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Matcha Science with Dr. Yizhou Ma · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the Specialty Match Podcast.
0:02
My name is Ryan, This is my Coho Zhongjun.
0:04
Hello. Hello.
0:05
And we're the cofounders of Sanko Much Products.
0:07
Yeah. So we launched this podcast to
0:09
discuss our learning journey much our share startup stories
0:12
and interview experts. And today we are happy to have
0:16
our beloved friend, Doctor Ejo Ma joining our podcast.
0:20
Hi, Ejo. Hi, Ryan.
0:22
Hi, Zhongjun. It's very nice to be here so.
0:25
Just to call you. Ben just about to call you Ben
0:27
that I stopped. Well, like the audience, if you
0:32
you're addressed don't understand you mean?
0:38
Yeah. So we we were all actually
0:40
former colleagues at the last company.
0:42
And I think you joined right after you got your master's in
0:45
dairy science. And then during COVID you went
0:48
to go pursue APHD in the Netherlands.
0:50
So now we can call you Doctor E Joe Ma.
0:53
It's also is a new name for us. Yes, yeah, I'm very happy to,
0:59
very happy to be here and talk about Matcha today.
1:03
Yeah. So, you know, can you maybe
1:05
share a little bit background information about, you know,
1:07
what do you do? What's your, you know, academic
1:09
background, what you're working on and what's your impression
1:12
about, you know, Matcha as a consumer?
1:14
Sure you are like Ryan said, right?
1:16
So I started a PhD degree working on my PhD degree during
1:21
COVID. I defended my PhD thesis and got
1:24
a doctoral title. Although, you know, person who's
1:28
a bit of a anti achiever, so I don't quite refer myself with
1:32
the doctor title. But ever since I got my doctoral
1:35
degree and I started a new position as a assistant
1:38
professor of food technology at Wageningen University in the
1:42
Netherlands and I'm housed into research groups.
1:45
One is food process engineering and one is food quality and
1:49
design. So that speaks a bit of when my
1:51
day job would be. So doing a lot of work with
1:55
turning ingredients into food and also spending time on
1:59
analyzing the quality of the food and how it interacts with
2:02
consumers. Yeah.
2:03
About matcha itself, I would say I'm a very occasional consumer
2:08
of just matcha tea by itself. I would rarely really consume
2:13
any of the matcha flavored snacks or other food products
2:17
simply because the matcha flavor standards a little low to for
2:22
the typical consumer product that I would be able to get.
2:27
Yeah. And the very occasional drinking
2:30
of matcha, it's also kind of tied to the reason that I was
2:33
thinking about this. I have a daily beverage pie
2:36
chart, right. So and it's filled with other
2:38
type of beverages of choice. So sometimes matcha makes into a
2:43
thin slice of my beverage of choice, but that's normally
2:47
limited to not having a lot of good access to nice matcha.
2:52
And also I have to confess that I don't have a very large
2:56
facility or or or or Gears of brewing good matcha, so that
3:01
that's also part of the reason that I normally just get it from
3:04
cafes instead of brewing it myself.
3:07
Interesting. What are some of the fatter
3:10
slice of the pie in your beverage tart?
3:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that that certainly goes
3:16
still to a lot of coffee recently.
3:19
Also a growing slice of loose leaf tea, let's say.
3:23
In general, Yeah. And then certainly various
3:27
alcoholic type of beverages. You know, good old water.
3:30
We can't forget about water. Very important.
3:32
Yeah. Actually I've noticed too in
3:34
Europe that the matcha quality is maybe the lowest in the
3:39
world. In the States, it's also kind of
3:42
a gamble, but in Europe, even if you go to matcha specialty
3:47
places like in Paris for example, really is disgusting is
3:53
probably the right word. And then charging 3456 EUR,
3:57
whoa, that's crazy. It's expensive and it's bad.
4:00
Yeah. I would agree with it's it's
4:03
harder to find and yeah, the quality is really hit and miss
4:07
sometimes. I would make this small
4:09
observation at some cafes that it's driven more towards coffee,
4:14
but I also serve matcha. I tend to look at the baristas
4:17
brewing techniques a bit. Thanks to education from both of
4:21
you that now I can judge a little bit.
4:23
So I don't, I don't order the drink as much, but I do see
4:27
that's how it's being made in a lot of commercial places.
4:30
Apparently it's very the EU makes it very hard to let in
4:34
anything that is it doesn't meet their standards for herbicides
4:38
and pesticides and organic farming type criteria.
4:43
And it's very stringent and matcha needs incredibly nitrogen
4:47
rich soil. Everything likes nitrogen.
4:49
So you need to use a lot of herbicides and asides in
4:52
commercial farming. And there are some people doing
4:54
much more natural methods, but it's it's a smaller number and
4:58
it's expensive. And so most of the stuff that's
5:00
for more B to B use, like in a Cafe, there have actually
5:05
relatively few options for what would be considered higher
5:09
quality matcha due to the restricted farming practices.
5:12
Very. Interesting.
5:13
Yeah, I didn't know this either. That could certainly be the
5:16
reason then. You also are a podcaster.
5:19
You Co host a podcast on food and food technology called Food
5:23
in the Hood. I want to talk a little bit
5:25
about that. Yeah.
5:26
Sure. Thank you for giving me the
5:27
chance to plug in my own podcast.
5:30
I have a podcast with my college friend Amanda Sia that we talk a
5:35
lot about food science. It's current trends, educational
5:38
perspectives of food technologies in general and some
5:41
of the kind of newer upcoming technologies such as cellular
5:45
agriculture, plant based meat analogs and and various other
5:50
type of topics. Yeah.
5:51
So we, we don't really have a production schedule anymore, but
5:55
we're trying to push out episodes every two or three
5:58
months, let's say. It's a great, great podcast too.
6:01
I think you guys do a good job talking about not only the
6:04
fundamental science, but the application of it in industry.
6:08
Yes, growingly, because of both Amanda and I, our roles have
6:13
changed over the years, right? We really started the podcast in
6:16
2018 when we were still graduate students in the US, but now
6:22
Amanda's quite deep into the food industry as a professional,
6:26
and I've had a few transitions in terms of academic positions.
6:30
So yeah, the the topics also changed a lot.
6:33
So we got to meet very recently. I was in France and you were in
6:37
the Netherlands and we met halfway and met in Antwerp,
6:41
Belgium. And we got chatting and you very
6:45
kindly offered to use a machine that you had to analyze a can of
6:49
matcha. Could you talk a little bit
6:50
about what that machine does and the way the analysis?
6:55
Works. Yeah, sure.
6:57
Yeah. So, you know, if we're, if we're
6:59
thinking of matcha by the appearance of it, it's just, you
7:04
know, grind up dried plant tissues right, in the form of a
7:07
powder. So a relatively common measure
7:10
of powder physically speaking, is its size, right and its
7:15
morphology or its shape or how it looks normally under a
7:18
microscope. So at our university, we happen
7:21
to have a device that kind of automate these process by
7:25
essentially it's a automatic microscope that can look at
7:30
different fields on a thin slide, right?
7:33
So what we could do is to disperse the dry disperse I mean
7:37
by air, a thin slice of matcha powder onto a glass slide.
7:41
And the automated microscopic system will then identify these
7:46
powders and the first take pictures of them and analyze its
7:49
size and also save some of these information about its
7:53
morphology, right? So is it rod shape or is it like
7:58
shaped like a pen or is a Polygon or is it more like a
8:02
circle type of shape? So that certainly matters not
8:05
only for matcha, but also it has a even much wider use in let's
8:10
say pharmaceutical, right? A lot of these active compounds
8:14
or dried in also in powder forms.
8:17
It's quite important also for milling, right?
8:20
So to meal a flour for example, that's also powder that also
8:24
comes in different shapes and different sizes is what
8:28
essentially I did for this much sample as well.
8:31
Compared to other particles of their food stuffs that you put
8:35
through this machine, is it extremely fine or is it like
8:40
standard to some of the milled cereals or other types of
8:44
powders that you would come across when doing Food Research?
8:48
Yeah, it's certainly on the finer side of the spectrum, lot
8:54
of food powders arranged. I will say this is micrometer,
8:58
right. So that's most of the kitchen
9:02
ingredient size that we will encounter for in terms of matcha
9:07
we're we're really talking about 5 to 10 microns or micrometers,
9:11
which is on the lower side of of powders.
9:14
So something you know, probably in other type of powders that
9:18
we're we're seeing in our life, it's perhaps in, in the higher 2
9:22
digits or to close to 100 or or several 100 in Micron.
9:26
And that type of size is is more typical to find in powder foods.
9:30
Just that. So to give our listener a little
9:34
bit background information about this sample, so Ryan brought and
9:38
a little sample of matcha from Holi sheeting men and it's from
9:43
this special blend session no Shield.
9:47
So if you had the chance to procure it online or offline,
9:51
you're welcome to, you know, buy one of these samples and try it
9:55
yourself to have a better reference of what exactly did we
9:57
test. Yeah.
9:59
So I would assume since this is from a traditional house, this
10:03
matcha is milled from a traditional issue.
10:06
Yeah, especially for the price point too.
10:08
Yeah. So from what people have been
10:12
talking about, so people would say that you know any matcha
10:16
coming from a traditional issue, so usually has a more jagged
10:20
powder shape compared to a matcha that was milled from a
10:24
bald milk. So for a more jagged powder
10:26
particle usually suspends better in water than a more satirical
10:32
powder. So bend from your observation
10:35
from the sample using the machine, would you say that this
10:38
powder is particularly more jagged compared to other powder
10:42
that you have seen? Or how do you assess the example
10:45
for morphology of this policy? Yeah, that's a, that's a very
10:48
good question, Zhongjing. The the, let's say what
10:52
essentially this microscope does is it picks up these individual
10:56
particles and take a quick picture of it, right?
10:59
It's just a black and white picture.
11:00
And then it tries to analyze its shape and a common parameter
11:05
that we can use for these type of shape.
11:07
It's for these type of morphological analysis.
11:10
It's a it's what's called circularity.
11:13
It's how if we look at the multiple axes of this shape, how
11:17
close they closely they are equal to each other, right?
11:21
For example, a perfect circle, no matter which way we draw a
11:24
diameter, it's always, it would always equal to each other.
11:28
And in fact, at least from this measurement, we saw a quite of a
11:34
uniform, let's say a circularity measure.
11:37
You know the mean circularity is about 0.8, so, so that that
11:41
actually means it's quite high. There's not a lot of let's say
11:44
per SE elongated particles. That is only let's say more of a
11:52
Jack or or more like a rod shaped type of a type of
11:56
morphology. However, it could also happen
11:59
that there are some roughness on these type of particles that if
12:04
we look from an overall perspective, it's still quite of
12:08
a circular footprint, but there might be, let's say, spikes on
12:12
them that could further change its morphological features,
12:17
let's say. It's like a way to measure that,
12:20
like the spiky. Would that call for an SEM or
12:24
would it be some other method? No, no, no, the same type of
12:28
morphological analysis that we can dive deeper into that type
12:33
of measurement. But then when we are start to
12:36
look for things like spikes per SE, then it becomes a bit more,
12:40
let's say more subjective, right.
12:42
So and perhaps what we do typically is then to to have
12:47
some, some benchmarks, right. So if we were able to compare
12:50
two different type of macho powder or two type of other type
12:54
of powders that were made from a similar processes, we can then
12:57
compare and contrast directly from an image perspective to see
13:01
how they're different. And that's probably a little
13:04
more objective in that way, yeah.
13:06
Natural next step will probably we can offer band some other
13:10
samples, milk from maybe the same tenta using a bot mill or
13:16
even using our sanko mill and then we can compare, you know,
13:19
like how exactly are they different from each other?
13:22
Yeah, that would be very interesting to do.
13:25
I also have very limited knowledge about matcha, so it's
13:29
difficult to really assess some of these data that we see from,
13:33
you know, a single sample. At least they give us a very
13:36
good starting point. Something that I found very
13:39
surprising in the data and specifically when you look at
13:43
the distribution of particle diameters is that it's not a
13:47
unimodal distribution. It's a bimodal distribution with
13:50
a very small like hill hump well below 1 Micron.
13:55
And then the the other much larger peak is around 7 or 8
13:59
microns, which which was interesting.
14:02
Why? Why are there so many sub one
14:05
Micron particles? Is that is this type of
14:08
distribution normal for other milled things like cereals?
14:12
Yeah, yes, actually for a just a grounded powder, right.
14:16
So this we didn't do any further separation of this powder at
14:20
least I don't think the matcha have done through many other
14:24
type of separation processes and it's the same for for example a
14:29
chickpea flour or so. We do a lot of research on
14:32
chickpea and other pulse ingredients and what we
14:35
typically see are these type of bi model or sometimes Tri model
14:39
type of distributions where one peak could correspond to a
14:43
specific fraction or specific composition of that ingredient.
14:48
And for chickpea that's probably more straightforward.
14:51
It has a lot of starch and it also has some proteins, and the
14:54
starch would show up as a different size.
14:57
In general, the starch granules would be at a different size
15:01
than the proteins, so that you could see actually, yeah, there
15:03
are two different fractions that you already could observe by
15:08
just looking at its size. Yeah.
15:09
So specifically for this the Matcha sample, there are very,
15:13
very small particles that we're observing here that's below 1
15:17
Micron. And one aspect that we should
15:19
first disclaim is that there are that that small of a size is
15:23
touching the limit of the light microscopy that what they could
15:27
really assess and evaluate. So there could be some let's say
15:31
a systematic error there for evaluating these small
15:35
particles. But at the on the other hand, if
15:37
we're looking at the data and in trying to interpret it, there
15:40
are probably a lot of sugars or other type of, you know, small
15:46
molecules that were not part of the cellulose type of average
15:52
powders that you will see at the larger diameter.
15:55
But it would be something that's probably more pure, say, for
15:58
example, just a sugar or just some other type of, you know,
16:01
organic presence of compositions.
16:03
Very interesting. So this in theory could be
16:06
driven by like the leafy leaf material or more of the veins,
16:11
or maybe if some stems got in there or have some lignin.
16:15
Or even like from a very high pressure milling, you probably
16:18
broke a lot of cell wall and a lot of these compounds or
16:22
smaller things coming out from inside the cell, Yeah.
16:25
Maybe. Yeah, exactly.
16:27
Yeah, that's that's probably where these these, let's say
16:31
smaller molecules were released from.
16:33
Normally we expect them to be packed together, but they could
16:38
also be broken off. Interesting.
16:40
So when it comes to like bringing this back to the way
16:43
this can impact and it's flavor when you have particles that are
16:48
this small, Could you discuss in general the process of oxidation
16:52
of any non perishable food, let's say like from ground
16:56
coffee or this or flour and sort of what's happening there as it
17:02
gets exposed to the elements and how quickly it can it can go bad
17:07
or not matter, lose its sensory qualities?
17:09
Right, right, right. Yeah.
17:11
So, so, Or in some extreme cases they could just go bad.
17:14
As well. So this is really something that
17:17
that's I think quite unique to, to matcha as a, as a, let's say
17:21
a specialty drink or, or it's, it's also a unique presence in
17:26
the form of a powder, right? Because we also have a lot of
17:29
different type of powder ingredients in our kitchen
17:31
cupboard, right? We could have let's say
17:33
cornstarch that is in the similar particle size
17:36
distributed as as a matcha powder, but we're not really
17:40
looking for it. We're not applying it for its
17:43
pure sensorial perception. It's normally used as a
17:46
thickener. So when we have powders at this
17:49
fine of particle size, we essentially have small particle
17:53
size so that we have a very large surface area.
17:56
So with with very high surface area, it's prone to be oxidized
18:01
quicker simply because there are more contacting points that can
18:04
be touched by air or the oxygen in air.
18:08
So that is something quite specific for these type of
18:11
powder drinks. And in general, a lot of other
18:14
type of powder ingredients are let's say agglomerated instant
18:19
coffee are not as fine as much powders.
18:24
So that that also can help a bit.
18:25
Well, it primarily helps with dissolution, but it also helps a
18:29
bit with reduced surface area. Makes sense.
18:32
And to what degree do you think moisture can play a role in
18:36
degradation of positive sensory qualities, flavors and aromas?
18:40
Because a lot of people store their matcha in the refrigerator
18:44
to preserve it. And then, you know, it's open
18:46
and they scoop some out and they stiffed it and then they put it
18:49
back in the fridge. But there's certainly some
18:51
condensation going on, yes. Do you think over the course of,
18:56
I don't know, 100 grams of matcha, you're going to preserve
18:59
it as well because of the introduction of moisture versus
19:03
having not refrigerated it? Like what's what do you just
19:06
from like your first principles, how, how would you think about
19:08
that trade off from a scientific perspective?
19:10
Right. And and this is really just, you
19:13
know, off top of my head that I have never really done much of
19:17
research from from a scientific perspective.
19:20
But if we're just purely talking about first principles and
19:23
following your train of thought that first of all, all
19:26
reactions, while most reactions really require water, especially
19:30
oxidative type of reactions requires water or water severely
19:34
accelerated, right. So essentially the moist
19:39
environment in in a fridge or some other type of environment
19:43
that that is a high humidity certainly would make what would
19:46
promote some of these changes. And I would argue that in the
19:51
fridge is probably easy is OK because it's lower temperature.
19:55
But if it is a moist moisture also at room temperature or
19:59
normal temperature would would also promote a lot of microbial
20:02
growth. So it's really not nice to have
20:05
a lot of moisture around powder. You know, perhaps I would argue
20:10
if you freeze it right that now you go into a different problem,
20:14
but then at least you're avoiding a lot of these water
20:17
impacts when dealing or storing of powder ingredients like much.
20:22
So freezing was generally a good idea.
20:25
But then like when you open it, every time it's still you're
20:28
going to get some condensation, you re close it and then it goes
20:31
back in the freezer. So it's mostly liquid.
20:34
Water, yeah, I mean, once it goes back.
20:37
Exactly there will the the water will crystallize in the ice.
20:40
Yeah, that's. True exactly yeah.
20:43
So so there isn't too many good I I would say yeah that that's
20:47
it would just be a very difficult situation to solve
20:52
right. That's why you know perhaps what
20:55
you know coffee drinkers are now doing is probably very smart
20:58
with with countertop grinders that you just make powders on
21:02
promise. So so to avoid a lot of the the
21:05
trouble with storage right. So and that's using the nature
21:09
itself to store what beans are. Coffee beans are the natural
21:13
ways of storing beans, right? The coffee, the coffee beans
21:16
themselves. So that would probably make more
21:19
sense to me than figuring out a very complicated type of storage
21:24
solutions for these type of very sensitive powder.
21:28
You totally agree. Yeah, right.
21:34
Yeah. Like these storage degradations
21:37
is unavoidable for if we're dealing with these type of fine
21:41
powder ingredients could. You talk a little bit about the
21:46
unintuitive behavior of powders and small particles when you get
21:52
to the point where a lot of the cohesive forces are so strong
21:57
that you get things like clump. Because what we've noticed in
22:00
milling matcha is that in our failed tests, when we didn't put
22:05
a parameter right where it wasn't very fine, it was like
22:08
coarse sand. And one of the ways that we know
22:11
it's working is actually that it's very sticky to itself it.
22:15
Clumps. Up and there's this transition
22:17
that happens at some point. So could you talk a little bit
22:20
about like the chemistry and physics of that process in the?
22:23
Food, yes, a bit, yeah. The, yeah, what you're seeing
22:27
there is essentially the cohesiveness of those powders
22:31
are increasing, right. So essentially there is more of
22:35
a physics type of concept called packing volume.
22:40
So for example, the volume ratio of the of the particles exceeds
22:45
a certain volume ratio of the bulk volume that you would
22:49
essentially get more densely packed structures that are kind
22:53
of similar to to, you know, a lump of power in that regard.
22:56
And, and a lot of times it's also how there are also other
23:00
type of forces that could play a role right there.
23:03
There could be again, moisture, right?
23:05
So, so that that could form a lot of water bridges essentially
23:09
to have a lot of hydrogen bonding to, to have the powder
23:13
sticking together. And it could also be static,
23:16
right? So there are some statics as
23:19
well. So in general for the food
23:21
industry, lumps are not good, right?
23:23
So, so a lot, a lot of times what, what, what a lot of
23:27
milling experts or grain scientists, what they're trying
23:31
to do is to minimize as much of these lumps and to have a free
23:35
flow powder as much as possible. So that that really goes a lot
23:39
with the morphology and the particle size of the powder
23:42
ingredients. And sometimes also people are
23:45
placing these flowing aids, right?
23:48
So. So some inert particles I would
23:49
just sit in between of the active particles and to break up
23:54
some of these laws. Interesting.
23:55
And so for for people in the matcha industry and especially
24:00
for barista to start preparing a bowl of matcha, they usually
24:05
would use a Sith to unclump the matcha.
24:08
So they put the, you know, the correct portion on the Sith and
24:12
then they just sift it out and you know, to make a more uniform
24:16
make sure matcha powder. Have you seen any other ways in
24:20
the industry for other types of powder for people to unclump the
24:24
powder? Or do they all use a similar
24:26
kind of mechanism? Yeah, yeah.
24:29
I would say in general it's a, it's a mechanical force.
24:32
So it's sift is certainly very practical and very good to use
24:38
at some industrial skills when you can't sift things anymore.
24:42
It's too large or too small. Sometimes piezoelectrics could
24:47
be used to have to have essentially vibrators to help
24:51
breaking the particles apart. Interesting.
24:54
It is interesting. I wonder if we can apply that to
24:57
our matcha. Yeah, well, one thing you see
24:59
the coffee industry doing, like anytime you're grinding
25:02
anything, you're producing tons of static.
25:04
So like electrostatic forces cause like matcha and coffee
25:08
fines to stick everywhere. So you see people using
25:12
ionizers, which I assume the mechanism there is it produces
25:15
some ozone. It's basically a free radical,
25:18
which then helps neutralize some of these charged particles.
25:22
How effective is that? Apparently it's pretty effective
25:25
in coffee. I've never heard of anyone doing
25:27
it in matcha, but I wonder to what degree.
25:30
If you were to use a deionizer for matcha and produce tons of
25:34
ozone, are you just destroying all the catechins and health
25:37
benefits by getting it not to clump?
25:40
Or, you know, to reduce those electrostatic forces?
25:43
Or do you think that there's probably way more antioxidants
25:46
in the matcha than can ever be neutralized by something like
25:49
ozone? Yeah, that's difficult to to
25:52
kind of say, right, without, without running some experiments
25:56
or thinking through the specific reactions.
25:58
Yeah, well, again, first principle guess.
26:02
Right, right, right, right, right.
26:03
Even for first principle guesses that I don't dare to to comment
26:06
too much specifically about how we would really interact with
26:11
the antioxidants in March. But what perhaps we could think
26:15
of is also if dealing with these lumpy problems, whether we have
26:20
a like a like a grind on promise, right.
26:24
So to to, to really grinded premise that would be a little
26:28
bit easier to solve than these more long term type of lumps
26:33
that's forming during storage. The mechanism or if we're added
26:38
temporal time component to it, it would be really difficult to
26:42
estimate and simulate what would happen to that kind of matcha
26:46
during transportation, storage and then finally rich
26:49
consumption. That makes sense.
26:50
Makes sense? Yeah, then what about James
26:53
Hoffman's famous like 2 strays of of water to the to the beans.
26:59
It has a really cool name so it's called the Ross droplet
27:01
technique where you spray a little bit of water to help
27:04
eliminate the static that gets formed during grinding.
27:08
I have no idea if that would work with matcha.
27:10
I have heard that it cannot be too dry of an environment or too
27:16
humid, and I think it's around 60%.
27:19
Humidity is what is considered the perfect humidity in a
27:23
relatively cold room to mill matcha.
27:28
Maybe that has something to do with it, I don't know.
27:30
Yeah, that, that could be that type of work.
27:33
It's more, you know, do we again, do we really need ozone
27:37
or or these type of let's say a bit over engineer solutions or
27:41
or are there other ways that can kind of work, work around with
27:44
it to alleviate the problem here?
27:48
Can you maybe talk a little bit about foam formation and the
27:52
stability from, you know, the foam from a food scientist
27:56
perspective? Yes, absolutely.
27:58
This actually links very well with the particle size
28:01
distribution that we were discussing, right.
28:04
So Ryan asked about the small peak at the very small particle
28:08
size, the submicron particles and actually some of those, my
28:13
suspicion is that they could also be protein aggregates.
28:16
All right, so I'm protein certainly is surface active.
28:20
It is very commonly used to stabilize or first of all to
28:24
create foam and also to stabilize foam in many type of
28:27
food beverages. That actually would be quite
28:30
interesting to to observe here, right?
28:32
Because matcha is such a young leaf right on the tee to have.
28:37
So actually younger leaves tend to have a lot of more protein
28:41
contents in general compared to older leaves just simply because
28:45
they have more. And these proteins are in the
28:48
form of enzymes. The enzymes are there
28:51
biologically to help the tree to grow more, but from a food
28:55
production perspective, we pick these leaves for other
28:58
applications that are also a bit higher in proteins.
29:01
So that's that could be seen here that the foams are quite
29:05
nicely set up with a lot of these matcha based drinks.
29:09
Interesting. Yeah.
29:10
So I actually have a question to to to you too about this foam
29:13
though, because you you know way more about matcha than I do.
29:18
Because when I see this matcha latte type of drinks, do you
29:21
think that that most of the foams are coming from the milk
29:24
or actually from matcha? It can come from either, so
29:27
definitely like the base latte art is coming from the foam of
29:31
the milk, but any good matcha that's well prepared you should
29:34
have a really nice foam contributing to the sensory
29:37
experience just from the matcha itself.
29:40
So then in the top part is all all milk foam there from the
29:43
latte art. But then yes, you would, yeah.
29:46
There will be suspended foams in the drink itself that could come
29:50
from matcha. Good, Yeah.
29:52
Or you know, it's it's textured milk to begin with, so there
29:56
could be some suspended air from the if if the milk is steamed
30:01
with a lot of skill. I see.
30:03
Interesting. So they say that matcha has a
30:06
suspension because we're drinking the whole leaf.
30:09
Could you put it in like scientific descriptor of like
30:14
what makes matcha so unique? Because you know, you compare it
30:17
to like instant coffee or even normal coffee.
30:20
It's 100% soluble stuff for the most part, you're not actually
30:25
drinking the insoluble stuff, but much is incredibly unique in
30:29
that respect. Yeah, that's, that's something
30:31
quite interesting when you mention it like most of our
30:34
drinks, right, we tend to only drink the soluble part, meaning
30:40
that, well, it's a solution per SE, right?
30:44
So like the simplest is sugar in water, right?
30:48
They automatically would dissolve because of
30:50
thermodynamics. But in this case for matcha,
30:54
it's a suspension meaning, meaning that it's not 100%
31:00
thermodynamically stable, right. So if we leave matcha out, leave
31:04
the suspension out for for a day or or or or longer, it would
31:08
start to face separate, the solids will start to sink
31:13
because of gravity and the the liquid supernatant liquid would
31:18
be become clear. So that is something also, I
31:22
don't think it's, it's that rare to have.
31:24
It's just that we don't really have too many of these examples
31:27
with pure solid particles because for example, if we're
31:30
drinking milk, there are the proteins in milk are, are, are
31:34
in the form of casein micelles. And they're also kind of
31:37
suspensions of their, their dispersions, right?
31:40
So they're, they're even at a smaller scale of, of these
31:44
particles dispersed in the system.
31:47
So, so they're not 100% dissolved in the system because
31:51
they're also not 100% thermodynamically stable.
31:54
But you know, we're more familiar with those because they
31:58
are, they are probably a bit more, let's say commonly found
32:03
in, in, in various milk type of products so that we're okay with
32:09
drinking them more easily. We don't overthink of the
32:13
process. Right.
32:15
So they're my cells. The proteins and milk are my
32:19
cells. Yes, the caseins are in micellar
32:22
forms. I went to a talk.
32:24
I don't know, when I was an undergraduate studying chemistry
32:27
and they were talking about using my cells for certain type
32:30
of like ultra targeted drug delivery systems and I like very
32:34
clearly remember this talk. Interesting.
32:36
Had no idea it was a natural phenomenon but it could be in
32:40
something like Cowsville. It's surprising.
32:42
Yes, yes, it is a natural phenomena and we kind of take,
32:47
we normally take natural phenomena for for granted.
32:51
Yeah. Yeah, in many ways, yeah.
32:54
Yeah. But then, but then if we think
32:56
again, I'm just, I'm just also kind of thinking out loud here,
32:59
right? Because a lot of let's say
33:02
freshly made soy milk, certainly there are some particles that
33:07
are suspended inside of the inside of the drink and the
33:11
liquid system that were just kind of consumed also with with
33:15
the rest of the liquid, right? So you can argue that it's a
33:18
complex system that has some part is a solution and the other
33:22
part could be also a suspension, right?
33:24
So there are solid particles included.
33:27
And if we let that milk, does soy milk sit overnight for some
33:31
time? We do see sedimentations as
33:33
well. So that is the similar
33:35
phenomenon that we're seeing here, except probably for
33:38
matcha, the uniformity of the drink.
33:40
It's it's much more prioritized. Never seen someone produce a
33:44
successful CPG consumer packaged, good RTD ready to
33:49
drink bottle of matcha. I've had a lot of them.
33:53
They all have the sediment problem, but something like soy
33:57
milk or oat milk, they tend to not have a lot of sediment.
34:02
Do you think that could be overcome in the tea industry by
34:04
just using emulsifiers or gums? Something like lecithin?
34:11
Or do you think the particles might just be too big and it's
34:14
still going to sink? Yeah, I think it's unavoidable
34:17
with if it's just water and much powder, right.
34:21
So that, but even with added let's say modifiers or
34:25
technologies, the reason why the drinks are seeing the plant
34:29
based milk drinks are seeing more uniform.
34:33
It's also because that's the color or the flavor that's given
34:37
into the drink came from the fat fraction.
34:41
So they are stabilized, the emulsion type of mechanism so
34:47
that fat droplets are stabilized by these gums or emulsifiers.
34:51
But it's very difficult to suspend solid particles because
34:55
they're relatively inert, right? So they don't have other type of
34:58
compounds that could interact with them well with both the
35:02
solid and water to really keep them afloat for a long time.
35:06
So that's probably reason for any type of matcha drink to have
35:10
a expected level of sediments on the bottom.
35:13
I have a question just to be validated.
35:16
There's in Japanese tea ceremony, there's two types of
35:18
tea that can be served, something called usicha or thin
35:21
tea. And the ratio of matcha powder
35:24
to water is 1 to 31g to 30 grams of water.
35:28
And there's something called koicha where you cut the tea in
35:31
half. Are you sorry?
35:33
You double the tea and you cut the water in half so it's four
35:36
times more concentrated and there's almost zero foam that
35:40
can form. It's basically a paste.
35:42
And the reason there's no foam formation is just because the
35:45
viscosity is way too high to support that foam.
35:48
Is that, is that the correct conclusion about why there's no
35:52
foam? Most likely.
35:54
And both type of teas are properly mixed and.
35:58
Yeah, full suspension. They should be.
36:00
They should be like proper. Suspension.
36:03
Yeah, it could be, yeah. And also the maybe the the
36:06
amount of available water it it that just simply do not if it's
36:12
more behaving like a paste, you wouldn't have enough available
36:16
water for let's say protein to unfold or to have the proper
36:20
interfaces for for stabilizing foams essentially.
36:25
Then I have a follow up question regarding to Koita.
36:29
So do powder behave differently in a like a usucha kind of very
36:36
water abundant situation versus a taste situation?
36:41
Like would would you know with segmentation happen also very
36:45
easily if it's a paste for instance?
36:48
Maybe a little bit less if we're thinking specifically for for
36:52
matcha, right? Because if it's a paste, the
36:55
solid particles actually contributes to part of the
36:58
structure of the overall product or the drink that you made,
37:03
because they're also particle particle interactions.
37:06
And in the more that water abundant or a liquid system,
37:10
there are less particle particle interactions, but more particle
37:14
water interactions in general, right?
37:16
So in that sense, there could be a difference.
37:19
And in terms of sedimentation time that certainly also relies
37:23
in these type of liquid or semi liquid systems, it's always
37:27
viscosity plays a big role. And the reduction of water
37:31
typically would increase the of viscosity of the of the water
37:36
phase simply because there are some soluble fibers in the in
37:40
the matcha powder itself. And the more concentrated that
37:43
that fraction is, the higher the viscosity.
37:46
Very interesting, maybe Quite High will be a better CPG
37:49
product idea that's more shelf stable.
37:52
Not that I really enjoy Quite High.
37:54
Yeah, well, that's that's a high, that's a high tasting bar
37:57
the. Intensity is off the charts,
38:01
Yeah. I can't imagine what it's like
38:03
to and it becomes a stale product.
38:05
I got. Or at least not even fresh like
38:08
I don't know. Yeah.
38:10
All right. So I guess before we end, do you
38:13
have any questions for us? You know, not too many, I think.
38:17
Yeah, probably just more as a comment that I really enjoyed
38:21
following your ride and seeing a lot of the development from
38:25
Sunco and you know, I hope to to see more of to have a chance to
38:29
analyze more of your products. Actually, I have to give you an
38:33
extra special thank you, Ben. You were one of the very first
38:37
phone calls I made in like the first week or two of the idea of
38:41
the company trying to figure out and get the confidence of is
38:45
this a technically solvable problem?
38:47
Can you know much of fresh in a machine that's in the footprint
38:50
of the something a coffee grinder?
38:52
And you pointed us in a lot of very useful directions in the
38:55
beginning of where to do research and learn about milling
38:58
science. So owe you a huge thank you.
39:01
Yeah. Thank you, Ben.
39:02
No. You're very welcome.
39:04
The rice still continues, right? So I'm very happy.
39:07
That's true. And we really appreciate you
39:09
analyzing the sample. It's very cool.
39:11
Hopefully welcome. The slice of pie of your
39:14
beverage tart will grow bigger in the future as we've become
39:17
more successful. We need to send you a matcha
39:19
bowl. We'll send you a matcha bowl and
39:21
a whisk and lower the inertia of preparation to make that that
39:27
pie chart. Yeah, I know.
39:31
Yeah. Thanks.
39:31
Thanks a lot. Well, thank you so much, Ben.
39:33
I think that's all we have time for today, but we really
39:37
appreciate you being so generous with your time.
39:39
And if you enjoyed this podcast, please consider giving it five
39:43
stars or sharing it with a friend, and we'll see you on the
39:46
next one. Yeah, thanks.
39:47
Stay tuned.