Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / Context to Appreciate

Transcript

Context to Appreciate · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to this best two match podcast.
0:02
My name is Ryan. This is my Coho Sunjun who also
0:05
goes by Sam. Oh hello and we're the Co
0:07
founders of Sanko Macho products.
0:09
We launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey in
0:11
macho, share startup stories and interview experts, and today's
0:15
topic is context to appreciate. So, Ryan, what's the context of
0:20
today's episode? So I kind of see this as a
0:23
reboot of the very first podcast episode we ever did called
0:28
conditions for specialty Matcha preference acquisition, which
0:32
was an opinion piece. And this one actually has a
0:35
actual blog post associated with it, which is nice because it
0:38
kind of pre structured our idea before that recording something
0:41
we've since dropped. Maybe we should take that up
0:44
again. Yeah, we should.
0:45
We should. On a weekly cadence, it's a bit
0:47
difficult, but. Some special episodes may be a
0:51
worth a worth a shot. Absolutely.
0:54
But the core of the argument was how do you get someone from who
0:59
is a beginner to a category, let's say matcha latte drinker
1:03
or someone who likes matcha Kit Kat.
1:05
How do you, how do they move? How does their consumer journey
1:08
look as they move from consuming matcha as an ingredient to
1:12
having something like an Americano?
1:14
So just having matcha on its own with only water to something
1:18
like an usucha or a koicha and like, what does that ladder look
1:21
like? And you see these ladders exist
1:24
in other industries. So you have things like beer.
1:28
Like how does someone in the middle of I'm just going to pick
1:31
a random place Ohio get from drinking Budweiser his entire
1:35
life to wanting to try an IPA or a stout or a saison beer.
1:39
And at our last company, when we were working at the intersection
1:43
of AI, sensory science and science of taste and product
1:46
development, we did a lot of work with brands and
1:50
understanding what that consumer journey looks like for people
1:54
and how people's preferences literally change as they move
1:59
throughout that journey, throughout that ladder.
2:01
And it's a really important discussion in the context of
2:04
specialty matcha because the way matcha is being enjoyed is very
2:08
different, very fundamentally different now than it was 100
2:13
years ago. And that's going to continue to
2:15
evolve. And understanding that
2:17
trajectory, I think is super important.
2:19
So I thought this was worth re looking at.
2:22
Absolutely. I mean, you can kind of see a
2:25
lot of similarities between matcha and the current matcha
2:28
movement with a lot of the other specialty movement in other
2:32
beverage or food categories. And one thing that's certainly
2:36
AI would say a fundamental foundation or a cornerstone of
2:40
such consumer ladder is first you need to have availability to
2:45
more people so that they can actually experience, you know,
2:49
the whole thing or the diversity of the selections.
2:52
And then you need some kind of a gateway product to kind of lure
2:57
people into the house and then, you know, keep them there,
3:00
usually something very like bringlessly delicious.
3:04
And that's usually the gateway. Yeah, you need something that
3:07
creates A curiosity gap. And basically every person that
3:11
I know that is a tea person had some moment at some point in
3:15
their history where their mind like literally expanded.
3:21
And I'd say over half of the people that we've invited as
3:23
guests on this podcast talk about these moments.
3:27
For some people, it was essential.
3:28
For me it was actually again my cha and that got me into tea and
3:32
LED me down the specialty matcha rabbit hole eventually.
3:35
Took actually about another decade between my first sip of
3:38
gimmecha to having a really deeper passion for matcha.
3:42
But like, all of those have to be seeded somewhere.
3:45
So I totally agree if we back out a little bit and talk about
3:49
context to appreciate what is like the lowest level form of
3:54
getting someone to appreciate something?
3:57
Like what is some common language or vocabulary that we
4:01
see that anyone can understand that something is good or that
4:05
something is bad? Good question without tasting it
4:09
first. We're trying it first or after.
4:11
Yeah, just like I'm giving you a gift, right?
4:14
And I'm giving you a gift and I'm, I'm trying to put context
4:18
around it to get you to appreciate it, which actually in
4:21
matcha is a really good example. Most people who are gifting
4:24
matcha to people who have never had it for the first time, they
4:27
need some sort of primer. So what's like the most basic
4:30
low level primer that anyone would understand?
4:33
It's not just for a matcha, but it really for other things too.
4:36
It's expensive, right? It's you know it, it comes with
4:42
with a pretty, you know, hefty price tag and it's rare rarity
4:46
is often a trace or a indicator of quality and you know it, it
4:51
tastes good or it tastes interesting and you should try
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it. I like it.
4:55
I hope you like it too. That's usually the set of primer
4:58
that you you know, you do a ordinary gift giving.
5:01
And what's funny is if you look at the least sophisticated
5:05
matcha companies marketing, that's exactly the type of
5:11
framing that they use to get someone to appreciate something.
5:14
Yeah, right. It's rare or it's expensive
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compared to other types of tea. And the yamoto of something,
5:23
something sankhed like that or endorsed, it's really.
5:28
Very unsophisticated. And yeah, so that's like, I
5:31
would say like the absolute lowest level context to
5:34
appreciate everyone in the entire world, unless you're like
5:37
in some nomadic rural tribe that has no interaction with modern
5:42
society, understands price. And just about everyone, even
5:47
the nomadic tribes, people who who who, you know, don't use
5:50
funny, understand rarity for sure.
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And so these are like pretty universal basic human things
5:56
that we care about. And it's really the lowest level
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that you can use to communicate it.
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And you see different flavors of this.
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I mean, you have some people arguing saying, you know, matcha
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is like, I think 6% of the tea produced in Japan and of that
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good matchas less than 1%. And they just do this percentage
6:14
of a percentage of a percentage thing like inexperienced
6:18
entrepreneurs do, saying if we can only get 1%, you know, of
6:22
the coffee industry or of the tea industry, we could be $100
6:27
million company, right? Like it's the same thing, but
6:30
it's still like, there's still like that one that's really hard
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and you're still creating a whole lot of product to get
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there. And I I find it very similar.
6:40
And actually in a lot of cases where I've been sold to that
6:42
way, I find it a little bit as an insult to my intelligence as
6:46
a consumer. It's like, OK, yes, it's rare,
6:49
but OK tell me more Like it's typically only done by people
6:54
who have a very shallow understanding of of matcha or
6:57
the topic, whatever that is. Yeah, yeah, totally agree.
7:00
I mean, you know, like I think a lot of the things that that you
7:05
value in terms of rarity is not essentially rarity, right?
7:10
Yeah, you can go harvest some, you know, very, very, very rare,
7:14
like Himalayan salt from the Mount Everest mountain Ridge.
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And it's probably still going to taste like salt.
7:23
It's salty by the end of the day, maybe with some a little
7:25
bit of the flavor difference. But what you are actually, you
7:30
know, valuing or paying for is the, the effort, the time that
7:34
someone else spent their life or even risking their life to, to,
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to make it happen to, to have that delivered to you.
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I think that actually that value system really applies to most of
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the things that, that people value nowadays, not just, you
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know, specialty food or beverage, but also the art or
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anything that you want to spend more money to pay for.
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And it's really, you're buying someone else's life.
8:00
You're buying someone else's effort to make this thing
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happened. And then you, you can preserve
8:06
it or you can consume it or you can enjoy it or you can brag
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about it. I think that's, you know the,
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the, the value chain that we are seeing here for most of the
8:14
products. Yeah.
8:16
And I think, but then Zunjun, how do you distinguish between,
8:20
let's say you have two artists, both of them spent 10,000 hours
8:23
doing oil painting, 1 might be quite literally worthless and
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another piece might be worth $10 million.
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So how do you start making quality and price distinctions
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within that same of, let's say difficulty to produce some
8:40
artificial scarcity because there's only one person that
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makes it or only a handful of people that make it?
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Like then what? How do you distinguish between
8:47
products and how is value? Art, Assigned art will be a
8:53
little bit trickier because, you know, there's the cost of making
8:58
that art itself, which frequently is not that much.
9:01
So sometimes you can end up using some more expensive
9:03
material that, you know, is, I would say a little bit more
9:07
arbitrary. You essentially having the
9:09
artists or the gallery evaluating the worth and, you
9:14
know, make up a number. And then frequently in the art
9:17
board is that, you know, you have a series of a set or a
9:20
group of galleries working together with the artists to
9:23
kind of, you know, sell each other the artwork and to
9:27
validate the price, kind of The Dirty, dirty secret of the art
9:31
industry. But it doesn't necessarily apply
9:35
to specialty product. A little bit.
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You have the seller giving a price tag and then you have the
9:40
buyer actually buying the product, which is not just a
9:44
behavior of purchase, but essentially a validation of the
9:47
value. And you see that in, you know,
9:50
in the world of macho, you see that in the world of Chinese tea
9:52
too, like all these outrageously expensive the We Rock tea.
9:57
And you have, you know, actual buyers buying them as a
10:01
validation of the price tag that they give out.
10:03
But, you know, if you take account into the cost of making
10:07
those thesis, probably not that much.
10:09
But then you also need to take account into the cost of
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spreading awareness, the cost of building this whole marketing
10:17
strategy or this whole scheme, and also the effort of people,
10:21
you know, creating all of these. And also the effort of people
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maintaining the status and the image of the product being so
10:30
special that when the buyer and the buying the product, people
10:34
don't won't necessarily bill them as, you know, idiots, but
10:37
you know, they they can actually coin the status label to them as
10:41
a consummation because of all these people marketing the
10:44
product behind the scene and telling other people that, you
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know, this product is actually fairly valuable.
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Would you say that that can be characterized as the context to
10:55
appreciate? Yeah, I, I totally think that's
10:58
part of the context. You know, you're creating
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context, you're creating a a culture, you're creating a.
11:04
Story. Yeah, I totally agree.
11:06
So Zhangjun, there's an old saying that's frequently
11:10
attributed to a French philosopher slash like
11:13
sociologist named Pierre Bordeaux.
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I've actually never been able to dig up where exactly he wrote
11:20
this, but there's a saying that the arts of the bourgeoisie will
11:23
remain with the bourgeoisie because they have the formative
11:26
experiences by which to appreciate them.
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Can we unpack that quote a little bit and then talk about
11:32
how it is relevant to the discussion of giving someone the
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context to appreciate something? Well, if you view that in plain
11:41
language, it's basically saying that, you know, the certain
11:45
appreciation will remain within community or social circle
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because they, they had the experience of it in the past,
11:53
which crystallized into a preference.
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And they only them can have the experience because it's, you
12:00
know, either expensive or either it's, you know, gated by a set
12:04
of social rules. It's, I would say it's, it's
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still true for some products nowadays, especially those for
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example, in the world of matcha, there's, there are just, you
12:14
know, some much that just not purchasable.
12:16
You have to, you know, know the guy that knows the guy or you
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have to, you know, be within a certain, you know, social
12:22
circle, a teaching circle of EM motel or, you know, a farmer's
12:27
circle to be able to have the product, to have the option to
12:31
buy the product. Or if you be a little bit even
12:35
more outrageous, you know, like in the world of wine, you have
12:38
Romani Conti. You know, you actually need to
12:40
buy a lot of wine from the in state, from the Chateau, enough
12:44
to be put on a wait list to buy their, you know, best wine on
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the shelf. That's some serious formative
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experience that you know, it's not just money can buy.
12:55
You really need to be within the circle to have that experience.
13:00
Well, even if you can afford that experience, right, you need
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certain like formative experience or like life
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experience to appreciate something and then to them value
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it. So let's put this within the
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context of like Asian food products, sea cucumber.
13:18
I didn't grow up with sea cucumber.
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I don't care about sea cucumber. Sea cucumber cost like a hundred
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U.S. dollars. I do not have the formative
13:27
experience by which to appreciate sea cucumber.
13:30
I don't even really like sea cucumber.
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I've had it like twice Right and.
13:34
Next time you're here. But I mean, you can say the same
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thing about anything from high end wine to crazy coffee to
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like, even like leather goods, right?
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I don't know anything about leather goods.
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I don't care about it. I don't value it.
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I don't have the formative experience to tell apart, you
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know, a Birkin from a random, you know, cheap knockoff, right?
13:57
Like it's, it's just not something that I can totally
13:59
grok or understand and therefore value, right.
14:02
So sometimes it's gate cap, but often times it's just like the
14:04
default. So what's interesting within the
14:06
context in the sphere of Matcha is actually this quote is
14:10
incredibly relevant to Matcha 100 years ago or 150 years ago.
14:15
Oh. Yeah, I totally agree the.
14:17
Context to appreciate matcha at the highest levels, right?
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If we're talking about the consumer ladder of getting the
14:24
better and better experience, the better and better product,
14:28
it was literally gate kept and it actually still is.
14:32
If we think about the highest ends of let's say cuisine like
14:35
moving from A1 to A2 to A3, Michelin star restaurant to, you
14:40
know, the the apps to the absolute pinnacles of dining.
14:44
The equivalent of that in matcha is progressing through the ranks
14:48
of these tea ceremony schools. And you will absolutely reach a
14:51
ceiling over time as a foreigner or if you're a woman.
14:54
And something that I think it was James Freeman said the
14:58
founder of Blue Bottle is, he very quickly realized the
15:01
experience of drinking coffee or drinking coffee is so much more
15:05
than consuming a liquid, right? It's about the ambience, it's
15:09
about the space that's created. It's about the feeling that
15:12
hospitality can create. And if we look at tea ceremony
15:16
being like one of the fundamental examples of
15:19
intentionality and hospitality and creating the set and setting
15:23
the environment to enjoy something, in this case being
15:27
matcha, right? As you progress through these
15:30
levels, you get more and more and more and more context to
15:33
appreciate. And they'll probably be a
15:36
ceiling you'll reach as a foreigner.
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There's a ceiling you reach as a woman.
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And you have to go all the way to the tip top to get to these
15:41
secret teachings, which only, you know, basically all Japanese
15:45
men and or their young heirs have access to.
15:50
It is like the equivalent of the arts of the bourgeoisie or
15:53
remain with the bourgeoisie because they have the formative
15:55
experiences by which to appreciate them.
15:58
Some of those advanced practitioners in China, you
16:00
don't even have the formative experience or the context to
16:04
appreciate what's going on because it's secret teachings.
16:08
It's kind of the king in the high Castle level of getting the
16:12
context to appreciate something in matcha, and I actually can't
16:15
think of that many equivalents in food and beverage where this
16:20
is still so old world it doesn't really exist.
16:23
In wine, if you have enough money and time and cultural
16:26
connections, you can get the best of the best of the best
16:30
wine experiences, and the same thing for food or for coffee.
16:34
But Matcha is actually really unique that it's still trapped
16:37
in this old world system. Yeah, Ryan, but there's also a
16:41
very interesting, I would say the assessment to how or what
16:45
exactly are they appreciating by the end of the ladder, in this
16:50
case, the secret teaching in China.
16:52
You it's you know, what exactly are they appreciating versus
16:57
what do macho drinker cares? I think there's there there has
17:01
to be a discrepancy. They are not maybe not
17:03
necessarily, you know, looking at the same thing.
17:05
I'm not at a discrediting the value or the context of both
17:10
sides, but there's definitely a discrepancy.
17:13
And to many extents I go back to my previous argument instead,
17:18
the context to appreciate or the context.
17:22
The, the sheer construction of a context is essentially you're
17:25
building a culture. The context to appreciate
17:28
something by the end of the day is within that culture
17:31
vocabulary or culture knowledge that something is better than
17:35
something else. And the comparison, the, you
17:38
know, the, the, the factors or the criterias of comparison
17:42
might be a little bit different when you compare 2 cultures.
17:46
In this case, you're comparing, we are comparing, you know,
17:48
China you versus, you know, specialty matcha and you know.
17:52
Totally agree and I think that is like why?
17:56
Yeah, sorry, sorry. Go ahead.
17:57
I think that's why we're at the cusp of the specialty macho
18:00
revolution. We're building up this culture
18:03
that's appreciating it on an entirely different, what I'll
18:06
call pleasure vectors or culturally enriching vectors,
18:10
cultivar, terroir, farmers, production techniques, right?
18:14
The Iyamoto's aren't sitting around and the China U people
18:17
aren't sitting around talking about how incredible this 44 day
18:21
Hansu shaded Asahi is. Like who knows what they're
18:25
talking about, but that's certainly we're appreciating
18:27
things in a from a very, very different perspective.
18:31
But this one can be democratized.
18:36
The arts of the bourgeoisie don't have to remain with the
18:38
bourgeoisie here, right? Anyone with an Internet
18:41
connection and a little bit of disposable income can get access
18:45
to these references and enjoy it and have a ladder to climb as
18:50
they get deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
18:52
It's a people's movement. Yep, Yep.
18:55
It's from from bottom to top, not from top to bottom, which is
18:59
a very different route, but it's no longer being, you know,
19:03
confined by, you know, a certain authority.
19:06
It's easier for everyone to participate.
19:08
But also for this to really happened in in a larger scale,
19:13
you you really need to have the availability of different
19:16
diversities of criterias and you need.
19:19
You need to have new companies and giving people new sets of
19:23
things to appreciate, right, Which is what all of these
19:26
specialty principles are, you know, around cultivar, terroir,
19:31
all the interesting stories and farmers and techniques that
19:33
people are talking about that can lead to very different
19:36
flavor profile outcomes, right? It gives people a rabbit hole to
19:41
go down. And it worked a really exciting
19:43
early stages of that, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
19:46
Ultimately comes. Ultimately comes down to the
19:49
topic that we talked about in the previous podcast.
19:51
What do you care about? What are your stock ranked
19:54
priorities, right? And in a specialty subculture
19:58
within matcha, it's about the flavor, it's about the people,
20:01
it's about the farmer, right? It's not necessarily about the
20:04
poetic name or how it relates to the theme or how that relates to
20:09
the season. Those are all very beautiful and
20:11
wonderful things, but the context to appreciate all of
20:14
that is living in a extremely different sphere than something
20:18
like special. Tea matcha is and actually, I
20:21
think that's where we see a lot of this painful, what I'll call
20:24
it, judgment on the Internet between people who care about
20:28
very different things and that essentially like people are
20:31
experiencing matcha on 2 entirely different pleasure
20:35
vectors, different things out of this same product.
20:39
And like the tea ceremony, people screaming at people for
20:42
using quote UN quote ceremonial grade matcha in their matcha
20:45
latte should have a taste of their own medicine.
20:47
I think that they should taste a culinary grade in a latte and
20:51
then taste the ceremonial grade latte and tell me honestly which
20:55
one tastes better. Like I agree you cover up some
20:59
subtlety and nuance, but the person who's enjoying taking a
21:03
higher quality product and mixing it with milk, which is
21:06
not me by the way, but you cannot deny that it tastes
21:09
better and that person couldn't care less that it would make the
21:13
perfect usage on the perfect tamai after preparing it in on
21:17
on a tatami mat. Like it just doesn't matter to
21:20
them right? They want a good tasting
21:23
beverage right? And it's in they are forming an
21:26
appreciation that is so different than that other
21:30
person. Yeah.
21:31
But you know, this judgement is not unique to Matcha though.
21:34
It's I'm just thinking out loud, but you see this in all the
21:38
other specialty beverages. I think ultimately it's a
21:42
judgement between something that it's in its, you know, quote, UN
21:47
quote, pure form versus inclusions.
21:51
Like you see this in in the world of coffee, right?
21:54
Like latte is just being judged as inferior than black coffee by
21:58
all aspects. The specialty coffee people
22:01
wouldn't necessarily brag about, you know, they, they make the
22:03
best latte, best tasting latte using this very expensive
22:07
special bean. Also, you see this in the world
22:10
of wine, right? Like you have all these
22:12
fortified wine, which are actually very delicious.
22:15
I'm a big fan of Sherry. How you end up making Sherry is
22:19
that you add Brandy or extra alcohol into a fermenting wine
22:24
to stop the fermentation and to keep a lot of residual sugar and
22:28
adding some other flavors into the beverage so that it's no
22:32
also no longer pure, which, you know, also views as inferior
22:37
than, you know, you know, ordinary wine.
22:41
So all these fortified wine, but they they can be very, you know,
22:46
delicious and, you know, aged for a long time, but the price
22:49
of them is still a much lower than you know, other, you know,
22:53
well aged vintage perola, for example.
22:57
Yeah, Why? I would say that's because
23:00
that's where the specialty market exists within wine.
23:04
People have a context to appreciate the other thing more.
23:08
Yeah, yeah. But my argument is that, you
23:10
know, this idea of adding something else into a product
23:14
and getting judged as inferior exists in other, you know,
23:18
products, not just, you know, matcha, but also in coffee, so
23:22
in wine, which is very interesting.
23:24
Yeah. No, I agree.
23:26
It's definitely not something that's unique to Matcha.
23:29
Yeah. But they they can taste very
23:32
delicious. I I wonder why, you know, this
23:34
is such a stigma in in other because like sometimes they're
23:39
not really like pure, right? Like you have all these sorts of
23:43
Co fermentation in, in, in, in coffee, right?
23:47
Like you add like like fruit or some, some other things and
23:51
spice and ferment with the coffee together to, to, to get a
23:55
new product. You also have, you know, all
23:57
these barrel aging practice in the word whiskey, right?
24:00
Like you essentially adding other flavors into the into the
24:05
whiskey, into the liquid by putting them into a barrel that
24:10
have stored other things. So the the the matrix or the
24:13
judgment criteria of something, whether something or not, it's
24:17
purer is also very interesting. It's interesting.
24:21
That you say that because I bet there's a parallel universe
24:24
where that purity matters less. And something that I've
24:28
experienced being obsessed with tea for a very long time is when
24:32
you're obsessed with tea and ceramics in a Chinese context,
24:36
you go back far enough. There's a lot of vessels, cups
24:39
and things like that that had some potential crossover usage
24:44
where an emperor would be using something.
24:48
It potentially could have been for tea, or it could have been
24:50
within the context of wine or what they would call what gets
24:53
translated as wine. But then there's always another
24:56
sub context there is that the wine that they were drinking in
25:00
ancient China wasn't wine at all.
25:02
It was some mix of stuff, like it was some kind of rice alcohol
25:07
mixed with all this herbs and other stuff.
25:09
And you know, that was probably considered the top of the top,
25:12
wasn't a pure product at all. So.
25:14
Probably. Human space have dictated that.
25:17
Or even tea. Drinking, you know, like back in
25:19
Tang dynasty, they, they also, you know, drink these powdered
25:22
tea. It's the really the proto mocha,
25:25
proto matcha. They Add all sorts of things
25:28
into the pot like tea, ginger, you know, spice mints, all kinds
25:34
of things. And it's essentially a soup by
25:36
the end of the day, and then it's only to be consumed amongst
25:41
the nobles and the monarchs, which is not pure at all.
25:45
Yeah, interesting. I wonder why that is in a
25:48
broader context, why there's such a focus on purity now.
25:53
Something transitioned in history simultaneously across
25:57
different cultures that people start moving from, you know,
25:59
mixing or mixture into a more pure form.
26:04
Well, I mean I. Think that's also what the
26:05
specialty matcha movement is largely about to like you cannot
26:09
taste the difference between cultivars as easily, right?
26:13
When it's mixed with milk and sugar and other things.
26:17
So actually like if you look at it from the specialty principles
26:19
of like specialty matcha bean to bar chocolate, like bean to bar
26:23
chocolate, it's in the name, right?
26:24
You go from beans to a bar and the implication is that you
26:28
probably aren't adding like emulsifiers, milk powder, like
26:33
all the other things you can do to make what a lot of people
26:35
think of as chocolate, It's to get a more pure expression of
26:38
the agriculture and the nature and nurture steps that were used
26:42
to create. It doesn't mean that you can't
26:44
produce delicious things, but it does unlock a whole new set of
26:48
set of enriching experiences and hedonic pleasure by the fact
26:53
that people can draw distinctions based on flavor,
26:57
based on those attributes of the product, the cultivar, the
27:01
region, the producer, the processing, etcetera.
27:04
Fundamentally different context to appreciate other than just
27:07
like the pure sensory experience and blind hedonic pleasure of
27:13
enjoying some combination of flavors.
27:16
Makes sense having A and also having a product remained as
27:21
having less ingredient. You, you are essentially getting
27:24
closer to the tawa, you're getting closer to, you know,
27:27
the, the farming technique, the, the, the local geography, the
27:33
climate. Those impact will be more
27:35
obvious with, you know, with that recipe versus, you know,
27:39
adding other things. You kind of mask out of these
27:42
nuances. So Zhongjun.
27:43
For any of the Matcha brand owners listening, what are some
27:47
things that we can do as an industry in your opinion, that
27:51
will make quote, UN quote smarter consumers?
27:55
Like if we have a lot of different consumer interaction
27:58
and like some people will be like, OK, yeah, they're kind of
28:00
basic. They're just talking about how
28:02
much is healthy and rare. Or you can have a really
28:05
enriching conversation where you immediately realize, wow, this
28:08
person's got a lot of context. How do we create more of those
28:12
people that are quote, UN quote smart consumers or good buyers
28:16
or they're able to differentiate between products and then assign
28:19
value because they're aware of the market rates for products
28:24
for similar products that have been objectively, objectively
28:27
labeled that way. And I'll just use Suji San as an
28:30
example. And we like to use him.
28:32
He's a really good example because so many, he has so much
28:35
representation by other Western vendors.
28:38
And you start doing some price comparison across websites and
28:41
you realize that there's actually a ridiculously large
28:44
range with Suji Sun's products sell for.
28:47
But it's the same product, right?
28:49
Right. That that's what a smart
28:50
consumer would do though. Start connecting the dots.
28:53
Like this person didn't mention Suji San, but everything is
28:58
grown in Shirakawa, which is like Suji son's basically the
29:01
only well known producer in Shirakala and these happen to be
29:05
all the same cultivars, Asahi, Uji, Hikari, Sam Midori,
29:09
Siamidori, whatever that he grows.
29:12
And you know this is almost certainly from Suji son.
29:15
Like that's what like what smart buyers are doing right now with
29:17
his products and like their price triaging.
29:20
Johnny Macha is selling it for an insanely cheap price.
29:24
And then if you go over to kettle, it's like literally
29:26
double. I was just checking this
29:28
yesterday for what is basically the same product.
29:31
How do we get more of these? And in that case, they're both
29:34
labeled as suji san. But let's say they're not
29:36
labeled as suji san, right? Like how do we help?
29:39
How do people have the context needed to do this type of
29:42
detective work? This.
29:44
Really goes back to, you know, the, the quote from Pierre
29:47
Bordeaux is that you, you need to have formative experience,
29:50
you need to actually know what those products are and what do
29:52
they taste like to be able to make a, you know, rational
29:56
judgement or assessment of, you know, the situation.
30:00
Basically, as we're talking about that this right here and
30:04
and one thing that I think a lot of the vendors and our friends
30:08
in the industry can really start doing is just to have the
30:13
availability of different options for people to start
30:16
trying. It's kind of hard right now,
30:19
given, you know, this whole matcha shortage problem.
30:22
But, you know, if you really want a smart, educated inform
30:26
the consumer in matcha, in in the world of matcha, you know,
30:33
words are, you know, not enough. You you really need to have them
30:37
try all these stuff that they they will start to have a more
30:41
coherent and, you know, formative experience and to to
30:45
build up a context for them to, you know, inform themselves and
30:49
also inform their purchasing decisions.
30:51
Yeah, that. You can't get past primary
30:54
sensory experience because that's ultimately what you what
30:57
you come to value, right? Like, all of this is fine and
31:00
interesting theoretically, and it's like intellectually
31:03
interesting, but until you make that tangible link, you know,
31:06
it's, you know, it's just all fluff in the air.
31:12
Yeah. That's what makes tea special.
31:15
Isn't such a tangible thing that you can taste at the end of the
31:17
day. Yep.
31:19
Yep. So one of the things that.
31:20
Really frustrates me just as a consumer, and I'm just talking
31:24
about my consumer experience now, is that I, we keep hearing
31:27
from everyone a chashi's, chashi's, chashi's, they're
31:30
incredible. They have such incredible skill
31:33
and they're underrepresented and under talked about in the
31:36
industry. They're a blind part of the
31:38
industry, but you know, they really are the backbone of
31:42
keeping these products consistent.
31:43
Shashis are blenders or tea purveyors.
31:46
So if you go to like Maruku Kalaman, right, they have all of
31:49
these different products and let's use tenju and it is as an
31:52
example, right? It's somebodies job to make sure
31:54
that that tastes the same every year.
31:56
Same thing with their hatsu mukashi or whatever poetic name
31:59
products that they have. These different blends and what
32:02
I get so frustrated as, OK yeah that's great.
32:05
Shashi's keep these tasting the same.
32:07
Personally, I'm not even sure how consistent the flavor
32:10
profiles are because I'm not buying them every year.
32:13
And Even so, if they taste different, I'm probably going to
32:17
blame that maybe 1 was fresher than the other, or maybe
32:20
something's wrong with my palate or my memory is flawed after
32:24
waiting one year to tell what the difference is like.
32:27
But in so that that's like one point, but the second point, no
32:33
one knows anything about them. How in the world is a consumer
32:37
am I supposed to appreciate what the chaise's are doing when I
32:40
don't know how they work? I don't know why it's hard.
32:44
I like I have some idea based on other specialty products, but no
32:48
one's talking about the actual skill.
32:50
It's completely hidden without the context to appreciate.
32:53
The only vector in which I can appreciate it is through my
32:57
primary experience tasting these products year after year and
33:02
hoping that they're consistent and observing it.
33:04
And then of just appreciating that fact that it does happen to
33:09
be consistent tasting year after year after year, right?
33:12
That's the only vector that you can use to appreciate the work
33:16
that these people are doing. But the skill and the craft and
33:19
the intention of why does this flavor profile exist?
33:24
What are you trying to do? How is it supposed to be used
33:28
other than uscha or koicha, Right?
33:30
That's great. All of these chashis have what,
33:32
I don't know, let's say 30 different blends that are meant
33:36
for uscha. Why do they exist?
33:39
What is the intention behind this one versus this one versus
33:44
this one? And you very rarely get that.
33:47
And it's a complaint that I have in this industry.
33:49
Like everyone says, they're so incredibly skilled.
33:52
But like, let's give people the context to understand that that
33:55
craft, that art. Yeah.
33:58
It's it's very interesting that they're so, you know, mysterious
34:01
because you know, they, I mean, they're, they're essentially
34:03
formulators, right? Like or, you know, flavorists in
34:06
all these flavor houses or, you know, star flavorists that make
34:10
all these fine fragrance. You know that they, they are
34:15
quite, you know, there's a very good community of or and culture
34:20
of appreciating their work that exists, you know, in other
34:24
industries, you know, other, you know, formulators in, in, in, in
34:29
the, the wine industry, blenders in the whiskey industry, these
34:34
are stark flavourist in the fragrance industries.
34:37
They are basically doing the same thing, but you know, the
34:40
same thing in terms of the, the spirit of it.
34:42
But, you know, it's, it's so interesting that the Tashi's are
34:47
so like hidden the word of matcha versus all these other
34:52
formulators in other industries are basically celebrities.
34:55
Yeah, in the case. Of the flavor industry, they are
34:58
a little bit behind the scenes, but that's because they're
35:00
suppliers of suppliers. So for those of you who don't
35:03
know, there's this gigantic industry called the flavor
35:05
industry called flavor Houses and it's largely controlled by 4
35:09
very large companies IFF, Juvidan.
35:11
Simrise permanent and they have something called Flavoris, and
35:17
the idea is that a strawberry is not a strawberry is not a
35:19
strawberry. You have various different
35:21
expressions ranging from sour to ripe to green to jammy to cook.
35:26
There's all these different expressions and it's someone's
35:28
job to basically take a bunch of chemical ingredients, mix them
35:31
together to create these various flavored products that they put
35:35
into everything in food and beverage products.
35:37
And in some cases, depending on the laws of the country, they
35:40
don't even need to be labeled, right?
35:42
So that can literally hide under ingredients in a label.
35:46
So for example, if a yogurt already has something labeled a
35:50
strawberry, sometimes if the chemicals that make up the
35:53
additional strawberry flavor that go inside it can hide under
35:57
that label because the chemicals that are naturally found in
36:00
strawberry, for example. And those laws, those labeling
36:03
laws differ across different countries, for example.
36:06
But anyway, it's someone's job to make sure to come up with
36:09
those various flavor expressions and to keep it consistent over
36:13
time. And that is very much seen as
36:16
protected intellectual property because you cannot patent a food
36:21
recipe. I think it's considered a trade
36:23
secret. And the other interesting,
36:25
really interesting thing is 1 The the formulation for those
36:27
different flavors are kept incredibly secret by the flavor
36:30
houses. And in fact, they're so secret
36:32
that the companies that buy them, all the big food and
36:35
beverage companies, they don't actually know what's in that
36:38
flavor because it's a trade secret by the flavor house.
36:41
And then what they end up doing is they end up blending multiple
36:44
flavors for multiple flavor houses to create a proprietary
36:48
recipe so that the flavor houses don't even know what's in the
36:51
final product. So it's a blend of a blend.
36:53
And it's very important for IP, for IP protection in the food
36:56
and beverage industry. And what's going on in Matcha is
37:00
not quite like that. Like, I don't know, you're
37:03
working with just a handful of cultivars and like, yes, there's
37:07
some seasonal variation, etcetera, etcetera.
37:09
But for the most part, these are not suppliers of suppliers,
37:12
right? They're the final brand owners.
37:15
And why it's kept so secret, it's just a bit of a mystery to
37:18
me. Yeah, well, I wish.
37:20
I can learn more about them, but you know, it's so hard to get in
37:24
touch with anyone within that community.
37:27
But it's such a more pure. Thing, right, when you're adding
37:29
flavors to food, you know, it's not that interesting.
37:32
Just the average strawberry yogurt consumer care, like all
37:35
of the like the complexities that went into driving that
37:39
what's going on in that flavor. But in the world of matcha or
37:42
specialty matcha, like there's a lot of probably so many
37:46
interesting stories to be told around how and why these various
37:51
blended products exist and the art that's going on by that
37:55
blender and to keep them that way.
37:58
Yeah, totally agree. And there's probably a lot of
38:01
history behind it too. Like how do they exist in the
38:05
1st place And you know, how did this culture of secret teaching
38:10
and the forming, I think that's that that will be something very
38:13
interesting to, to discover even more.
38:16
Context to appreciate something. Yeah, yeah.
38:20
And they don't even need to like.
38:21
Spill all the beans, so to speak, right?
38:23
They could like, just hint at it, right?
38:26
It might actually generate more hype if they're a little vague
38:29
in their stories. I'm surprised that they're.
38:35
Not doing this because it could be some really powerful
38:38
marketing to get people to appreciate these products more.
38:41
I mean the complaint is right. Is it like all of these quote UN
38:44
quote macho gurlies on TikTok are buying up all these quote UN
38:48
quote expensive and they're not that expensive cans of Maruku
38:52
Koya and Yamamasa Koya man, like all of these like old school
38:56
blend houses and mixing them with milk.
38:58
They couldn't get the context to appreciate those products if
39:02
they tried. I don't have the to appreciate
39:05
those products beyond surely enjoying the taste.
39:08
There's you can't get anything from them.
39:10
And the Chanoyu people who are complaining that they don't have
39:13
them for tea ceremony, they're not sitting around enjoying them
39:17
across those vectors either. They're enjoying it within this
39:20
broader set and setting that is Chanoyu, right?
39:23
That has doesn't really have that much to do with the product
39:26
other than the arbitrary poetic name that that product was
39:29
given. Yeah.
39:31
You know, from a different angle, you can also view it in a
39:34
very damned way, you know, like are these contacts by the end of
39:37
the day just distraction of you really just enjoy the sheer, you
39:43
know, enjoyment of that tea. It's it's also a different
39:48
aspect. I would say, you know, you kind
39:50
of see that, you know, appreciating art or artist
39:54
creating art or even in some other, you know, tea.
40:00
Tea branding too. You know, you have whiter tea,
40:03
you know making specializing in Chinese tea and they are
40:07
intentionally hiding all the information about the tea.
40:10
But just, you know, present you the the tea itself want you to
40:15
enjoy it and you know they are delicious and you you end up
40:18
focusing on the taste rather than the other information.
40:21
The reality is, though, is this. Can only exist in a high trust
40:25
environment. That's number one.
40:28
But the other problem #2 is that people have different
40:31
preferences. It's so this might work in like
40:35
the poor E crazy people who have very convergent preferences, but
40:41
where their divergent preferences, especially on a
40:44
global stage that we're talking about consumers as diverse as
40:48
Thailand or Saudi Arabia or Mexico, like people's might have
40:54
very different preferences. And without clearly labeled
40:57
objective attributes, they are not able to draw a straight line
41:01
between what they're tasting, what they like and what where to
41:05
find that. Yeah, I I agree.
41:08
And they are also facing a much more mature consumer community
41:13
with which a lot of them already have the formative experience of
41:17
all these kind of teas and they can make their own judgements or
41:20
assessment of the product. I do agree.
41:22
And this is what the the matcha specialty matcha movement is
41:26
lacking right now is you know that availability of, you know
41:32
having more people have the formative experience of such
41:35
which there is no universal. Beauty, there is no universal
41:40
beauty and matcha It's, you know, we, we all might converge
41:45
on very different things that we like.
41:47
Yeah. Yeah.
41:48
And you? Know this really doesn't
41:49
contradict the traditional way of presenting matcha.
41:53
All these, you know, traditional, traditional houses
41:56
can still have their product, you know, sitting in a very
42:00
mysterious box with a poetic name.
42:02
And it might be actually more fun for people, for more people
42:07
having the formative experience, having the context to appreciate
42:11
a matcha, to revisit all these traditional products.
42:15
And they might learn something new, or they might discover
42:18
something new. You know, in the past it was
42:20
just a, you know, mysterious can of deliciousness.
42:24
Now that I can actually taste the Asahi or I can taste the
42:27
Hongzhou in the can. Absolutely.
42:30
Totally agree. Going back and forth is a really
42:33
interesting exercise and I bring on new lenses, new perspectives,
42:39
new context to appreciate what was once a mystery, but can be
42:43
less of a mystery because we have some ground truth
42:46
references and, you know, appreciate it through a
42:49
specialty lens and then go back the other direction.
42:52
I I totally agree. And as you accumulate more and
42:55
more tasting experiences, you can start to understand, like,
42:59
oh, I understand why this is crafted in this way, right?
43:04
Like, I don't know, some sammidori matchas I find
43:07
extremely boring. And we were doing some very
43:10
basic blending experiments. I was like, after tasting so
43:14
much sammidori during our testing, I was like, wow, I'm
43:18
starting to understand why people blend.
43:20
This is, like, really one-dimensional in kind of a
43:23
boring way. Like, how can I start adding
43:26
depth to this thing? Yeah, Yeah.
43:29
And you only come to this judgement because you had the
43:33
formative experience. Yeah.
43:35
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
43:38
Well, I think that's a great place to end.
43:39
So context to appreciate super important, surprisingly very
43:43
complex topic as people move through their consumer journey.
43:47
Yeah, yeah. And it's fun and it's fun,
43:50
right? That's what's.
43:51
Important. And we can all have different
43:53
sets of context to appreciate something.
43:54
I mean, that's the beauty on this, right?
43:56
Like, there's just so many different ways you can slice
43:59
this, and the fact that it's becoming more and more available
44:02
and in a democratized way where it's not just preserved for a
44:05
certain group of people is super exciting.
44:08
So, you know, it's a very optimistic future from that
44:12
perspective. Yeah, you're together.
44:14
We are. Actually building a new culture
44:16
and within this new culture we now we can detect what is know
44:21
of our own preference by ourselves.
44:23
Yes, we can make our own judgments.
44:25
And quality distinctions, which is a great place to be.
44:30
All right. Well, thanks for listening.
44:31
And if you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it with a
44:34
friend and we'll see you in the next one.
44:36
See you in the future. Thanks.