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Why is average cafe matcha so bad? · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the Specialty Match Podcast.
0:02
My name is Ryan, this is my Coho Zunjin.
0:04
Hello. Hello.
0:05
Who also goes by Sam and we're the Co founders of Sanka Matcha
0:08
products. We launched this podcast to
0:09
discuss our learning journey, Macho shares, startup stories
0:12
and interview experts. And this is take 3 of this
0:16
episode. I don't know why it's been so
0:18
hard to record, but today we wanted to talk about why matcha
0:22
at cafes are generally so bad. Yeah, I think our thoughts
0:27
evolve throughout the way as we keep trying to re record this
0:31
episode. But there is a very coherent
0:35
observation is that you no matter how good some of the
0:38
coffee program in some of the cafes around the world that we
0:42
have been to that matcha program that they serve, it's frequently
0:46
just not comparable. Yeah, it's pretty bad it that
0:50
cafes on average, of course there are people doing fantastic
0:53
work. But I think if I had to
0:54
generalize the current matcha scene, especially in the United
0:58
States and in Europe, but also in other places around the
1:01
world, either the matcha that is served at a coffee shop or a
1:06
cafe is either really bad or extremely expensive.
1:11
The places that are doing like decent quality, especially in a
1:15
place like New York or in California, there are good
1:18
matcha places and there are cafes with good matcha programs.
1:22
But typically, you know, it's 8 bucks for a matcha latte or even
1:26
higher for an usucha. Maybe you know, 14 bucks, which
1:30
you know, certain places you need to charge certain things to
1:32
make the economics of the business work.
1:34
And you know, if you can make a lot of money selling $14.00
1:37
usuchas, that's fantastic, but not necessarily a replicable
1:41
playbook for all like the general coffee shop.
1:44
So I guess it's a good way. Let's start, Zhongjun, with sort
1:47
of talking about our goals. Like the observation here is
1:50
that the status quo for quality for a matcha drink at a normal
1:54
cafe is really bad. Typically you have problems in
1:57
storage. Typically, you know, they're
1:59
sort, they're storing it in a transparent container which
2:02
helps accelerate oxidation, especially with chlorophyll and
2:05
chlorophyll related compounds. Typically they're not moving
2:09
through it fast enough. It's not a fresh ground product.
2:11
It might not even be a fresh ground product by the time it
2:13
arrives. You have a big freshness and
2:15
supply issue. You also have mistreatment
2:18
around preparation. Some people are using boiling
2:20
water, sometimes they're using equipment that doesn't work very
2:24
well. So you get very comfy matcha or
2:25
they're not sifting the matchas and sorts of clumps.
2:28
And that's sort of the status quo that we see if you walk into
2:31
a random coffee store. And you know, the reality is, is
2:35
that most of us who are in the matcha industry, when we go to
2:38
cafes, typically we order coffee.
2:42
If we ever meet at a cafe, anyone who's listening and we
2:46
walk into a cafe, there's about a 99% chance unless I'm doing
2:50
some type of market research. But if I'm just doing there and
2:53
I need some caffeine, I'm going to order a coffee just cause the
2:57
standards are just so low. No expectation really.
3:01
Not even low expectation. No expectation.
3:04
So really trying to save myself from some misery.
3:07
Probably not for me, and probably for the bris tattoo.
3:11
So in this episode we really wanted to break down and try to
3:15
better understand why is matcha so bad and why is the status quo
3:20
so bad on average within cafes. And we think a lot of it has to
3:24
do with the incentives and personal experience of baristas
3:31
as well as like broader structural problems in the
3:34
supply chain and an education and an equipment.
3:38
And also the consumers. And the consumers too,
3:40
absolutely. But like a lot of these, you
3:43
know, expectation goes both way. You know, the consumer didn't
3:47
expect or didn't have any formative experience of having a
3:49
good matcha experience in a cafe that they, they, they do not
3:54
have the expectation or the, the demand that they do not have the
3:59
expectation or the desire to pull a good product out from the
4:05
cafe. And vice versa.
4:07
You know, baristas do not have any expectation or do not have
4:11
any experience of how to make a good marcher either.
4:15
So they don't necessarily have the knowledge and the agency
4:19
meaning, like the equipment and the infrastructure to prepare a
4:23
good cup of matcha for the consumers.
4:25
So there's a lack of demand and there's a lack of supply.
4:28
Yeah, that's true. It's almost a chicken in the egg
4:31
problem because if your customers aren't asking for
4:33
more, why source a better or more transparent product?
4:37
Invest and make any investments in the expensive equipment.
4:40
But if you don't invest and make more better matcha program and
4:44
educate your consumer, the customer would never get to that
4:46
point. So it's really a vicious cycle.
4:50
And I think once people actually try a good product, it really
4:54
changes their mindset. Something that Johnny Matcha
4:56
talked about, who works with a lot of cafes and a lot of
4:59
businesses, is he does comparative tastings.
5:01
He asks them for the matcha that they're serving and he prepares
5:04
it. And he also prepares from his
5:05
matcha blend that he sells to cafes.
5:07
It's called the IE blend from Tsujisan, and it's 80% Yabukita,
5:12
20% sammidori. And he hasn't tasted side by
5:15
side. And he says that the reaction on
5:18
these people's faces is insane. It's like really the first time
5:22
they're trying a fresh product. A Johnny matcha has a lot of
5:25
freshness guarantees sourced from an incredibly skilled small
5:28
producer in Uji, in Shirakala. And having this side by side,
5:33
you can realize that they probably have actually never had
5:36
good matcha. You know, this is really not
5:38
that surprising, right? Like if this is almost like you
5:40
put in a side by side comparison of a very well roasted, you
5:45
know, specialty coffee beans prepared in a very, you know,
5:49
professional way, probably through a prover versus a canned
5:53
coffee like or an instant coffee or an instant coffee like.
5:57
The difference is probably going to be very obvious and obvious
6:02
for a reason. And very sadly, you know, like
6:04
the canned coffee is the status quo for how matcha is getting
6:08
served most of the cafes. Around literally, and people
6:12
don't just their primary experience doesn't know any
6:15
different. And you know, it's important
6:17
within the matcha industry and matcha consumers and people who
6:19
live and breathe this stuff and drink it every day is that like
6:23
people don't inherently care about matcha.
6:25
It's just like, let's use Chai as an example.
6:27
All of us listening. Some people do.
6:29
But I, you know, I and you don't know very much about Chai.
6:34
I have some basic understanding. I know in different parts of
6:36
India they use different spice blends.
6:38
I know they generally use some Assam tea.
6:41
But that's about all that I know about Chai.
6:43
And I know that I like it. But could I tell apart a really
6:47
high quality one from a lower quality one?
6:49
Probably not. I don't know.
6:51
The notion of single origin Chai probably hasn't existed.
6:55
Yeah, well, I mean, it's also interesting.
6:56
Yeah, it does sound interesting actually.
6:58
As a product. I really love Donut Chai.
7:01
I think that with their concentrates, they've done a
7:03
very good job creating a fantastic product that mixes
7:07
with milk. Yeah, but like average consumers
7:10
probably don't even know that there are different varieties of
7:13
Chai out there. Yeah, true, true, true, true.
7:16
Or different blends of Chai so like most people don't
7:19
inherently care about this so if you put yourself in do a little
7:22
empathy experiment and you're a barista you don't know anything
7:25
about matcha and you don't really care about tea you're
7:27
kind of into coffee and you go there to work and you were told
7:31
by your manager now that you work at this Cafe.
7:34
We work with a really good tea vendor and we buy usually about
7:37
a kilogram or about 2 lbs of matcha at a time.
7:40
And we source ceremonial grade and they really find us the
7:43
best. It's first flush ceremonial
7:45
grade. Our customers really love it.
7:47
And you prepare it as an usucha or you know, you prepare it with
7:51
just water because you want to try it, want to better
7:53
understand this is an ingredient that's going into a latte and
7:56
you taste it. And let's say because ceremonial
7:59
grade literally doesn't mean anything.
8:00
I mean, typically this very bulk ceremonial grade product that's
8:04
priced for cafes, unless you're getting it from a very good
8:07
vendor, usually doesn't taste very good.
8:09
I mean, part of the reason why matcha is so bad at so many
8:13
cafes is the product itself. It just doesn't taste very good
8:17
inherently because it's some mass produced agricultural
8:20
stuff. And the very sad first exposure
8:24
of that inferior quality is the barista.
8:27
And how do you make someone care about an inferior quality
8:31
product to begin with? That's making your drink like
8:35
how like the prepare, like the the, you know, matcha is really
8:39
not a finished product. Like there's the last prepared
8:42
part of the strength. The preparer themselves
8:46
inherently doesn't care about this.
8:48
Product. They need to care.
8:49
Like, how can that product be good?
8:52
That's a that's a very sad reality that we are facing
8:55
today. And I'll make this super
8:56
tangible. I was at a cafe in Dallas, TX a
8:59
few months ago and there had a very sad looking matcha setup.
9:03
I actually posted it to my stories.
9:06
This gigantic amount of matcha in this huge glass jar which
9:11
like the lid wasn't even on fully like right by the window.
9:15
So like everything is going wrong with these storage
9:18
conditions like light air. And then they had a a chasan
9:22
which was dirty and the bowl had this crusty matcha.
9:25
They don't clean it in between runs.
9:28
So they will pump the contents of it into a cup.
9:31
Oh my God. And then they just put the bowl
9:33
back. Maybe they clean it at the end
9:34
of the day. And I remember thinking, imagine
9:37
I got hired to work here and I didn't inherently care about
9:41
matcha and I tasted this product and then it says the first
9:44
matcha I ever had. I I couldn't imagine like why
9:48
are people ordering this? Yeah, like, you know, like,
9:51
honestly, the way they treat matcha in those cafes, probably,
9:56
you know, they deserve to be treated that way because they
9:59
are so just so tastes so bad to be in with.
10:02
Like probably in those bristles, mine, they were thinking like,
10:05
wow, this product really sucks. Didn't really deserve any of my
10:09
mental energy to put in any effort, you know, into this
10:12
whole process. Or like.
10:14
Probably what's going on in their.
10:15
Mind or like to learn more about or to learn more about.
10:18
This is not like to give baristas a hard time.
10:21
Like they're doing fantastic work.
10:23
But if you think about like, like what we care about and why
10:27
like, there's probably not very much they can do to make that
10:31
product taste better if they're not even sourcing very good
10:35
things. Yeah, yeah.
10:36
I mean, like we're really trying to put in our, you know, outfit
10:39
into their shoes and trying to make some synthesized, you know,
10:43
assessment on the whole situation.
10:44
But you know, really it's there's a lack of equipment,
10:48
there's a lack of good supply chain of a good product.
10:51
I mean like if those things exist in a coffee level, I bet
10:55
people will be much more interested into try to create
11:01
and improve the quality of the product that they're going to
11:03
create every day. Yeah.
11:05
So I mean, at the very baseline level, you have garbage in,
11:08
garbage out. If you're not sourcing good
11:10
product, you're not going to make very good drinks and it's
11:12
not going to taste very good. And then the second level is
11:15
like the responsibility of the preparer.
11:18
So how they deal about both preparation and storage?
11:21
And the Third Point is consumer, no consumer had the experience
11:26
of the high quality product, thus they don't have any
11:28
expectation to the barista. Thus, the barista doesn't have
11:33
any responsibility to improve the drinks that they're already
11:37
been making every day with the same procedures.
11:39
Yeah, Why change something that people already like?
11:41
Because a lot of coffee shops serve matcha more out of
11:44
obligation. It's more of a pool than a push
11:49
where consumers are pulling it. There's demand for this thing.
11:53
People want matcha. People are asking for matcha.
11:55
It's not companies finding something really good and
11:59
pushing it on to consumers. You do start to see more and
12:02
more of that now, but at least historically, we're talking
12:05
about your average cafe and your average consumer.
12:07
By the way, this is a very reductive discussion.
12:11
We're very much talking about the average case.
12:12
There are people doing fantastic work and a lot of baristas doing
12:16
a lot of fantastic work as well. We're really are interested in
12:19
what are the structural barriers to get the average cafe serving
12:24
a good product so that it's ubiquitous and available, it's
12:28
at a good price and there's a lot of variety that is like the
12:32
the really good three things that make up a specialty market
12:36
where you have fair pricing, you have choices and you can find it
12:40
everywhere. And that's like, I hope at that
12:43
when like we're later on in our career looking back that we can
12:47
see a matcha industry at a random cafe and not have to ask
12:50
the question, why is all of the matcha so bad?
12:53
But you know it, we've come a long way.
12:56
I mean, you go back 10 years ago, not every cafe had matcha,
12:59
right? So we are making a lot of
13:01
progress. It's entering the mainstream
13:03
consumer lexicon. Cafes are starting to adopt it.
13:06
And we're in the Super early, early, early days.
13:09
And like, if you look at the pipeline of education, if you're
13:12
a barista, if you're a cafe owner from a knowledge
13:15
perspective, you will basically run into two different things.
13:19
If you are researching and want to learn more about matcha, the
13:23
first tea ceremony, right? And typically people who are
13:27
baristas or at least stereotypically who are baristas
13:30
are very inclusive, very culturally sensitive and aware
13:35
and don't want to sort of negatively contribute to what
13:39
could be perceived as cultural appropriation or like these neo
13:44
forms of colonialism. And then people who really
13:47
generally care about coffee programs and giving farmers a
13:50
fair price and direct trade very like.
13:53
Respectful. Very respectful, right So when
13:56
you're educating yourself about matcha, you run into tea
13:58
ceremony and these are a group of people who are already
14:02
generally very sensitive to like these types of things and want
14:05
to do it justice. So they buy, you know a bamboo
14:08
whisk Kinshasa and in a tea bowl and doing it the way that it's
14:11
been done in Japan. The problem is, is that the
14:13
ceremonial equipment may or may not make much sense within a
14:17
Cafe context. So that that's one problem that
14:21
people run into. And then the second direction
14:24
you can go is if you are just product focus is you get
14:27
educated about different grades if culinary grade and
14:31
ceremonial. And because anyone can call
14:34
anything ceremonial grade, at one point it was probably a
14:37
reliable descriptor for quality. When Japan started making more
14:41
and more matcha at an industrial scale as an ingredient to be
14:45
used in things like ice cream or desserts or confectioneries,
14:48
they needed a term to differentiate matcha as an
14:52
ingredient. So they chose culinary grade and
14:54
matcha that was meant to be consumed.
14:56
And at some point, the history is actually very unclear.
14:59
Someone somewhere invented the term ceremonial grade.
15:03
And at one point in those early days, it was probably a very
15:06
good descriptor. But now you have hundreds of
15:09
matcha companies that can call anything anything, and everyone
15:11
claims to be sourcing the best. And ceremonial grade could be a
15:15
fantastic product or a really crappy one.
15:17
Yeah, the term is not regulated by any means.
15:20
So, and it's a form of top down positioning where your vendors
15:24
self labeling product as quality and the average quality is very
15:28
bad. So you're educating yourself on
15:31
ceremonial grade. You're trusting these vendors,
15:33
you're tasting samples or someone else has already made a
15:36
purchasing decision at your Cafe or in your company and you taste
15:39
it and like, it doesn't taste very good on average.
15:44
Of course there's good and bad ceremonial grade because that
15:47
label doesn't mean anything. It's so it doesn't create much
15:50
of an incentive, doesn't create an aha moment.
15:52
Oh, I want to learn more. It's like, oh, I had this
15:54
amazing cup of coffee. Like why was it so good?
15:57
Let me learn more about this thing so that I make it even
16:01
better. Yeah, it's not inspiring.
16:02
Not enough people have that primary sensory experience of
16:06
liquid inspiration, of liquid green inspiration that really
16:10
strikes a passion within them and something that we're
16:14
starting to see a lot of people build businesses around our
16:16
workshops. So like a lot of people I know,
16:18
MTCH does a lot of workshops. Chesseki and Thailand is a lot
16:22
of workshops, Matcha Moments and Jacques and Matcha in the
16:25
Philippines do a lot of workshops there.
16:27
And they're teaching cafes and other businesses on how to
16:30
prepare it well and giving them that first taste of a good
16:33
product. Yeah.
16:35
And they're really, you know, the pioneer of the first push.
16:39
I think that's really important because like right now for the
16:42
average consumers and the average Bristas, they all don't
16:46
know better. How could they know if there's
16:48
not good much of just to be available for them in a lot of
16:52
places. So I think this is really
16:54
meaningful for the community and the industry because like there,
16:58
there has to be a first exposure for a good product for anyone to
17:02
start carrying. Yeah, exactly.
17:04
You have to taste something good for for people to value it.
17:07
And the same thing needs to be true on the consumer end too.
17:11
So I think consumers are finally getting to a state where they
17:13
can demand more out of a out of a business.
17:17
And actually a lot of these much influencers that go around to
17:20
different cafes reviewing their products sort of doing the best
17:24
of or the worst of in New York or LA or San Francisco.
17:27
And it actually is kind of nice. At least there is some form of
17:31
consumer accountability. Forcing function.
17:34
Yeah, we're like, bad product is getting more exposed.
17:38
You create an incentive for cafes to increase average
17:42
quality. And so in that sense, they're
17:44
very good. As a small business ourselves, I
17:46
would be horrified if someone gives like, like it's a really
17:50
like exposing yourself when someone's going around being
17:53
very publicly critical. It is much more difficult to
17:57
create things in this world, like to judge other people who
18:00
have created that. Yeah.
18:02
So I mean, these people have a big responsibility.
18:04
But at the same time, it does allow for some standard
18:07
incentive for standards to to be raised.
18:10
And so in that sense, they're actually a really important part
18:12
of the value chain and the feedback loop that is required
18:16
to have Matcha become to get better.
18:18
Yeah, but if you compare it to coffee, you know, Matcha right
18:21
now does have a lack of passworthy information pool or
18:26
knowledge pool, right? Like, if you look at coffee, you
18:28
can, you know, look at James Hoffman, all of these successful
18:32
coffee people. Matt Berger.
18:33
Matt Berger Hostel. Really teaching this this like
18:37
very practical, actionable coffee knowledge for baristas,
18:41
for coffee business and. For consumers.
18:43
For consumers too. And you have all these coffee
18:46
equipment manufacturer making really professional equipments
18:49
for coffee, not only for consumers, but also for
18:52
professional businesses to survive fires their needs and
18:55
they understand the needs. And these equipments were
18:59
created specifically for coffees like for Cafe shops.
19:04
They are not some retrofitting weird adaptation of some legacy
19:08
tools that were created for a totally different purpose.
19:11
By that I mean, you know, Charles Ends and all of the tea
19:14
whisking bowls from the legacy tea ceremony practice.
19:18
That's a very sad reality for matcha right now because like
19:22
where where is the upgrade for equipment?
19:24
If for for a Chasen Like you can buy more expensive Chasen but
19:28
it's still a Chasen. For the whisking bowl, you can
19:31
buy more expensive whisking bowl like you can upgrade from raku
19:36
to a temuku but the functionality wipes is still the
19:39
same. Yeah, there's no functional
19:41
upgrade. Yeah, so like but you can also
19:44
go down the quality. But the other direction that you
19:48
can pick is that you know, you totally ditch all of these
19:51
equipments you are starting preparing pre made matcha mooch
19:55
that should you know, pour straight into your your milk and
19:59
to make. A matcha matcha latte.
20:02
These are really the two directions that you can go right
20:05
now for matcha preparation. In coffee you have this great
20:09
ecosystem. I mean, you can just constantly
20:11
upgrade your grinder to get like better and better results, or
20:15
your espresso machine to get better and better results, or
20:19
all of these tools that can automate and help the workflow
20:22
work. There's no.
20:24
Up doesn't exist in matcha yet. Yeah, it doesn't exist yet.
20:27
There's a big infrastructure gap, which is something that
20:30
we're working on to be totally transparent.
20:32
But we do think and we, you know, we wouldn't be working on
20:34
it if we didn't think it was a big structural problem holding
20:37
matcha quality back, which is what we care about.
20:40
But you know, we are working on a grinder and we're working on a
20:43
bolt, but there are so many other things that people can be
20:47
working on and people can find new ways to optimize Bristol's
20:51
professional endeavor to help them make better tasting matcha.
20:56
And I think another angle to this about creating demand for a
21:00
better product, ultimately what we're advocating for is a group
21:05
of consumers. We would like to see a large
21:06
group of consumers all over the world who are willing to pay
21:10
more for a better product. That is what a specialty market
21:13
is. People who can look at products,
21:15
understand how they're differentiated based on origin
21:17
or processing or cultivar or all these interesting things that
21:21
can lead to different sensory outcomes, different flavor
21:23
outcomes, and be willing to pay more for a better product that's
21:26
handled with more care. And once this group of consumers
21:29
is created, it will create the demand that both will lead to
21:34
better sourcing. So Cafe is getting an inherently
21:37
better product because garbage in, garbage out.
21:39
You can take very low quality matcha, put it through an
21:42
amazing process and still get bad matcha at the end.
21:45
Same thing with coffee or anything else for that matter.
21:48
But then also on the preparation side where, you know, it can be
21:51
a flex for a cafe to have this piece of equipment or that piece
21:55
of equipment where you really understand that they're focusing
21:58
on quality, which is their value add.
22:00
Like there's this wonderful saying and I forget what it's a
22:03
tribute to, I apologize. I think it's in the coffee world
22:06
that they say like coffee is made three times.
22:09
Coffee is made at the farm, coffee is made by the roaster,
22:13
and coffee is made by the barista.
22:14
And things can go very wrong at each stages in the value chain.
22:19
And cafes are in a wonderful position at both selecting
22:22
coffee from roasters or sometimes they're the roasters
22:25
themselves. And then the preparers, so they
22:28
have like 2 very critical decisions to make, both like the
22:32
inputs and the process that lead to the final outcome.
22:35
So we need to see improvement across that entire workflow
22:39
because right now, like where is the process upgrade?
22:42
No, doesn't exist. This equipment doesn't exist.
22:46
And where do we, where, where do we learn from that the
22:50
trustworthy information pool that you know, everybody can
22:54
look and reference and have, you know, a common vocabulary and
22:59
language to communicate with each other also doesn't exist
23:03
yet. So let's talk a little bit about
23:05
that process. So one very obvious low hanging
23:07
fruit is fresh ground. If you have the like let's use
23:10
Oheka for an example in New Jersey, they have Ishiusus,
23:13
they've taken great liberty and agency of milling matcha fresh.
23:17
So their inputs are tensha, they mill it fresh, which is part of
23:20
their value creation and then creating the final beverage.
23:23
And so that's one very important processing step because once
23:26
matcha is milled, everything goes wrong and then immediately
23:29
starts oxidizing. Another huge one is around
23:32
ratios and temperature, huge issues within matcha and can
23:37
lead to drastically different sensory outcomes.
23:40
And some good, some bad. And sometimes it's very context
23:42
specific. And something you see a lot in
23:44
Southeast Asia are cold wasting or even whisking with milk where
23:48
people don't want their drink watered down at all.
23:51
So they'll use a plastic chassen and a bowl and cold whisk with
23:54
milk. And it's actually a very labor
23:56
intensive method because it takes quite a long time to get
23:59
the matcha into suspension within cold mill.
24:03
So you see things like that. You also see an MTCH, for
24:06
example, variable temperature extraction and same thing in
24:09
koto tea space in Bangkok, where they start with lower
24:11
temperature, create a very thick paste similar to koicha, and
24:15
they kind of have to knead it. And then they add in hot water
24:19
right at the right ratios and then mix it in and leads to very
24:22
different sensory outcomes, both because you're drastically
24:25
changing extraction time, but also extract variable extraction
24:29
temperature. And so there's all of these
24:31
various inputs that can lead to a very different flavor profile
24:34
outcomes. And sometimes foam is a good
24:37
thing and sometimes foam is a bad thing.
24:39
So there's all of these agencies or different steps that you can
24:42
do to modulate the flavor profile to lead to different
24:46
outcomes. Because depending on how you're
24:48
serving it, whether or not it's a tonic or a latte or an
24:52
americano or a koicha or an usicha, the product needs to be
24:56
treated in very different ways, right?
24:58
Matcha is not made once, it's made three times.
25:00
And at the end, it's the primary job of the cafe.
25:03
So Zoom June, let's think about other industries for a second.
25:07
Let's reverse this question and pick one of the oldest specialty
25:11
industries probably in the world.
25:13
And let's think about it from a consumer perspective.
25:16
Why is wine so good in? France, it's, you know, it's the
25:22
country of origin 1st and there are generations of the
25:25
experience both at the manufacturer's side, the
25:29
farmer's side and the consumer side of, you know, knowing and
25:32
expecting what is a good product.
25:35
And it's a finished product. It doesn't need to be prepared.
25:38
You control the bottle and you know, you open the cork and pour
25:41
it into your glass. I wanna you have a fantastic
25:45
product right into your face. It's kind of a minor miracle,
25:48
like even if we ignore the piece about it being a finished
25:51
product, right? Like you can buy fantastic wine
25:54
for two to €5 at the grocery store.
25:57
If you're really splurging maybe 20 unless you're buying
26:00
champagne in which maybe you need to spend 30 in France,
26:03
which I mean, these prices are crazy.
26:05
It's everywhere. It's very easy to find and
26:08
there's a huge variety. And I think what's driving that
26:12
is not only what you said around the producers, but you have a,
26:15
you have a group of consumers that understand the difference
26:18
between these products and value it and then thus spend money on
26:22
it. But you know this, this group of
26:24
consumer can only exist when there is availability of the the
26:28
choice. Chicken in an egg problem again.
26:31
It happens both ways. So you need both the supply and
26:34
the demand side of this. Yeah, similar, you know,
26:38
situation that we're encountering in Matcha too.
26:41
We can only have a experienced consumer group out there pulling
26:46
higher quality product from cafes, from the manufacturer if
26:50
they know better. The ultimate responsibility I
26:53
think lays on us, you know how do we offer consumer better
26:56
quality product? US as an industry.
26:59
How do we offer them better quality products?
27:01
How do we offer our peers better quality products so that we can
27:05
grow the pie larger as a whole? I think that's something that we
27:10
should consider and we should really push ourselves.
27:15
Yeah, and actually, I think it relates back to the the last
27:18
episode that we did show don't tell.
27:20
I mean, we should not be preaching to cafes and coffee
27:22
companies and shaming them into creating a higher quality
27:26
product. We're the ones selling the
27:27
matcha. It doesn't look, it looks very
27:29
disingenuous actually to say, look, you are treating this
27:33
product horribly and you're sourcing crap.
27:35
That's not that's not a good sales pitch.
27:37
It's not going to work. You have to show.
27:39
You have to show don't tell. Like the Johnny Matcha demo.
27:42
Taste side by side, taste the difference yourself or even
27:45
better and arm them with knowledge.
27:46
And you know, and also arm them with the supply.
27:50
Now you know better. Voila, we have the solution too.
27:53
We can help you. And the infrastructure or the
27:56
supply chain is already here? Now I'm showing like look at how
28:00
other businesses and other places are doing it, especially
28:03
taking a very similar playbook in Southeast Asia and where you
28:06
have like people, MTCH, for example, wonderful example where
28:11
the sensory description, the flavor description of each
28:15
matcha product is different depending on if it's served with
28:17
water or with milk. But that's a really next level
28:20
level of detail and you can get profiles there that and taste
28:24
anywhere from like super clean umami, creamy all the way
28:28
through, like dark chocolate, roasted chocolate notes all the
28:32
way to like this very green fresh vegetable.
28:35
They have all this diversity of different flavor profiles in the
28:40
way that they're communicating it and really expanding the
28:43
potential for what it can be. And it'd be interesting to get
28:46
the coffee people interested. I bet if they went there and
28:49
they tasted it and tried it themselves they would fun
28:51
realize this is incredible that they can also then explain it to
28:55
their consumers as well. Yeah, the preparer needs to get
28:58
excited first. Yeah, the businesses need to get
29:01
excited first. I think the pendulum needs to
29:03
swing back and forth. But right now it's currently
29:06
very much in the consumer side, in the home market, people
29:10
making matcha at home. The average quality of matcha at
29:13
home in the US is probably better than with being served in
29:18
cafes on average. And that should probably swing
29:20
back the other way. And where coffee companies can
29:24
see it is a real point of differentiation not only among
29:27
their competitors, but better serving the the needs and
29:30
preferences of their consumers. And so maybe sourcing something
29:33
like yame matcha, which is more roasty, toasty, nutty profiles,
29:36
which are most Americans and Europeans are probably more
29:39
primed to like than the Super grassy profiles.
29:41
Then maybe the Super grassy profiles really met the
29:44
preferences of the early, early adopters of matcha in the US
29:47
where the health, health food people, you know, people who
29:49
would want to take get a green juice or take a wheat grass
29:53
shot, right? Like if it's a really widen the
29:56
aperture of potential consumers, new flavor profiles need to be
30:00
made too. You know, matcha is not a
30:01
monolith. Matcha isn't matcha isn't
30:04
matcha. But typically on a menu, that's
30:06
all you see. You don't even get the the place
30:09
of origin to see work matcha latte.
30:11
Matcha latte. I'm a.
30:13
Uji matcha latte or Yami matcha latte?
30:16
Or Asahi matcha latte. Well, that might be a waste of
30:19
precious Asahi. That's true.
30:21
That's to go back to that controversy.
30:22
That's true. But yeah, I don't know what do
30:25
you, we'd love to hear from anyone listening to what you
30:28
think about why the quality is so low from a structural point
30:32
of view and what we can do as an industry to raise quality so
30:36
that it's ubiquitous, there's great variety, and it's at an
30:40
affordable price with a group of consumers who really value this
30:44
incredible plant, this incredible product, which is
30:48
Matcha, which is high quality matcha, right?
30:50
I think that's a great place to end.
30:52
And do you have anything to finish off on?
30:54
No. You know, there's still a lot of
30:56
missing pieces out there. We talk about the product, the
31:00
matcha, the self and also the preparation method equipment.
31:04
There's still a lot of missing pieces on the equipment and we
31:08
are working on one of them. It's it'd be a little bit unfair
31:11
to criticize people like not making their or milling their
31:15
matcha fresh at the moment. You know, it's not everyone can
31:18
afford a issue straight from Japan and know how to maintain
31:22
them from a day-to-day basis or have the supply chain to, you
31:26
know, import very high quality tensor in this whole matter
31:30
shortage, You know, reality that we are facing right now.
31:33
You know, it's that there are still a lot of missing pieces
31:36
from different parties. But you know, we as a community
31:40
should work on it. We all work on our own unique
31:43
difficulties and solve them, and then we can all grow together.
31:46
And hats off to all the much of businesses out there.
31:49
Huge thank you from us who are hosting workshops and
31:52
interacting with consumers and doing lectures and getting like
31:56
really high quality product into people's hands for the first
32:00
time. I really think this is like
32:01
literally going to be a door to door type of activity where
32:05
people like, there's no reason for them to be interested unless
32:09
they have a good experience with the product 1st.
32:11
And so everyone who's doing all that great work, thank you so
32:14
much. I think it's going to make the
32:16
future of specialty matcha a really great and it it's sort of
32:20
the key to making this all work because without intrinsic
32:23
motivation, why would anyone bother creating something that's
32:26
good enough when when they already think it's good enough.
32:29
So anyway, if you have a, if you have anything to add, please
32:32
reach out, let us know. We'd love to talk with you.
32:35
We'd love to record potentially another episode when this is
32:38
just our perspective after having talked to a bunch of
32:40
people. But thanks so much for listening
32:42
and we'll see you in the next one.
32:44
See you in the next episode.