to happen in so many different ways in the supply
26:18
chain, the actual equipment, the knowledge and the craft and
26:21
doing it. But that's all slowly starting
26:23
to change, so it makes us incredibly excited.
26:27
And this is so different from the old, you know, AI consulting
26:30
base, Ryan, because now we have proof, we can actually show you,
26:34
you can taste. It very tangible.
26:36
That's true. When you're doing analytics,
26:39
really advanced analytics and you know the the AI spits out
26:43
some numbers. How do you verify that you know
26:46
this, this consumer demographic likes this product by this
26:51
percentage more than the next product or something right like
26:54
which we did verify. It's incredibly slow and
26:56
expensive to actually go out and do the physical in person test
26:59
to make sure that the prediction worked.
27:01
But this is just so much more tangible as you put in tensha
27:05
fresh milled matcha comes out. The matcha milling standard is
27:09
incredibly high quality. Here's the smear test and even
27:12
better taste it. You know, it's, it's there's
27:16
nothing abstract about what this is what's has a really nice
27:19
left, hard left turn that compared to what we used to be
27:23
doing. Agree.
27:24
Agree. So, you know, part of Specialty
27:26
Matcha podcast for us is getting a lot of more clarity on our
27:29
ideas and working through knowledge gaps.
27:31
But we're also going to dedicate a few episodes to just talking
27:35
through all of the benefits, both because we really believe
27:38
in them, but also it acts as a way for us to become more
27:41
articulate in communicating why this is better.
27:44
So if you have strong opinions, if you have an interest in this
27:47
topic, please let us know. If you happen to know a lot
27:49
about machinery where you think we have knowledge gaps, please
27:53
also reach out. We would love to make this a
27:55
broader discussion and talk about much annoying more
27:57
generally as it becomes a topic that I believe in the next three
28:01
to five years. You will have to know something
28:04
about if you're a tea person, in the same way that ignoring a
28:07
coffee grinder in the coffee world is basically impossible if
28:11
you care about quality. I think the same thing is going
28:13
to be true for in Mata. And that's the world that we're
28:16
moving into. And we have the very rare
28:19
opportunity as a community to really focus on objective things
28:24
that that conversation is going to evolve around, around.
28:27
It's really the early days and it's just getting started.
28:30
And it's so like, there's so much potential that can happen
28:35
here, but obviously we can't do it alone.
28:37
Yeah. So new and so fresh, pun
28:39
intended. So fresh.
28:41
That's right. I think it's the perfect place
28:43
to end. If you enjoyed this, please
28:45
consider sharing it with the friend.
28:46
We're going to open up the next batch of manufactured mills
28:50
probably about a month after the first batch gets delivered.
28:53
So be on the lookout for that and let us know if you'd like to
28:56
be on the weight list. And with that, thank you so much
28:59
for listening and we'll see you in the next one.
29:00
See you in the future. Take care.