Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / Interview with Industry Veteran, Jules Reyes

Transcript

Interview with Industry Veteran, Jules Reyes · Specialty Matcha Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Ryan. This is Michael Ho Zhongjun.
• 0:04
  Hello. Hello.
• 0:05
  And we're the cofounders of Sanko Macha Products.
• 0:08
  Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey,
• 0:11
  Macha, share startup stories and interview experts.
• 0:15
  And today we have Jules Reyes joining us for a conversation.
• 0:18
  Welcome, Jules. Thanks for having me.
• 0:21
  I feel like I've memorized your your intro at this point.
• 0:25
  I was I was reciting it in my head.
• 0:26
  Thanks for having me. It's so great to be with you
• 0:28
  both. Yes.
• 0:29
  Thanks so much for coming on. And I guess sort of our standard
• 0:33
  first question whenever we bring anyone on is if you could tell
• 0:37
  us a little bit more about like your background and your matcha
• 0:40
  journey. Yeah, well, my name is Jules
• 0:43
  Reyes. It's so wild to say this, but
• 0:46
  I've been working in the matcha realm for a decade now.
• 0:50
  It feels just like yesterday that I started my first matcha
• 0:53
  page for SF. So it's been a wild journey,
• 0:57
  very unconventional journey. My background is actually an
• 1:01
  education. I aspire to be a high school
• 1:03
  history teacher. Prior to starting my matcha
• 1:05
  pages, I was working in education and was feeling like
• 1:10
  that was my path. I was so happy content.
• 1:12
  Every day was a different day and my path shifted, you know,
• 1:16
  from working with K through second students on the autism
• 1:18
  spectrum wanting to be a high school history teacher.
• 1:21
  I met my partner and we Co founded a nonprofit called
• 1:25
  Saints of Steel that works with displaced communities across the
• 1:28
  US. And around that time we kind of
• 1:31
  had this this moment. I was grappling with what I
• 1:34
  wanted to do with my life because this vision for the
• 1:37
  nonprofit and the work we were doing there was very much her,
• 1:40
  her, her path. And thankfully I had a group of
• 1:44
  people around me who knew me so well and cared about me to hold
• 1:48
  the mirror up and say, Jules, anytime you talk about matcha,
• 1:51
  you just light up. And I didn't recognize it then.
• 1:54
  Many people refer to me as the Bubba Gump of matcha.
• 1:58
  How he would just, you know, he loves shrimp and he wanted
• 2:01
  shrimp in every which way. For me, it was macho.
• 2:03
  I was like, have you had this? Have you had matcha butter?
• 2:06
  Have you tried a matcha bath? Have you tried a matcha facial
• 2:08
  math? And thankfully I had the space
• 2:11
  to to to be able to express my love and passion for matcha
• 2:15
  there. But in terms of, you know, my
• 2:17
  work in matcha, I'm most known for my time at Shade Leaf.
• 2:20
  I was a founding team member, their first hire as brand
• 2:23
  manager and a part of the team that brought the company to
• 2:26
  acquisition. And it was so interesting how I
• 2:29
  came to Jade Leaf again, I mentioned I had a very
• 2:31
  unconventional path. I was working on my matcha
• 2:33
  community pages. And so that was really the way.
• 2:38
  My entry point to the industry, Instagram was huge for me, and
• 2:43
  it completely shifted my path. Working on scenes of steel,
• 2:47
  still working in education. I started my matcha pages in SF
• 2:50
  because it was so difficult back in 2014 and 2015 to find matcha
• 2:54
  in San Francisco. It's not like today where you
• 2:57
  could walk into any cafe and and nine times out of 10, they
• 3:00
  likely have matcha on their menu.
• 3:03
  Then it was, yeah, I was lucky if I went to a cafe that someone
• 3:07
  on Yelp said had matcha and they actually had it on their menu.
• 3:11
  It was such a frustrating experience for me because I
• 3:14
  didn't have a car at the time. So I would take public transit
• 3:17
  and it would be an hour plus to get to this destination to find
• 3:21
  out that they phased out their matcha or that it was a seasonal
• 3:24
  item. And so that was the impetus of
• 3:26
  my matcha. SF page was a visual bucket
• 3:29
  list, more so for myself that I didn't recognize, would, you
• 3:33
  know, get the attention of hundreds and then thousands of
• 3:36
  people who were experiencing a similar pain point as myself.
• 3:40
  And that opened up the opportunity for me because
• 3:43
  people would ask, hey, what are your tips for LA and what are
• 3:46
  your tips for New York? And at the time, I didn't really
• 3:49
  spend much time in LA and New York.
• 3:50
  So I did a lot of work on the back end to just curate and do
• 3:54
  research. A lot of time, hours spent
• 3:56
  trying to figure out when macho was on the menu, what they had
• 4:00
  on the menu and if it was still on the menu.
• 4:02
  Because the last thing I wanted was like, I was like, hey, I
• 4:06
  went out of my way and this isn't here like you said it was
• 4:08
  going to be. And that opened the door.
• 4:10
  I mean, it's, I mean, unconventional is like the the
• 4:13
  perfect word because I'd never thought that this would
• 4:16
  transition to me now Co hosting EU s s first matcha festival in
• 4:20
  San Francisco. So now taking the the digital
• 4:24
  online community in person and and sharing space with 2000 plus
• 4:28
  people was incredible. And I Co hosted the second one
• 4:31
  in San Francisco a year after. And then we wanted to bring it
• 4:34
  to LA. And I was fair at this time,
• 4:39
  fairly green, coming from education, knew nothing about
• 4:41
  marketing, knew nothing about events.
• 4:43
  But I just had this desire to just want to see my vision come
• 4:47
  to life, of wanting to curate this experience for people who
• 4:51
  were just like me and loved matcha.
• 4:52
  And in hosting or really planning the LA event I
• 4:56
  mentioned earlier, events are a beast.
• 4:59
  And I quickly learned that leading up to the event, I,
• 5:03
  there were unfortunate circumstances where I injured
• 5:06
  myself severely and had surgery a few weeks prior, which
• 5:10
  completely impacted the vision that I had for the event.
• 5:14
  And I think at that time, I had a hard time letting go of
• 5:18
  things. I've gotten a lot better at it
• 5:19
  where, you know, I now know how to rally support and how to lean
• 5:23
  on people around me. But then I wanted to do
• 5:25
  everything myself, despite having an incredible team of
• 5:28
  volunteers who wanted to help. And that event painful
• 5:32
  physically, but also painful emotionally with the outcome of
• 5:35
  the event not having the vision executed.
• 5:40
  In retrospect, I didn't recognize that this event in LA
• 5:44
  would open up the door for me to be here today to speak with you.
• 5:49
  It completely shifted my path in the most beautiful way.
• 5:53
  Although then I didn't recognize it because I was in the midst
• 5:55
  of, you know, just a year long plus depression following the
• 5:59
  events. But coincidentally Jay Leaf was
• 6:02
  a sponsor of the event. So this is kind of a full circle
• 6:04
  moment where they sponsored the events.
• 6:07
  They were really happy with the outcome and Mark has continued
• 6:12
  to be supportive of me, offered me a full time position.
• 6:15
  Prior to this conversation it was just Mark and Will working
• 6:18
  on the back end on Jade Leaf and so they offered me to be their
• 6:22
  brand manager. Which was scary because again,
• 6:25
  my only experience with marketing was very informal
• 6:28
  through my matcha pages at the time and it was more so passion
• 6:31
  project. So I politely declined because I
• 6:35
  was afraid, but at the same time I wanted to see my vision
• 6:38
  through for this LA event. I wanted to do it a second time,
• 6:42
  especially following the feedback that we got, which was
• 6:45
  really hard to receive. And I think anyone who works on
• 6:48
  something tries to externalize a vision that they have or bring a
• 6:52
  product to market or found a company knows that there are
• 6:57
  many challenges along the way and adversities that you face
• 7:00
  that people who are only in that arena can understand.
• 7:04
  And because Mark was in the arena, but I, I was pretty
• 7:08
  transparent. And I think you could hear my
• 7:10
  disappointment in my voice, you know, talking about the events.
• 7:13
  And Despite that, he was like, we, we want to work with you.
• 7:16
  So after much reflection, I circled back.
• 7:19
  And it was kind of a funny story because when he initially
• 7:22
  offered me the position, I politely declined.
• 7:25
  But he left the door open. And a couple of weeks later, I
• 7:28
  circled back and called him and I said, hey, Mark, I found the
• 7:32
  perfect person for you. And he was pretty guarded.
• 7:36
  He's like, OK, who? Which is like, not Mark, you
• 7:39
  know, very charismatic and whatnot.
• 7:42
  And and I said, well, you're going to love them.
• 7:45
  I think you're going to work really well together.
• 7:47
  They're aligned with with what you're wanting to do.
• 7:49
  And he's like, OK, well, who is it?
• 7:51
  He said it's me. And he's completely like, you
• 7:54
  know, like, yeah. He was just so happy and
• 7:57
  overjoyed. And we talked about what was
• 7:58
  next. So it was, it was just didn't
• 8:01
  interesting way of getting into very unconventional, but
• 8:04
  something that I have so much appreciation and gratitude for
• 8:08
  in terms of how it happened, the good and the painful.
• 8:11
  Part Wow. I had no idea that all of I had
• 8:13
  heard about the festivals and the community pages, but I
• 8:16
  actually didn't realize it predated Jade Leaf.
• 8:18
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:20
  Wow, it's a really cool, like full circle story.
• 8:24
  Yeah, it really. Was.
• 8:26
  Very unconventional, but very conventional in the sense that
• 8:28
  it's really the passions of everyone that brings everybody
• 8:31
  together. Everyone coming together.
• 8:33
  Yeah. From, from all aspects of it.
• 8:35
  Yeah, that's thanks for bringing that up because I, I didn't
• 8:37
  quite connect the dots in that way.
• 8:40
  But it's something that when you're in it and you can't quite
• 8:43
  zoom out yet, you don't recognize, you know, how
• 8:47
  something could lead to the next.
• 8:48
  And now that so much time has gone, 10 years have gone by
• 8:51
  since I started my pages. J Leaf was acquired in 2021 and
• 8:55
  I I have so much more appreciation for all of the
• 8:59
  bumps in the road that happened along the way.
• 9:01
  Inevitable bumps in the road. Crazy and Jade Leaf is is a huge
• 9:05
  success from like everything that I understand.
• 9:08
  I was actually talking to someone who was selling Matcha
• 9:11
  in the early 2000s and, and they were doing really well on Amazon
• 9:15
  and they said, you know, at one point, like I think she's even
• 9:18
  said it by name, like the Jade Leaf hit and they just like took
• 9:21
  over and like it has 100,000, nearly 100,000 consumer reviews.
• 9:27
  Like that's insane for like a match of CPG products.
• 9:30
  So like, could you walk us through a little bit about, you
• 9:33
  know, that part of your journey on scaling that brand and
• 9:37
  positioning and like, and getting to that point of
• 9:41
  ubiquity and, and consumer love? Like you look at the, the rating
• 9:44
  distribution, like how it's skewed up to like 5 stars.
• 9:48
  It's I'm really keen to learn more about that part of the
• 9:51
  journey. Yeah, I mean something that was
• 9:54
  apparent. So when I I started Jade Leaf,
• 9:56
  it was, I joined in 2019 and it felt very fast for me in terms
• 10:01
  of scaling the company. The company was acquired three
• 10:04
  years after I joined, but prior to that Mark and Will were
• 10:08
  building the company for five years.
• 10:10
  And so although it felt fast for me, I'm sure it didn't feel that
• 10:13
  way for them. And, and it's something that I
• 10:16
  think in terms of, you know, being fairly green to the
• 10:21
  industry at the time, being green to marketing and being
• 10:24
  green to matcha. And I also love that Matcha is
• 10:29
  so green. I was so hyper focused on skill
• 10:33
  acquisition. I think at the time I, I was
• 10:36
  very much felt like I had imposter syndrome, like, why do
• 10:39
  they want me? Why do they want to hire me?
• 10:42
  Why am I here? But now that I've had so much
• 10:45
  time, I can look at it from a different perspective and, and
• 10:47
  recognize I was so hyper focused on skill acquisition because I
• 10:51
  didn't have the formal background in marketing.
• 10:53
  I didn't quite know much about the matcha industry.
• 10:56
  Mark was my source of a lot of that education and, and really
• 11:00
  furthering my love in for for Japanese tea and for matcha that
• 11:05
  I was so focused on being able to lean in on my learning
• 11:09
  agility and acquire the skill sets I needed to lead marketing
• 11:12
  and and ultimately work alongside the team and building
• 11:15
  a multi $1,000,000 company. But something that I think and I
• 11:19
  still think differentiates Jade Leaf, especially at the time
• 11:23
  with the early matcha brands, there were a few really well
• 11:26
  known names, some household names and now you know, there's,
• 11:30
  so there's countless matcha brands, at least in the US Our
• 11:33
  community and, and being so customer focused was I think the
• 11:37
  biggest differentiator. And, and it came from a very
• 11:40
  genuine place because we leaned in on our community.
• 11:44
  We were very obsessed with who they were on a granular level,
• 11:47
  wanting to understand what made them tick, what motivates them,
• 11:51
  what about matcha, you know, excites them and what are the
• 11:54
  gaps that we could fill. And because we we really
• 11:58
  prioritize the community in many ways online and in person, I
• 12:02
  feel like that created such a genuine connection between the
• 12:05
  brand and the greater community. And in terms of some tactical
• 12:09
  things that we did in terms of, you know, Jade Leaf hitting the
• 12:12
  milestone of 100,000 plus Amazon reviews, that's not easy to do.
• 12:16
  And, and, and that's more so just the positive reviews.
• 12:19
  There's a lot we were, I, I know many brands and, and some of the
• 12:22
  clients I work with, it could be very challenging for them to
• 12:25
  receive constructive criticism, but we didn't lean away from it.
• 12:28
  And in fact, we leaned into it. There was a lot of constructive
• 12:32
  criticism, not only from the community, but from our
• 12:35
  competitors. And so we just focused on what
• 12:38
  we did really well. We stayed in our lane, we took
• 12:41
  the feedback from our community and we tried to, we used it to
• 12:44
  inform what we do next because we brought 20 plus products to
• 12:48
  market over over the course of our time.
• 12:50
  And it's something that I think, you know, when you're building a
• 12:53
  brand and you're thinking about marketing today, especially on
• 12:57
  social and following the pandemic, your community is
• 13:01
  going to be your greatest asset. So because we invested upfront
• 13:05
  in the community, I believe that that created just such a really
• 13:10
  beautiful relationship between the brand and the person who is
• 13:14
  experiencing our matcha to feel so compelled to take the time to
• 13:17
  write what their experience was. And there were things we
• 13:20
  invested in that that don't cost money, you know, like when you
• 13:23
  when you are working on some, I mean, aside from the marketing
• 13:26
  assets that you invest in, how you use those assets to create a
• 13:30
  genuine human connection. And I think that's something
• 13:33
  that some brands forget is that you're connecting with people.
• 13:38
  There's another person on the end of this.
• 13:40
  So how do you talk to a person and how do you not talk at them,
• 13:44
  but talk with them as if you're in dialogue.
• 13:46
  And that's something we took advantage of in any in every
• 13:49
  way. So whether it be from the assets
• 13:52
  or collateral that was included in our packaging that was housed
• 13:55
  in Amazon, that came and was delivered to them, there were
• 13:59
  moments where we connected the dots and said, hey, like
• 14:01
  creating a human experience and just reach out to us.
• 14:04
  Although technically that was Amazon's customer, we took that
• 14:07
  we leveraged that opportunity to draw a connection back to the
• 14:10
  brand. And you know, that was just one
• 14:12
  facet of it. We also have our, you know, ecom
• 14:15
  site and we're in big box retail.
• 14:17
  And so we wanted to make sure that, you know, the product
• 14:20
  itself was attractive and eye-catching and captivating so
• 14:25
  that they felt compelled. Because, I mean, I can't imagine
• 14:28
  today when when I walk in to a Target, a Whole Foods or a
• 14:31
  Walmart, there are so many Masha, I mean, tea brands, it
• 14:35
  can be overwhelming. But how do you cut through all
• 14:37
  the noise? And being a person like a brand
• 14:41
  that is human, that imbues those human qualities, I think is the
• 14:46
  biggest thing that separates you from you and other players.
• 14:50
  Very interesting. Just out of curiosity, Jules, So
• 14:54
  I'm sure it would be, you know, it's, it would be far easier to
• 14:59
  manage a relatively smaller community in the beginning.
• 15:02
  But as the company scaled up and as the company grow, like how do
• 15:06
  you encounter the challenge of a much, much larger community to
• 15:11
  some extent, you know, like 1 to one communication might not just
• 15:14
  be viable from day-to-day basis. Yeah, I think that's where you
• 15:19
  brands invest in in incredible team members because it got to
• 15:23
  the point where initially I was, you know, one woman marketing
• 15:27
  team and it got it it we recognized we need more support.
• 15:32
  And so finding people investing in in incredible talent upfront
• 15:36
  to help create those connection points where it feels more
• 15:39
  personal. And at this stage with, you
• 15:42
  know, so much technology and AI, I'm sure, you know, there are
• 15:45
  ways to be able to have that run a little bit more efficiently
• 15:50
  and smoothly. But again, AIAI can't replace a
• 15:53
  person, although it can do it probably really well.
• 15:58
  There are things that we, you know, I personally, and there's
• 16:03
  one team member that I have brought with me to every company
• 16:08
  or client that I've worked with because she is so talented.
• 16:10
  She is so caring, so passionate about people and, and it doesn't
• 16:16
  matter if we're working with macho or another product, you
• 16:18
  know, within food and beverage or CPG.
• 16:21
  When you recognize the talent and the, the, that you're so
• 16:25
  aligned with the person that values the same thing you value
• 16:29
  and and also values with. When you're aligned in that way,
• 16:32
  it creates a moment where we, we as people and if you care, we'll
• 16:38
  retain information about your community members, no matter if
• 16:41
  it we're starting with a, a community of 100 people that has
• 16:43
  now grown to 60,000 plus there there's information housed in my
• 16:48
  brain about people who have followed me from Jade Leaf
• 16:51
  through my matcha community pages to now my personal page
• 16:54
  that I that that is just stored there because I care.
• 16:57
  And I think that's the difficult part when you're, you know, as a
• 17:01
  small startup or a founding team, you don't the people that
• 17:05
  you hire are going to be your your greatest asset.
• 17:09
  And it's something that I think you can especially in matcha
• 17:13
  because it's so niche. It's not to say that you can't
• 17:16
  hire talent that is so incredibly aligned and talented
• 17:22
  in terms of the expertise that they bring where there's they,
• 17:25
  they can bring that deep passion for.
• 17:27
  And, and it may not necessarily be about matcha, but when you
• 17:29
  can hire people who care about the product, who care about the
• 17:32
  industry and people in general, that translates over to the
• 17:36
  consumer. They can feel that you remember
• 17:39
  these little details that I think most brands glaze over.
• 17:42
  And it's hard to do that at scale.
• 17:44
  But when you have team members and you have an incredible CRM
• 17:47
  and, and all these other tools that you can use to be able to
• 17:50
  retain that information, it really helps you go the distance
• 17:55
  as a brand. And it's something like from the
• 17:58
  little things of using someone's name, you know, like if someone
• 18:01
  sends you Adm using their name, signing off with your name,
• 18:03
  circling back and saying it kind of reminds me of The Office.
• 18:07
  I don't know if you watch that show.
• 18:09
  Yes, I do. Michael had his own process of
• 18:13
  how he, I mean, he's such a quirky character, but he would
• 18:16
  write down weird little tidbits that the average person would
• 18:20
  probably not even care about in, in terms of the other person
• 18:25
  he's connecting with. And how he was able to be so
• 18:28
  successful in his relationships with his clients and customers
• 18:32
  because of the information he retained.
• 18:33
  It's like going that distance. And that's rare to come by these
• 18:37
  days because of the tools that we have accessible to us.
• 18:40
  For sure, yeah, it's the intentionality of all the
• 18:43
  gestures that really matter. Yeah, for sure.
• 18:45
  It's usually the goal of any like small business to
• 18:48
  eventually get to some sort of exit or some sort of
• 18:51
  acquisition, especially when you talk about like startup world,
• 18:54
  especially within like the CPG food industry space.
• 18:58
  So like what, what was it like going through an acquisition?
• 19:02
  Like, yeah, I'm sure it was a roller coaster.
• 19:04
  Like you got to have the startup journey kind of from both
• 19:08
  endpoints and the good endpoint because you know, the other is
• 19:11
  like failure. Like, like, what was, what was
• 19:15
  it like to live through that? Gosh, it was such a multifaceted
• 19:18
  experience. I often, and I think many people
• 19:23
  who have interacted with me during my time at Jade Leaf,
• 19:27
  whether it be on the partner side, my team, the community,
• 19:30
  could agree with how at least I viewed my work at Jade Leaf was
• 19:36
  the heartbeat of the company. I felt like I brought the soul.
• 19:39
  So going through an acquisition is exciting.
• 19:43
  You're like, wow, I had a hand in building in this company's
• 19:46
  success to the point where now there's this, you know, more
• 19:50
  resources available to us, There's greater opportunity to
• 19:53
  really further our vision and our mission.
• 19:56
  At the same time, heartbreaking to recognize that all the things
• 20:01
  that, you know, I, I think Mark and I and I can't speak to
• 20:04
  exactly his experience, but I think he and I had the most
• 20:07
  difficult time. And that's not to take away from
• 20:10
  the rest of the team's experience.
• 20:11
  But he and I were so immersed. And in the weeds of our
• 20:16
  community and. Becomes part of you, like your
• 20:19
  identity. Does it very much feels like a
• 20:21
  baby, you know, like I still go when I walk into the stores, I'm
• 20:25
  fixing the facings of the, you know, in, you know, retail
• 20:29
  stores that we're in today. I'm like, I'm looking at, I'm
• 20:32
  like, oh, this is crooked. And there's a level of care that
• 20:34
  you have even years later. And it's, it kind of felt like
• 20:40
  that baby was being taken away. And it's something for me that,
• 20:44
  you know, with all the hopes and the visions that we had and all
• 20:47
  the other things we wanted to explore, the other products that
• 20:50
  we wanted to bring them to market that never that we never
• 20:53
  saw to fruition was challenging for me.
• 20:55
  And so I, I think for me and for Mark, we kind of went through
• 20:59
  our own grieving process of what was and having to have to
• 21:03
  quickly acclimate and adapt to what is.
• 21:06
  And, you know, I think anyone who has gone through an
• 21:09
  acquisition has been a part of a founding team can resonate with
• 21:12
  that experience of, of, you know, having doing business as
• 21:16
  usual. You know, like as Mark and Will
• 21:17
  were navigating the deal and, and Mark was very much leading
• 21:20
  the deal. It, it was an interesting
• 21:23
  experience for me on the other end to, to, to also see it,
• 21:26
  although he never communicated it in words.
• 21:29
  I could feel the the grieving process happening and how it was
• 21:34
  challenging, although there was this so much excitement and
• 21:38
  elation around just building to this point now recognizing, OK,
• 21:44
  well, what what is next and all the uncertainty ahead.
• 21:47
  Yeah. So yeah, it was such a it's so
• 21:50
  multifaceted, but something that I'm very proud of.
• 21:53
  It's awesome. Yeah, I think we can relate a
• 21:56
  little bit, Ryan. Yeah, we can relate a little bit
• 21:59
  but yeah cuz we this is our second start up.
• 22:02
  The parts that I don't think many people talk about cuz in
• 22:05
  business, you know, like people often say, there's no room for
• 22:08
  emotion or vulnerability, but we're people, you know, and, and
• 22:12
  I think at the end of the day, really leaning in on your human
• 22:15
  experience. That's what has allowed me to
• 22:18
  connect with thousands of people in ways where I, I often receive
• 22:22
  messages today and people have never met in person, but they
• 22:27
  message me and say, I feel like I know you or there's this
• 22:29
  knowing this connection. And that's because there's this
• 22:33
  level of care that you imbue. And when you omit the human side
• 22:39
  from business, I feel like that can also create tunnel vision
• 22:42
  for some brands where they're just so focused on the end goal
• 22:46
  and not recognizing who is in front of them, you know, or what
• 22:49
  your experience is. Because you can draw from your
• 22:52
  experience as a person and have it inform what you do and how
• 22:56
  you navigate. I think it's something like the
• 22:58
  level of emotion, The emotive quality is something that I
• 23:02
  would want to see more, especially if you're working in
• 23:05
  marketing. It's all emotion, it's all
• 23:06
  connection. It's the entire.
• 23:08
  Yeah, makes. Sense experience.
• 23:12
  And vulnerability can be in short supply.
• 23:14
  And that's, you know, really what I guess like opens, opens
• 23:17
  people, opens it up to kind of have other people also kind of
• 23:21
  share and be more vulnerable. And this is what I like.
• 23:25
  This is what I don't like or oh, I'm very confused about how to
• 23:28
  whisk matcha properly. I find it very intimidating.
• 23:31
  I know that some of the audience questions are about like
• 23:33
  removing a lot of those barriers and in a lot of tea settings,
• 23:37
  you know, you walk into a tea shop and like you don't know
• 23:40
  what conversation you're about to enter into.
• 23:43
  Might be, it could be super like hoity, toity, unfriendly,
• 23:47
  unwelcoming. It could be like way below the
• 23:50
  level of what you want. It's like a little more basic of
• 23:52
  a conversation. People I feel like people are
• 23:54
  sometimes hesitate a lot to open up, especially around their tea
• 23:57
  knowledge or tea journey or being explicit about what they
• 24:00
  want from a brand and interaction for tea gathering I.
• 24:06
  Agree, and I feel like the work that you're doing here with the
• 24:09
  specialty matcha podcast is breaking a lot of those barriers
• 24:13
  and really allowing people to look within.
• 24:17
  When I, when I found out, found out about your podcast and the
• 24:20
  conversations that you're having, I'm like, this is what's
• 24:23
  this is what the industry needs. I was so happy.
• 24:25
  I was like, finally someone is talking about matcha at this
• 24:28
  level. And it's something that, you
• 24:30
  know, I think in terms of Jade Leaf, the match education and,
• 24:33
  and at the time and, and I've heard in several of your
• 24:37
  episodes you've talked about how a lot of the information is
• 24:40
  typically gate kept. It's not only at origin, but
• 24:43
  also within brands. And so as Jade Leaf was growing
• 24:47
  at the time, it was so difficult to find any information about a
• 24:54
  tea producer unless you worked in the industry, which I was
• 24:57
  Privy to that knowledge. But for the everyday consumer to
• 25:01
  find out where the exactly the macho was sourced, what the
• 25:04
  cultivars are, who the tea producers are is, and it's
• 25:08
  something that was kind of frustrating for the team.
• 25:12
  It inspired a campaign that we LED called the Noyer matcha
• 25:15
  campaign, where our goal was to humanize matcha.
• 25:18
  And at the time super rare. You couldn't, you couldn't
• 25:22
  access that information because many of our, the other players
• 25:25
  in the market were so protective over their source, whether it be
• 25:29
  Origin or the, the tea farmers or producers they worked with.
• 25:32
  Despite the fact that we likely, if you're selling matcha at
• 25:35
  scale, there are a handful of tea producers or farmers that
• 25:40
  you're sourcing from. And so it's interesting from
• 25:43
  that lens, recognizing what the gaps were and how much confusion
• 25:47
  that created for the consumer. Because I mean, when you look at
• 25:52
  specialty coffee, you can find out like from a granular level,
• 25:57
  what the off like, what the coffee is, where it was from,
• 26:00
  who grew it, how they grew it, how they processed it.
• 26:03
  I loved and admired that appreciate like that, that level
• 26:07
  of information that I think is starting.
• 26:10
  We're starting to see that trend here in the macho world.
• 26:12
  It's still not as accessible. I think it's still creating a
• 26:17
  lot of confusion and and I can go down a rabbit hole later
• 26:20
  about that in terms of just, you know, the macho shortage we're
• 26:23
  in right now and kind of what caused what caused that or, you
• 26:28
  know, just some opportunities there.
• 26:31
  But I deeply admire just to circle back, the work that
• 26:35
  you're doing to really create an opera, a line of communication
• 26:40
  between someone in the industry, someone who's interested in
• 26:43
  matcha and educate them in a with, with accurate information
• 26:47
  as opposed to someone's, you know, subjective thoughts of of
• 26:52
  matcha or what you know what it could be.
• 26:54
  Thank you so much. Yeah.
• 26:55
  Thank you. This is really also, you know, a
• 26:59
  really large part of the energy source of our journey too.
• 27:04
  Yeah. We almost, you know, take
• 27:07
  pleasures of interviewing people because it's so just so
• 27:10
  energizing to feel and sense all the passions coming from all
• 27:13
  corners of this community. It's a.
• 27:16
  It really is. And so I'm grateful that Synco
• 27:20
  exists, the specialty Matcha exists because, you know,
• 27:23
  working in the industry I mentioned, Mark was my source of
• 27:27
  tea education, Japanese tea education and matcha education.
• 27:30
  Prior to that, I just knew I loved matcha.
• 27:32
  I love the way that it tasted, but I didn't quite understand
• 27:35
  all of the nuances. And I remember Jay Lee's parent
• 27:39
  company, he was working on the logo, and he asked me what he's
• 27:42
  like. What do you think this logo is?
• 27:44
  I now know it's a stone mill, but then I was like, I don't
• 27:47
  know, is that like, are those tea fields?
• 27:50
  Like it was just, I was so ignorant.
• 27:52
  And he eventually, you know, he's like, Oh no, it's just it's
• 27:55
  the pattern of a stone mill. And I remember, you know, like
• 28:00
  really loving matcha and the, the, the experience I had with
• 28:03
  it personally and how during my matcha versary my first year
• 28:07
  with Jade Leaf, they gifted me a beautiful kyusu and this
• 28:12
  assortment of Kyokoro and sencha and all these different Japanese
• 28:15
  TI knew nothing about like loose leaf TI just didn't even know
• 28:18
  existed. And that deepened my I just went
• 28:21
  down, I continued to go down a rabbit hole there, but working
• 28:24
  in the industry and being able to have industry friends from
• 28:28
  honestly, competitors, you know, like we, it's such a small
• 28:31
  industry. We all kind of know each other.
• 28:32
  You develop relationships and friendships.
• 28:34
  And I've learned so much from all of their perspectives that
• 28:37
  I, I do find that people on the other side of it behind the
• 28:40
  curtain, we want the same thing. We want to see matcha
• 28:44
  appreciated in the ways that we appreciate it.
• 28:47
  We want to see elevated. We, we want to highlight how
• 28:51
  beautiful the industry is and could be.
• 28:54
  And we know it's in decline, but I think we want to further and
• 28:57
  deepen people's love for matcha. But typically those
• 29:00
  conversations happen behind the scenes.
• 29:02
  And this is the first time, at least in your podcast, I'm
• 29:04
  hearing it happen in a public forum, which is so relieving.
• 29:09
  We're pretty surprised that like, no one, there was no other
• 29:13
  Matcha podcast. I remember when we first
• 29:15
  considered doing this, I was like, someone has got to be
• 29:18
  doing this. And I was like, oh, OK, well, I
• 29:21
  guess it's gonna be us. You're the 1st.
• 29:25
  It's yeah. No, it was, it was unexpected,
• 29:28
  very surprising. But but you know, we're happy to
• 29:31
  do. It and hope there's.
• 29:32
  More too. I think it was just really good
• 29:35
  timing because like after talking to so many people, there
• 29:37
  are just so many like minded people out there that are
• 29:40
  willing to share. Like I think really we just, you
• 29:43
  know, in a good time, you know, doing this podcast, offering
• 29:46
  this platform. Every corner of the earth to
• 29:50
  like, I'm just shocked. The conversations that I'm
• 29:52
  having, the number of like minded people in places, you
• 29:56
  just would have not guessed that there's someone like that.
• 29:59
  Like in like a small town in the UK.
• 30:02
  It's just like it's wild and interested in.
• 30:04
  It's a specialty product and it's all so recent.
• 30:08
  It's yeah. It's really exciting.
• 30:11
  In the Philippines, in Thailand and Middle East, like all these
• 30:15
  places? Wow.
• 30:16
  So very, very energizing too. So something I'm very curious
• 30:20
  about because you have such a unique perspective because now
• 30:22
  you like I part of your work is a consulting business.
• 30:25
  I'm working on positioning with other macho brand, other macho
• 30:29
  founders. So you get to probably see and
• 30:32
  hear a lot of conversations about the way people want to
• 30:36
  position their products and how they think about value prop, how
• 30:40
  they think about consumers, how they think about farmers.
• 30:42
  And I'm curious how you segment different founders.
• 30:46
  The way I segment is kind of like people are very farmer
• 30:49
  focused, you're very consumer focused and you're like very
• 30:53
  product focused and like of course everyone cares about each
• 30:56
  component. So I'm curious to hear like your
• 30:59
  take on like how I'm thinking through it.
• 31:02
  And I'm curious to hear like how how you see people approaching
• 31:06
  positioning the good, the bad, the ugly and kind of your state
• 31:10
  of the current macho landscape. And also a follow up question on
• 31:15
  that industry veteran, how do you see all of these positioning
• 31:19
  changed over the past few years since you've been in this?
• 31:22
  Industry. Such a great question.
• 31:24
  Sorry, that was like 5 questions.
• 31:26
  No, I, I hope if I, I'm going to do my best, if I forget or, you
• 31:30
  know, just please circle back to any points that I might have
• 31:34
  missed. But you know, as an advisor and
• 31:36
  marketing consultant in the industry, it's true.
• 31:41
  Like there's so many conversations that I have and,
• 31:44
  and personally, it's having to separate myself from what I want
• 31:47
  as a person, like what I, I hope my hopes for the industry and,
• 31:51
  and recognizing the brand in front of me and what their goals
• 31:54
  are. And so it's something, you know,
• 31:57
  when I, I try to extract what's most compelling about a brand
• 32:01
  and their product and it's, you know, being able to work so
• 32:05
  closely with founders and leadership teams to understand
• 32:09
  what their goals are, you know, and, and again, separating my
• 32:12
  own personal goals. So I think that's the challenge
• 32:15
  is I see the opportunity and I find that it's, it's pretty rare
• 32:19
  for a brand to care about all of those facets that you mentioned.
• 32:23
  Typically it's like we're very product focused and this is what
• 32:25
  we want to bring to market For these reasons or and education
• 32:29
  doesn't quite it's not a priority, but sure if we have
• 32:32
  time, let's build it into the strategy.
• 32:34
  It all relates. I mean it all drives a brand
• 32:37
  forward to its end goal whether they recognize it or not.
• 32:40
  So my goal is to help connect the dots for them and build a
• 32:43
  strategy in a road map by reverse engineering what I hear
• 32:47
  their goals are and aligning it with some short term and long
• 32:50
  term goals. And the challenging part for me
• 32:52
  in this capacities, it's high level.
• 32:55
  I'm not as hands on. I'm sharing from my perspective,
• 32:57
  the opportunities that I see that align with their goals,
• 33:01
  especially as I learn the current state of their brand
• 33:03
  health. And when I get a grasp of what
• 33:06
  their brand health is by looking into the data and the metrics
• 33:09
  and, and just understanding how they're received by their
• 33:13
  current customer base and the perceptions of prospective
• 33:16
  customers, it gives me a better understanding of how to frame
• 33:20
  things. And my hope is that I can
• 33:23
  package it in a way for their team to execute.
• 33:25
  And so I think that's the challenging part is because I'm
• 33:28
  not as hands on as I'd like to be like I was at Jade Leaf of
• 33:31
  really having a hand in orchestrating how we navigate
• 33:36
  certain campaigns or initiatives or the things that we explore.
• 33:39
  I'm really teeing it up for their their teams and I hope
• 33:41
  they execute it. And I think that's the difficult
• 33:44
  part is sometimes they do and often times it, it, it, you
• 33:48
  know, it falls flat. That's the that's I think in in
• 33:51
  the work. There were, sorry, there were
• 33:54
  four other questions that you had.
• 33:57
  I think I think a couple of them were all answered.
• 34:00
  Well. Great.
• 34:00
  OK. But I guess the last part is,
• 34:03
  you know, throughout the past decade, like how have you seen
• 34:06
  the industry, but the industry change in terms of, you know,
• 34:10
  product positioning like consumer based drifting and all
• 34:13
  that? Yeah, the consumers have driven
• 34:16
  a lot of the change, which I'm, I'm very grateful for.
• 34:19
  So, you know, back in the day, I mentioned a lot of the brands
• 34:22
  were so protective over information that the specialty
• 34:25
  coffee realm just sharing so transparent in terms of what
• 34:30
  they communicate about who they were and what they were selling.
• 34:33
  And we started to see that shift and so brands started to
• 34:36
  recognize, oh, people want to be educated in matcha, something
• 34:41
  that one case study. And again, this is such an early
• 34:44
  time when I was at Jade Leaf Matcha Education, aside from
• 34:49
  Kettle, who I know we all love, Kettle continues to do an
• 34:54
  incredible job educating people, especially as people graduate
• 34:58
  from a matcha enthusiast to an aficionado and really wanting
• 35:01
  that level of information. But back in the day, that
• 35:05
  information was very challenging to access in a form that many
• 35:10
  people were consuming, which is social content.
• 35:13
  And so I had an experiment that I called an oxidation test that
• 35:16
  I ran at Jade Leaf. It was poorly done.
• 35:19
  I, I feel like it, it was, you know, and, and again, at the
• 35:25
  time, we were so early in a lot of things that I received a lot
• 35:29
  of constructive criticism. But again, it was a, it was a
• 35:32
  fun little project or case study that I ran over the course of
• 35:35
  weeks of putting. And I still have the matcha in a
• 35:38
  jar that's completely oxidized in the color of sand.
• 35:41
  But I, I kept a jar of matcha in an airtight clear container
• 35:45
  because I was trying to highlight the importance of
• 35:48
  storage and how light, heat and, and other factors impact matcha
• 35:53
  and in terms of the degradation of matcha that many people
• 35:55
  didn't quite understand. So as a brand, we could do our
• 35:58
  best job to preserve the integrity of the product.
• 36:01
  And once it leaves and, and it's opened by the consumer, we
• 36:06
  really need them. We, we're passing the baton over
• 36:08
  to them. And so that information didn't
• 36:11
  exist. We even at the time weren't
• 36:13
  talking about that. Like how do you properly store
• 36:16
  matcha? How do you care for it?
• 36:18
  What are some techniques that you can practice to really help
• 36:21
  to, to protect the integrity of the product?
• 36:24
  And so with the oxidation test, I kept it in a jar for several
• 36:27
  weeks. I would record, you know, how it
• 36:29
  would look over a period of time and it looked completely
• 36:32
  different. And I think many people,
• 36:34
  especially industry friends, were shocked.
• 36:35
  They're like, well, this is so cool.
• 36:37
  I never realized, like, I always thought about this but never did
• 36:40
  it. And a week after we shared that
• 36:43
  content, another big well known Matcha brand shared a similar
• 36:48
  test. They did a similar test.
• 36:50
  And so you started to see people when, when we were able to
• 36:54
  release that education and then we did a water temperature test,
• 36:58
  which again received a lot of criticism from people in terms
• 37:02
  of like, I really, I, I try to control the variables as closely
• 37:06
  as possible because I know that gosh, I could go down a whole
• 37:10
  rabbit hole because this is my biggest gripe with like a lot of
• 37:13
  the matcha taste testing that happens on social is that the
• 37:17
  variables aren't controlled. And anyways, for this water
• 37:20
  temperature test, I basically was highlighting the importance
• 37:24
  of water temperature as it relates to matcha in the matter
• 37:26
  of an hour, how quickly something oxidizes and the
• 37:30
  flavors change. And because that's that
• 37:34
  information was now we were starting to share it.
• 37:37
  People were so interested. It was one of the most highly
• 37:40
  engaged pieces of content that we did share and receiving so
• 37:44
  many comments and DMS, both positive and negative about it.
• 37:47
  And I'm so happy to see ten years later that the consumer
• 37:52
  now is just as obsessed about matcha education.
• 37:56
  Although I do see an opportunity for accurate education to be
• 38:02
  communicated to their communities.
• 38:03
  They should listen to this podcast.
• 38:07
  I think it's a it's it's fun of the great sources and very few
• 38:11
  sources that exist today, but you're starting to see them
• 38:14
  drive those conversations. So the point where now I visit
• 38:17
  Cafe partners and I visit industry friends who have tea
• 38:20
  shops and have businesses, and they're saying, yeah, we're
• 38:23
  getting all these questions about, you know, is this
• 38:25
  ceremonial grade or not? Or do you have this specific
• 38:28
  brand because someone heard a TikTok creator promote it.
• 38:32
  And although those conversations are much needed, I'm glad
• 38:36
  consumers are now asking, you know, questions about what
• 38:40
  quality of matcha is and how a Cafe prepares their matcha.
• 38:45
  It that information. I think still, there's still a
• 38:48
  lot of opportunity to even expand further.
• 38:52
  Yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't create this level of tunnel
• 38:56
  vision where a consumer only sees 1 brand as the brands.
• 39:00
  But there's so I mean, it's such a vast world of matcha out there
• 39:03
  to explore, especially as someone deepens their love and
• 39:07
  wants to develop their palettes. You want to taste as much much
• 39:10
  as you can. And that's something that I'm,
• 39:13
  I'm starting to see in the last 10 years is that the consumer is
• 39:17
  now just as interested as US industry vets are and have been
• 39:21
  behind the scenes. And, and how that's informing
• 39:24
  how matcha brands, especially as there are many emerging matcha
• 39:28
  brands, how they're now tailoring their marketing to
• 39:31
  speak directly to the customer. So it's refreshing honestly for
• 39:34
  me because I know how difficult it was for me to to just access
• 39:38
  that information myself as I was kind of working in the industry
• 39:42
  so early on. Yeah, because that information
• 39:45
  is kind of free now. And it's interesting because
• 39:48
  we're at a point where I feel like some like super consumers
• 39:51
  of Matcha might have more knowledge than a lot of Matcha
• 39:54
  founders and brands. Absolutely.
• 39:56
  It's a. Very weird dynamic actually.
• 39:59
  Usually don't see that level of knowledge asymmetry in other
• 40:03
  industries. It's interesting.
• 40:05
  Yeah, I. Wonder where it's going to go
• 40:07
  and my hunch is because the barriers to entry to starting
• 40:11
  any food or beverage brand are very low now there's a note I
• 40:14
  could rattle off tons of people that would be happy to white
• 40:18
  label a matcha brand for you. So like boom, you have sourcing
• 40:22
  and it's going to be relatively good product.
• 40:24
  Could be specialty standards, single origin, single cultivar,
• 40:27
  you know, when it was milled, how it was milled, blah, blah,
• 40:30
  blah. And then you know, if you
• 40:31
  understand social and building a community and network.
• 40:34
  So in a lot of ways, the barriers have never been lower.
• 40:37
  And I wonder if we're just going to see tons of players and come
• 40:40
  on and kind of let 1000 flowers bloom.
• 40:43
  And I feel like we're kind of already seeing that, where
• 40:46
  someone is confident enough and they know enough and they know
• 40:49
  what they want and they're not seeing enough of it.
• 40:51
  Yeah. And the barriers to entry are so
• 40:54
  low, and the market is crowded. And it's something that I
• 40:58
  recognize, Like, each week, it's like there's a new Matcha brand
• 41:02
  that I see popping up as an ad. And in a ways, I admire the
• 41:06
  audacity to just have the confidence and say, you know
• 41:09
  what, I'm gonna start a matcha brand.
• 41:11
  At the same time, I do feel like because there are challenges at
• 41:15
  Origin, yeah. Can the industry sustain it?
• 41:18
  We're seeing that they're they're the challenges are being
• 41:20
  posed now. I mean the power of creators.
• 41:24
  I I admire it, the power of them to be able to galvanized support
• 41:28
  from their communities to say these are the three tea houses I
• 41:32
  recommend you try and them being sold out across the board or it
• 41:38
  being so difficult to access those specific brands.
• 41:41
  And well, I agree. Those are incredible brands.
• 41:44
  And I mean, I'm, I'm not going to name them, but we're, we're,
• 41:47
  we're all aware. It's something that I feel like,
• 41:49
  again, could hinder someone's development as they continue to
• 41:53
  immerse themselves in the macho world.
• 41:55
  Because if you're only tasting and, and we know year over year,
• 41:59
  whether it be the same offering, it's not the variables change,
• 42:03
  climate, war, all of these fertilizers that although you
• 42:07
  might be experiencing a particular product one year, it
• 42:10
  has the same name that's carried over the following year.
• 42:13
  It'll be a different experience. And so I think if we, you know,
• 42:16
  when I see creators and I'm certain I know creators, you
• 42:20
  know, within my circle or network that have more knowledge
• 42:23
  than I do in ways, I think, you know, I, I learn a lot from,
• 42:28
  from them as well. And I'm grateful for it because
• 42:31
  I'm glad someone is having the conversation.
• 42:33
  And it's interesting when I think that they've developed
• 42:38
  such an like beautiful connection to their own
• 42:40
  community that now they're piquing the interest of other
• 42:42
  people to then go down their own rabbit holes.
• 42:46
  For me, matcha started it. It started with matcha and then
• 42:50
  it it transitioned over to Japanese tea as a whole.
• 42:53
  And there's so many categories within Japanese tea, but I kind
• 42:56
  of straight away from matcha. It, it's ironic today I'm not
• 43:00
  even drinking matcha as we talk about matcha.
• 43:02
  And I kind of feel like a hypocrite, but I, I, I hope
• 43:07
  creators, you know, as, as there's a handful of them who
• 43:10
  their, their education that they share is so on point.
• 43:13
  And I'm so happy and I'm, I'm rooting for them that they
• 43:15
  continue to do that because the more accurate information that's
• 43:20
  out there as they build their communities, I think it's the
• 43:23
  better. Because on the other side,
• 43:24
  conversely, there's a lot of inaccurate information out there
• 43:29
  from creators who have the platforms, who have hundreds of
• 43:33
  thousands of followers. And now their language is just,
• 43:37
  it has this ripple effect where I hear one creator share
• 43:40
  something in a very specific way and I hear 15 others repeat
• 43:44
  that. And in my mind, I'm like, Oh no,
• 43:46
  like this is going in the wrong direction.
• 43:49
  And you know, the creators that are doing a really good job and
• 43:53
  many that you've had already that you've interviewed, they
• 43:57
  are the difference is their objective.
• 44:00
  They are allowing the product to speak to them and not and not
• 44:03
  forcing their own experience onto their community.
• 44:07
  And, and I hear that reflected in their communication where
• 44:11
  they're really empowering their community to develop their own
• 44:14
  palates. And, and the language sounds
• 44:16
  like, you know, this is what I'm experiencing, but it might look
• 44:19
  different for you because taste is subjective.
• 44:22
  We all have. When you taste anything, it's
• 44:25
  such an abstract expression of whatever you're tasting that you
• 44:29
  can draw on memories, you can draw on aromas, on flavors that
• 44:33
  no one has the palette I do. So although I might taste
• 44:37
  toffee, you might get citrusy notes.
• 44:41
  Yeah. And so, yeah, I, I went down a
• 44:44
  rabbit hole, but this is a particular topic is one that I
• 44:48
  feel very passionate about that I haven't spoken about because
• 44:51
  at the same time, you know, I, I want people to feel proud of
• 44:55
  what they're doing. I love the passion for matcha.
• 44:58
  I just think that if you're going to be educating people
• 45:01
  about it, that there's some fundamentals that you need to
• 45:03
  arm yourself with so that the information you are sharing is
• 45:07
  accurate and is doing the industry justice.
• 45:10
  Yeah, couldn't agree more. Totally agree and also like a
• 45:14
  more and more knowledgeable and educated consumer base is like a
• 45:19
  perfect forcing function to kind of, you know, cycle back to the
• 45:22
  industry and help everybody grow, grow together.
• 45:26
  Exactly. And we've seen that on special,
• 45:27
  like in the specialty coffee room.
• 45:29
  So not just starting to catch up.
• 45:31
  People will the system will hopefully self correct too as
• 45:34
  more and more people you know are talking in conversations
• 45:38
  like this and in the comments section.
• 45:40
  Hopefully it's not too toxic, but hopefully there's some
• 45:43
  election as interesting as. That it is toxic.
• 45:47
  There's data there. Then I think for me, I love
• 45:51
  feedback. Although it can be hard to
• 45:53
  receive it sometimes. Feedback has helped me
• 45:56
  understand how I can improve, not only for my clients, but for
• 46:01
  as a macho consumer, as I mean really it translates to all
• 46:04
  aspects of my life, like being able to receive feedback, how
• 46:08
  I'm being received or how I could better position things and
• 46:12
  not doing, not making the same mistake twice, you know, So I
• 46:15
  think I do, I do feel like, and I hope that there's a self
• 46:19
  correction that happens down the road because these are much
• 46:22
  needed conversations that I'm sure many industry friends are,
• 46:26
  are very relieved are happening. One of the things that you were
• 46:29
  touching on was around the matcha shortage.
• 46:32
  So actually, I thought it was a perfect time to bring in a
• 46:35
  community question that you helped source.
• 46:37
  And this one is from Shea Retrograde, and they're asking,
• 46:42
  what do you think about the TikTok girlies causing the
• 46:45
  matcha shortage in Japan? I love this question, especially
• 46:49
  with a lot of the online criticism that's floating around
• 46:52
  about the matcha shortage. I'd love to get your take and
• 46:55
  then your take on her question as well.
• 46:57
  Yeah, hi Shay. I love this question and you
• 47:01
  know, I think personally, I've been hesitant to touch on it and
• 47:05
  and my Instagram page is private.
• 47:07
  So really that in that, that perspective would really live
• 47:10
  within that small community that I have.
• 47:13
  But it's something that I, I again, the power of creators to
• 47:19
  galvanized support is fascinating.
• 47:22
  And I do hope creators recognize the power that they have and use
• 47:27
  it in ways where they can further education and, you know,
• 47:32
  the experiences of Matcha in ways that elevate the industry
• 47:37
  and not necessarily their own brands or communities.
• 47:40
  Because even within creators who have creator founded brands,
• 47:43
  there's, it's so hard to be objective when you have your own
• 47:47
  brand that you've started and you're rating other brands.
• 47:50
  And unless you can really hone in on your experience and check
• 47:54
  yourself and say, you know what like this is, I mean, I can
• 47:57
  imagine because at the end of the day, when I receive that
• 48:00
  content, it's hard for me to trust it as a consumer because I
• 48:04
  think that they're really trying to promote their own brand, you
• 48:08
  know, as naturally anyone would if you've started a brand or a
• 48:11
  company. But I feel like there's an
• 48:13
  opportunity again, to imbue a little bit more or a lot more
• 48:19
  objectivity. Like lean in.
• 48:21
  There's, there's creators who are doing incredible jobs and
• 48:25
  they might not necessarily have the biggest community, but the
• 48:29
  information is sound. And in terms of the macho
• 48:32
  shortage, I don't quite know because I, I have taken a step
• 48:37
  back in terms of really immersing myself in the
• 48:39
  situations. You know, how these creators
• 48:42
  feel about starting a matcha shortage.
• 48:44
  Is it something that they're proud of that they had such a
• 48:47
  resounding effect on the industry that now tea farmers
• 48:50
  are overwhelmed? I could see from 1 lens how that
• 48:52
  could be exciting. Like wow, like I had so much
• 48:55
  impact to cause a matcha shortage.
• 48:57
  But at the same time, as someone who is working behind the scenes
• 49:00
  and knows the struggles, have spoken directly with tea farmers
• 49:04
  and understands the challenges the industry has continued to
• 49:07
  face year over year, how overwhelmed they are.
• 49:10
  And the part of me empathizes with that experience of like,
• 49:13
  that's the last thing they want. Because if you really educate
• 49:15
  yourself, you know, if I'm going to use a platform to educate
• 49:20
  people about matcha and, and promote it in ways that these
• 49:24
  creators have. There's another layer to that
• 49:26
  education is recognizing where the industry is AT.
• 49:29
  And because the industry has continued to be in decline
• 49:33
  because harvest in terms of the matcha that they are promoting
• 49:37
  ceremonial grade. And, and if you're listening to
• 49:39
  the podcast audio, I'm, I'm using quotations, you know,
• 49:43
  categorizing it as ceremonial grade that comes from one
• 49:46
  specific, you know, three month period in the year.
• 49:51
  And there's, this isn't a similar product where, you know,
• 49:54
  they can, a tea farmer can now produce more matcha outside of
• 49:58
  that harvest. That's it.
• 49:59
  The allocation for the years that they have allocated for the
• 50:01
  year for their partners across, you know, overseas or
• 50:04
  domestically. And so now that we're in a
• 50:07
  matcha shortage, there are so many brands, matcha brands here
• 50:11
  in the US and overseas who are saying we don't have matcha
• 50:14
  until the next harvest. And so I hope that there's a
• 50:17
  reckoning that happens of recognizing the impact your
• 50:20
  words do have and the opportunity to educate people in
• 50:25
  ways and then educate yourself in a way that would benefit the
• 50:31
  industry. Because although it could be
• 50:33
  exciting to cause something, you know, first, the viral aspect of
• 50:37
  social media is something that I think many creators attain to
• 50:40
  achieve. It does does have adverse
• 50:43
  effects, or it could. I feel like there's so many
• 50:47
  layers between the matcha farmers and the end consumer
• 50:52
  that somehow the popularity of this matcha didn't really
• 50:57
  cascade down to the farmers level.
• 51:00
  Like, is there a way to I, I, I'm just, you know, dropping a
• 51:04
  threat here? I don't necessarily have an
• 51:06
  answer to this question, but is there a way in the future that,
• 51:09
  you know, this whole popularity can finally cascade down to the
• 51:12
  farmers working in the fuel and help them grow together?
• 51:16
  I think that that will be the ultimate answer of this shortage
• 51:20
  because, you know, people outside of Japan are loving
• 51:23
  matcha and this demand is going to continuously grow in the
• 51:26
  future. Yeah, that's a great question.
• 51:28
  Something I do know about the industry at origin is that
• 51:32
  there's a level of community that you don't quite see here in
• 51:35
  the US and there are many collectives across tea growing
• 51:40
  prefectures in Japan that come together, you know, with, with
• 51:45
  their yield of tea leaves and, and being able to meet demand.
• 51:49
  And so that's not something you, you see here in the US for, for
• 51:53
  matcha brand competitors rally together in support of
• 51:56
  something. It's often very segmented.
• 51:59
  Whereas in the industry, it's something that I, I, I'm a
• 52:02
  pioneer member of the Global Japanese Tea Association.
• 52:06
  And I don't know if you've immersed yourself in their work.
• 52:10
  And they're incredible and they have opportunities for any
• 52:15
  person interested in learning more about Japanese tea as a
• 52:19
  whole. And that includes matcha to
• 52:22
  connect directly with tea farmers.
• 52:24
  And so I've had the opportunity and the privilege to have a
• 52:28
  Direct Line virtually. This is during the pandemic or
• 52:30
  following the pandemic, where they were able to share the
• 52:34
  challenges and the struggles and literally see tears welling up
• 52:38
  in their eyes about how challenging it is working behind
• 52:41
  the scenes and how they've had to lean in on the support of
• 52:45
  other competitor tea farmers to be able to to keep their tea
• 52:49
  gardens and tea farms afloat. And so I can't imagine what's
• 52:54
  happening now. Like that was a conversation
• 52:56
  that was happening a couple of years ago, but now having to
• 52:59
  really put their heads together around, you know, how do we
• 53:03
  sustain our business here with the, the, the, you know, very
• 53:08
  little support that they're seeing.
• 53:10
  And it's something that I hope Matcha brands today, this is
• 53:13
  something that we, we're exploring at shade Leaf prior to
• 53:16
  the acquisition is how can we support the tea farmers
• 53:20
  directly? Are there programs in place or
• 53:23
  organizations in place? And I know that the Global
• 53:25
  Japanese Tea Association is, is a non profit, but there was even
• 53:28
  some hesitance around receiving monetary contributions to
• 53:31
  further their mission. And so that's something that I,
• 53:34
  I hope to see because they need more support.
• 53:36
  And and that's not to say monetary support is the only way
• 53:39
  to support, but the information that I think creators or anyone
• 53:44
  interested in Matcha shares should come from a place of, you
• 53:49
  know, what would be best for the industry as a whole, especially
• 53:53
  as we're facing challenges today.
• 53:56
  Yeah, totally agree. And you know, it's a really
• 53:59
  complex issue too, because there is no such thing as matcha
• 54:02
  farmers. It's a wide variety of business
• 54:05
  models ranging from mom and pop who have no international
• 54:10
  experience that process all their material in a collective
• 54:13
  versus like these Rockstar farmers that are very successful
• 54:18
  and very well monetized and can afford the investments.
• 54:21
  And then you have, of course, have the mega companies that
• 54:23
  have the ability to get, you know, a kosher certification or
• 54:27
  USDA organic or JS organic or halal certification, like all of
• 54:32
  these things and the ability to easily export for what you know
• 54:36
  is needed. So it's like you have this
• 54:37
  interesting spectrum within Japan and who do you help and
• 54:41
  how do you help? It's like it's really complex
• 54:43
  the more we we dive into that world.
• 54:45
  Yeah. A lot of politics.
• 54:47
  You know, like is, is it help that would be beneficial for
• 54:50
  them, you know, is another question.
• 54:53
  So yeah, it's it's such an interesting period we're in, but
• 54:57
  this is a great question. Thanks, Shay.
• 55:02
  This is a question I do get from time to time is from Danny B.
• 55:07
  What tips do you have for someone that is interested in
• 55:10
  working in the matcha industry but doesn't have the background
• 55:12
  or an entry point? That stood out to me because
• 55:16
  that very much was me at one point.
• 55:18
  And you know, coming from a background of 0 formal
• 55:22
  experience, I had my match, my passion for matcha that I leaned
• 55:26
  on, that I shared through my community pages and all the ways
• 55:28
  that we just discussed. But I, if someone's interested
• 55:33
  in entering the industry, it's, it's a crowded market, at least
• 55:37
  here in the US. If you don't have the background
• 55:40
  or an entry point, I would recommend being obsessed with
• 55:44
  skill acquisition. Focus on making yourself
• 55:47
  valuable to a founder, to a company in immersing yourself in
• 55:53
  all the ways that you could add value.
• 55:55
  And I think today, especially with other conversations
• 55:59
  happening in the professional realm of, you know, like not
• 56:02
  just working within your scope and, and doing things within
• 56:05
  your scope, which if you're part of a startup, you know, you
• 56:08
  often absorb other responsibilities that fall
• 56:11
  outside of your scope. And I know founders greatly
• 56:14
  appreciate that. And that's not to say that
• 56:17
  founders expect you to care as much or work as much as they do.
• 56:21
  That's, that's not the founding team's responsibility at all,
• 56:25
  but it's important to be able to, I think add as much value
• 56:29
  upfront, especially as you're, you're just beginning to develop
• 56:34
  skill sets because you don't have much to offer at that point
• 56:36
  aside from your passion and interest.
• 56:38
  But if I think oftentimes people go in the route of mentorship,
• 56:43
  like, Hey, can you mentor me in these ways and I can do XY and Z
• 56:47
  for you and, and I need this from you.
• 56:50
  I want this time from you and I'll offer XY and Z.
• 56:53
  That's pretty costly because time is is our most valuable
• 56:58
  asset. So that's a big ask versus
• 57:01
  upfront saying just arming yourself in the background
• 57:04
  before it, you know, as you're educating yourself and
• 57:07
  developing your, you know, you're in a phase of skill
• 57:09
  acquisition, immerse yourself in the world, absorb content like
• 57:14
  you share here in the podcast, read books, you know, connect
• 57:18
  with people. So begin networking because that
• 57:20
  takes time. I think the relationship
• 57:22
  building takes a lot of time, especially as in ways I still
• 57:26
  view it as a small industry. Maybe I'm thinking of like the,
• 57:29
  you know, the early players and you know, the connections that
• 57:33
  we have. But it's something that I think
• 57:36
  when you immerse yourself and you're just so engrossed in the
• 57:39
  process of learning as much as you can, you've already made
• 57:43
  yourself a part of the 1% that is willing to go the distance
• 57:46
  and stand out to a founder. And I think many people expect,
• 57:50
  especially if you're starting, expect so much upfront, like I
• 57:53
  want all of these. It feels transactional in a way.
• 57:56
  And it's so easy when you're a part of a founding team or I can
• 57:59
  imagine a founder to tune that out because you, you're in so
• 58:02
  many conversations with people who want something from you.
• 58:05
  I would focus on what, what can you give?
• 58:06
  And, and that's where I was, I was very much focused on what
• 58:10
  can I give to Mark and Will? And you know, an example is
• 58:14
  although I was a brand manager leading marketing, I was very
• 58:18
  much involved in other arms of the business and I worked, we
• 58:22
  partnered very closely on the product development side to
• 58:25
  bring 20 plus products to market.
• 58:27
  And in conversations around the design of it, working with our
• 58:29
  designer and just talking about the experience we really wanted
• 58:33
  people to have and collaborating and working closely with our CEO
• 58:38
  Will on spearheading culture at a time where technically I
• 58:42
  didn't have to do that and we were such a small team.
• 58:45
  But your internal marketing and especially from a founder lens
• 58:50
  or a leadership lens matters. How you market to your team
• 58:55
  matters just as much as how you market externally to your
• 58:58
  consumer. And if you can find things that
• 59:01
  you genuinely care about that you can drive forward, it
• 59:04
  doesn't necessarily have to be within the sphere of what you
• 59:07
  may want to do could be supply, operations, product, etcetera,
• 59:12
  etcetera, etcetera. If you can really hone in on
• 59:14
  what that is and how you can contribute that, I think it
• 59:17
  makes it much of an enjoyable experience for you to work
• 59:21
  beyond your scope in ways that will help further your goals and
• 59:25
  your career while still adding value to your team.
• 59:28
  I hope that's helpful. It's.
• 59:29
  A. Great answer.
• 59:31
  Great answer. One thing that I'll add to is
• 59:34
  not being in the industry as a tea person is probably a great
• 59:38
  gift within the matcha industry, especially if you're Japanese.
• 59:43
  There's this perception of you cannot break into the field.
• 59:47
  It's so honored within Japanese society and it holds such a,
• 59:52
  it's an area of such cultural importance that it's, as Ian
• 59:57
  from You Know Me put it, it's seen as something you can't
• 59:59
  break into. So actually being an outsider is
• 1:00:02
  a huge advantage in this industry.
• 1:00:04
  You don't carry that burden. That's easier from the outside
• 1:00:07
  going in than the inside creating something, I think.
• 1:00:10
  Yeah, but also at the same time, you know, coming in with a
• 1:00:14
  humble and respect, respectful mentality, I think it's very
• 1:00:17
  important too. Very.
• 1:00:20
  And I love that you brought that up because I very much felt like
• 1:00:24
  an outsider when I started. And I look the way that I look.
• 1:00:28
  I'm heavily tattooed. I'm not Japanese and I felt like
• 1:00:31
  these, you know, especially traveling to Origin and being in
• 1:00:35
  those meetings where it is very male dominated, sitting in a
• 1:00:39
  boardroom and looking around and feeling so different.
• 1:00:43
  I also want to press upon for anyone listening that feels like
• 1:00:49
  they may not be qualified for, for whatever entering the
• 1:00:52
  industry because of the things that you may feel like
• 1:00:55
  disqualify you. Oftentimes that can be your
• 1:00:59
  greatest asset. Ryan, you mentioned not not
• 1:01:03
  being necessarily in the industry and being so different
• 1:01:05
  can be a gift. And I think it's something that
• 1:01:08
  I recognize embracing who you are and staying true to who you
• 1:01:12
  are and not changing who you are to fit into the mold of what you
• 1:01:16
  think you should be, especially in, in such a traditional
• 1:01:19
  industry. And I'm speaking only in from
• 1:01:21
  the Japanese perspective here in the US, it's different.
• 1:01:24
  I, I do see it a lot more like, you know, the specialty coffee
• 1:01:29
  realm is so diverse. When I go to these specialty
• 1:01:33
  coffee events, I feel very much seen.
• 1:01:35
  There are many people who look like me, many people of color,
• 1:01:38
  queer, heavily tattooed. And I feel like in ways that has
• 1:01:42
  helped me connect so deeply, especially as I work on the B to
• 1:01:45
  B side of things of being able to just connect directly with
• 1:01:49
  people so, you know, don't change who you are.
• 1:01:52
  It took me many years to get to this point where I used to hide
• 1:01:57
  a lot of myself, wear certain things that would cover my
• 1:02:00
  tattoos, and omit things because I felt like it didn't have the
• 1:02:04
  room contextually in conversations.
• 1:02:07
  But it's something that I think can really help separate you
• 1:02:10
  from people. Actually, I would even say being
• 1:02:13
  different and staying true to yourself is an obligation if
• 1:02:16
  you're entering the industry. I mean, the Japanese tea
• 1:02:19
  industry and the matcha industry is an industry almost
• 1:02:22
  exclusively controlled by old Japanese men and the special
• 1:02:25
  team matcha scene. It deserves more.
• 1:02:28
  That's the reason why there's remarkably little change and
• 1:02:30
  remarkably little, I hesitate to use the word care, but I can't
• 1:02:34
  think of a better word for a more diverse consumer set.
• 1:02:38
  It's, you know, no one's thinking about the consumer in,
• 1:02:43
  you know, pick any random location and doing things for
• 1:02:46
  them. Yeah.
• 1:02:47
  Within Japanese society. So I mean that I would say that
• 1:02:51
  that change and keeping true to yourself is more obligatory than
• 1:02:56
  than anything. Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  I. Agree.
• 1:02:57
  Gosh, I feel like I could code down another rabbit hole here
• 1:03:01
  because I do. I do agree with that.
• 1:03:04
  Where especially on the marketing side, when your team
• 1:03:08
  or even because we have such diverse experiences, you know,
• 1:03:12
  like I have experiences that I carry with me that have shaped
• 1:03:15
  me into who I am today. And when you see someone,
• 1:03:20
  especially as many brands are now working on humanizing,
• 1:03:23
  there's, you know, the, the era of a personal brand, when your
• 1:03:26
  community or consumer sees themselves reflected in you,
• 1:03:30
  that deepens the connection because they've, they've,
• 1:03:32
  especially, you know, I, I feel this when I'm in person, that
• 1:03:35
  events, you know, supporting my clients or, or especially at my
• 1:03:39
  time at Jade Leaf, being able to connect directly with people who
• 1:03:42
  may share similar experiences as me and feel comfortable being as
• 1:03:46
  open. And, and I mean, the stories
• 1:03:48
  that I have received from my community, I'm often shocked at
• 1:03:51
  the level of vulnerability they share with me such personal
• 1:03:55
  things. I feel so comfortable because I
• 1:03:57
  have given that as well. And so when I think that there's
• 1:04:00
  that exchange where you can really own who you are, all the
• 1:04:05
  parts that, you know, the things that you might tell yourself
• 1:04:07
  about yourself that you feel like, you know, make you so
• 1:04:12
  different and, and maybe in a negative way, really could be
• 1:04:16
  the thing that draw a deeper connection to people.
• 1:04:18
  So stay true to who you are, celebrate who you are and and
• 1:04:23
  you'll find that people will feel a lot more drawn to you and
• 1:04:26
  in just such an authentic and genuine way.
• 1:04:29
  Yeah. Totally agree.
• 1:04:32
  And you know, from our personal experience, even like in Japan,
• 1:04:36
  like if you show genuine curiosity, you're passionate and
• 1:04:40
  you're decently well prepared. You know, like the Japanese,
• 1:04:43
  they are like they are also very open minded in a lot of aspect
• 1:04:47
  and they are not as you know, exclusive as a lot of people
• 1:04:52
  being, you know, talking about as their stereotype.
• 1:04:55
  So I would say that that's a really important thing, no
• 1:04:59
  matter where you are and who you're talking to.
• 1:05:02
  I, I remember when I went to origin and we have, we had a
• 1:05:05
  teammate in Japan that I consulted and I just asked, I
• 1:05:09
  said, should I cover up my tattoos?
• 1:05:10
  Like should I get a bunch of foundation and just cover up my
• 1:05:13
  tattoos and do that every day? Because I was honestly afraid of
• 1:05:18
  how I would be received, especially with such a strong
• 1:05:21
  stigma of tattoo in Japan. And he said, just be yourself
• 1:05:26
  and he goes, you don't have to do that.
• 1:05:28
  Don't worry about it. And and a part of me kind of
• 1:05:30
  felt like, do you under I mean, can you really understand or
• 1:05:33
  empathize with maybe the fear I have about like why I am so
• 1:05:38
  hesitant to. I mean, I at this point, many
• 1:05:41
  visible tattoos, I can't hide unless I go the distance of
• 1:05:44
  covering them with foundation. And I was so shocked by how I
• 1:05:48
  was received. And not only in Japan, but also
• 1:05:51
  at, you know, meeting our tea farmers and partner tea
• 1:05:54
  producers where they recognize I had a chosen on my my finger and
• 1:05:58
  they recognized the leaves and they're like, what is that a
• 1:06:02
  chosen? And it's like, oh, yeah, it's a
• 1:06:03
  bamboo whisk. And they were so intrigued and
• 1:06:05
  wanted to learn more. And, and it's something where I
• 1:06:07
  wish I didn't recognize that that was going to happen.
• 1:06:09
  But it created a moment where I really bonded with a lot of our
• 1:06:12
  tea farmers then and was able to collect some really once in a
• 1:06:16
  lifetime experiences because I was so different.
• 1:06:20
  Yeah. So yeah, it's so interesting
• 1:06:22
  when when you can just really embrace who we are.
• 1:06:25
  And I think maybe that's the work many of us are trying to
• 1:06:27
  do. Yeah, tea farmers in Japan are
• 1:06:29
  some of the loveliest people in the world.
• 1:06:31
  Very generous. Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  They want to lavish you, they want you to have a really good
• 1:06:36
  experience. And, and it's something that I
• 1:06:41
  think is some of my fondest memories are meeting tea
• 1:06:44
  farmers, doing karaoke with them.
• 1:06:46
  And, you know. Carrying me.
• 1:06:49
  That's wonderful. That's awesome.
• 1:06:50
  All right. One more question from our
• 1:06:53
  community by Joey S Hi, Joey. So this question goes, Jules,
• 1:06:58
  how do you see much of becoming even more accessible and less
• 1:07:02
  scary for people that may be a bit more hesitant to dive into
• 1:07:06
  this world? And as part of that, do you
• 1:07:08
  think it is because there are so many layers to how to do it
• 1:07:13
  right that might deter people from having fun with it?
• 1:07:16
  This question and hi, Joey. I actually met Joey in New York
• 1:07:19
  when I hosted a very intimate in person matcha meet up.
• 1:07:23
  So it was, yeah. Hi Joey, Hope you're well.
• 1:07:27
  I think it's something that we're starting to see that shift
• 1:07:30
  of people who were matcha curious now really wanting to
• 1:07:36
  invest in more in acquiring more knowledge about matcha.
• 1:07:39
  I do agree. And I, I believe you both had a
• 1:07:42
  podcast episode where you talked about Chinoyu and how, and you
• 1:07:46
  know, the, the rituals of it, although beautiful, have created
• 1:07:51
  some challenges for people overseas in terms of how they
• 1:07:55
  can prepare matcha on their own or feel intimidated about matcha
• 1:07:58
  preparation that they're not necessarily doing things right.
• 1:08:01
  And you see that translated over on the, you know, the cafe side
• 1:08:06
  of things where they're using certain tools and people give
• 1:08:09
  feedback that it has to be done this way or you're not honoring
• 1:08:12
  the ritual of the practice or, or respecting it.
• 1:08:15
  And I find that when we can lean in on our curiosity, I think as
• 1:08:20
  as many people, especially at the Jade Leaf time, came to Jade
• 1:08:24
  Leaf from places like Starbucks where they had their first
• 1:08:27
  experience with matcha and wanted to really immerse
• 1:08:30
  themselves and learn and feel empowered to do it, to prepare
• 1:08:34
  matcha on their own. I think it's helpful to just be
• 1:08:38
  gentle with yourself and learn the fundamentals of matcha
• 1:08:41
  preparation. I think it's helpful to learn
• 1:08:43
  traditional preparation and there's now so many other
• 1:08:46
  methods you can lean in on to prepare matcha, especially if we
• 1:08:50
  all have different lifestyles. But it's something that I think
• 1:08:54
  when you arm yourself with the knowledge and the fundamentals,
• 1:08:56
  if, if you care to that degree to learn about tea brewing and
• 1:09:01
  understanding the variables of water temperature time, the the
• 1:09:04
  grams of matcha you use and how that can impact, you know, the
• 1:09:08
  overall experience that you have, I think it's helpful to
• 1:09:12
  then deviate from that. I certainly do that all the time
• 1:09:16
  where, you know, when I make matcha, if I'm doing it
• 1:09:19
  traditionally with a chosen and a chow on, sometimes I'll bring
• 1:09:22
  up my scale and I'll, I'll, you know, dial in the temperature to
• 1:09:26
  a very specific degree and I'll, I'll prepare it as I would
• 1:09:30
  traditionally. And sometimes I, I just want to
• 1:09:32
  riff it and experiment with like, hmm, let's do this, you
• 1:09:35
  know, like let's, let's go 10° lower and let's use more matcha
• 1:09:39
  and it's more intuitive. And I think if you can just lean
• 1:09:41
  in on the curiosity and whatever feels right to you is right to
• 1:09:44
  you. And I, I think people having
• 1:09:49
  such strong opinions about how to do something right does
• 1:09:53
  intimidate people and hinder someone's openness, I think in
• 1:09:57
  terms of embracing much in ways that they want to.
• 1:10:00
  So I think if we can remove those barriers for ourselves and
• 1:10:03
  just have fun with it, unless you're preparing matcha
• 1:10:08
  traditionally in a traditional tea ceremony, then absolutely,
• 1:10:11
  yes, there's a ritual and a practice to honor and respect.
• 1:10:15
  But if you're making matcha at home or if you're serving matcha
• 1:10:18
  at a Cafe and you have a method that works for you to serve or
• 1:10:22
  sell matcha at scale, that's awesome.
• 1:10:24
  That kind of that kind of connects back to a one of the
• 1:10:27
  questions, Lex's question, how would you teach big coffee shops
• 1:10:31
  how to prepare matcha with the correct techniques?
• 1:10:34
  So temperature sifting made to order.
• 1:10:36
  And that's from Lex 8888. Hi, Lex.
• 1:10:39
  Lex has also been incredibly supportive.
• 1:10:42
  Just my journey in matcha. And I think it's something that
• 1:10:47
  I do receive a lot of questions from, you know, cafe friends,
• 1:10:50
  people in specialty coffee who don't quite know or intimidated
• 1:10:55
  that the methods they're they're using aren't correct or if
• 1:10:59
  there's a better method to use out there.
• 1:11:01
  And it's challenging when you're serving much at scale in a high
• 1:11:05
  velocity environment. You also need, there's another
• 1:11:09
  layer like, yes, there's, there's a, a way to prepare
• 1:11:12
  matcha, but now having to do that for 10 plus people at peak
• 1:11:17
  time can be challenging with a bamboo risk and A and a chow on.
• 1:11:22
  And, and I don't think that those tools necessarily are the
• 1:11:26
  best fit for that environment for many reasons from a
• 1:11:29
  sanitation standpoint. I've personally, as I, I went to
• 1:11:34
  a cafe recently and they were, I always like to Ryan, I know I, I
• 1:11:38
  tagged you in something and I called it sad matcha.
• 1:11:42
  It's something I've noticed because I like to just
• 1:11:44
  personally before you, you mentioned that I was like, Oh my
• 1:11:46
  gosh, someone else cares and notices what matcha stations
• 1:11:50
  look like. And I always felt like I was
• 1:11:52
  just being overly critical of that personally.
• 1:11:56
  And I drank a hot latte in a cup and I choked on a tine of the
• 1:12:02
  bamboo width. It broke off into my latte.
• 1:12:05
  And so there's, you know, there's physical hazards, I
• 1:12:10
  think in terms of some of the tools that you use for high
• 1:12:12
  velocity environment. So I think that's something
• 1:12:15
  cafes of someone's looking to expand their matcha program to
• 1:12:19
  really assess what is going to be the best fit for their
• 1:12:23
  environment and deliver the best experience for their their
• 1:12:25
  customer. And so serving matchas at scale
• 1:12:29
  is challenging. There are things like sifting
• 1:12:32
  the temperature of the water you use, which I've seen cafes and
• 1:12:36
  more specialty cafes really dial in their temperature for matcha,
• 1:12:40
  which I personally appreciate. But most often what you
• 1:12:44
  experience if you are ordering matcha, even at some incredible
• 1:12:46
  cafes, they're using hot water that is reserved for hot tea
• 1:12:51
  that is extremely hot that will immediately burn the matcha.
• 1:12:56
  And so if there's something that I would teach big coffee shops,
• 1:13:01
  if they were to focus on two things, it'd be water
• 1:13:03
  temperature and all the other things that you might integrate
• 1:13:06
  like sifting, do that prior to service.
• 1:13:08
  You know, like sifting for each drink you make slows down
• 1:13:12
  service. It can be messy.
• 1:13:14
  But if you have someone prior to opening, sifting a big batch of
• 1:13:18
  your matcha powder and just having it prepared, keeping it
• 1:13:21
  airtight, I think it's important to protect the integrity of the
• 1:13:25
  matcha clear containers that I see many cafes used to store
• 1:13:29
  matcha. It's not great, but at the same
• 1:13:32
  time, I empathize because there aren't many tools out there that
• 1:13:37
  really arm and empower cafes to, to protect the integrity of the
• 1:13:43
  product. They have to figure it out on
• 1:13:45
  their own or source their own. So I think that's something that
• 1:13:49
  I have a lot of empathy for. And when I see it, I, I
• 1:13:53
  understand the struggles of small businesses.
• 1:13:55
  So I'm, I'm, I, the one thing the real one request I do make
• 1:14:00
  if I am a customer going into a cafe is I'll just ask them to
• 1:14:04
  put a couple of ice cubes in the water prior to, to whisking
• 1:14:10
  matcha or frothing it. Because I, I don't want the
• 1:14:12
  matcha to get burnt. And then the, the ice will melt
• 1:14:16
  relatively quick, quickly in that hot water.
• 1:14:18
  But it'll it's a world of a difference compared to just
• 1:14:21
  burning your palate and tasting burnt matcha.
• 1:14:25
  Absolutely. One thing that too that we
• 1:14:27
  always like to say is like looking to chana, you might be
• 1:14:30
  looking to the wrong place. Like tea ceremony has like very
• 1:14:33
  specific objectives and underlying reasons for every
• 1:14:37
  single step. And those objectives are
• 1:14:39
  probably something completely different than what you want.
• 1:14:43
  They could be symbolic objectives, they could be
• 1:14:46
  aesthetic objectives. Like there's all these rules and
• 1:14:49
  underlying intentions and learning Japanese tea ceremony
• 1:14:53
  is a very particular type of education, very Japanese.
• 1:14:57
  No one is going to necessarily explicitly explain to you why
• 1:15:02
  something is. And in some cases you could even
• 1:15:04
  ask and they might not tell you. And copying and pasting that set
• 1:15:11
  of equipment or that set of procedures over, while it may be
• 1:15:15
  a traditional method and feel right, it might be designed for
• 1:15:18
  a very different outcome than the outcome that you're
• 1:15:21
  specifically looking for, whether or not it's both at home
• 1:15:24
  or in a cafe. So like really like being
• 1:15:27
  curious and asking like, why am I doing this step?
• 1:15:30
  What is actually going on when I'm creating a suspension or
• 1:15:33
  creating foam or whisking in a particular way or using a
• 1:15:36
  certain water chemistry or or temperature water?
• 1:15:39
  Like what's the underlying assumption and what is it that I
• 1:15:42
  want much more specialty coffee approach?
• 1:15:44
  Like it's then just blindly adhering to tradition or what a
• 1:15:49
  traditional Japanese tea ceremony would do.
• 1:15:53
  Yeah, but I feel like that for modern cafes, one thing that we
• 1:15:59
  do can learn from Channel U is the intentionality of all the
• 1:16:03
  gestures, like showing care, like it's not the physical form
• 1:16:07
  that we should learn and copy, but you know, like why we are
• 1:16:10
  doing that, why the spirit like trying to communicate your
• 1:16:15
  caring of the item of the guest. I think that's something that we
• 1:16:18
  can definitely learn from traditional Channel view.
• 1:16:21
  Absolutely. And it's really hard to do that
• 1:16:23
  in a high velocity environment, yes.
• 1:16:26
  I'm sure come through orders very talented.
• 1:16:29
  Yeah, no, absolutely awesome. Well, I think that's a great
• 1:16:32
  place to wrap up. I think this is our longest
• 1:16:34
  interview ever. Hello.
• 1:16:36
  Hit a special record. I hope that's OK.
• 1:16:39
  Of course, of course. No, it's just awesome, a packed
• 1:16:42
  full of great content. Thank you so much for your time
• 1:16:45
  and agreeing to come on and all the wonderful work you're doing
• 1:16:48
  in the macho world. Yeah, wonderful package.
• 1:16:52
  Thanks. Thanks for having me.
• 1:16:54
  And I do, I wanna circle back to the sentiment is I'm so happy
• 1:16:59
  that your work exists. It's much needed in the
• 1:17:03
  industry. I found out about it and I've
• 1:17:05
  just been consuming it and I've learned so much about it myself.
• 1:17:08
  And you talked about, you know, like industry events and how
• 1:17:11
  creators, we were just talking about how maybe they've
• 1:17:13
  superseded our knowledge. And I've learned so much, I
• 1:17:16
  think taking what I know. And I've even continued to
• 1:17:20
  deepen my care and appreciation for Matcha through your lens.
• 1:17:24
  And so I think that's such an important thing to be a student
• 1:17:27
  of matcha, especially if this is something that you want to get
• 1:17:30
  into. We, I'm sure the end like the
• 1:17:33
  industry has been wanting this. Not that I speak for the
• 1:17:37
  industry, but I know many industry friends would just find
• 1:17:41
  so much value in, in just the perspectives you share, the
• 1:17:45
  people you're bringing on to really create a space for us to
• 1:17:49
  have dialogue because again, that hasn't existed unless it
• 1:17:52
  happens offline behind the scenes.
• 1:17:55
  And I'm just so grateful that you're taking the time to have
• 1:17:59
  these conversations because it's something that I think will
• 1:18:01
  further the industry, especially as you know, we're starting to
• 1:18:05
  see that shift towards specialty.
• 1:18:07
  So thank you. Thank you.
• 1:18:09
  Thank you. Really, really appreciate the
• 1:18:11
  kind words. Thank you.
• 1:18:13
  Yeah, we're, we're happy to be a part of this community and we're
• 1:18:17
  excited too. I think it's just energizing for
• 1:18:19
  everyone of me. Can't wait to see how it grows.
• 1:18:21
  Me too. Awesome.
• 1:18:24
  Thanks so much. If you're listening to this
• 1:18:25
  podcast, if you liked it, please share it with a friend and we'll
• 1:18:29
  see you on the next one. Yeah.
• 1:18:32
  Thanks. Thank you.
• 1:18:33
  Thank you.