Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / Interview with Abby the Matcha Scientist

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Interview with Abby the Matcha Scientist · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the specialty Match podcast.
0:02
My name is Ryan. This is Michael Ho Sungjun who
0:05
also does by Sam. Hello, hello.
0:06
And we're the Co founders of Samco Matcha products.
0:09
Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey,
0:11
Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts.
0:14
And today we have Abby from Abby the Matcha scientist joining us.
0:18
Welcome, Abby. Hi, thank you so much for having
0:21
me on. I'm really excited to join you
0:23
and I love this podcast. Thanks so much.
0:25
Thank you. We really enjoy your content and
0:28
I think your short form is like really refreshing for us to hear
0:32
because a lot of your content one has gone viral.
0:34
So congratulations. Thank you.
0:36
And and it like really like spreading really important
0:39
messages around marketing or mislabeling.
0:42
I think we could fairly characterize it, but also just
0:45
like basic science and showing like the visuals that show
0:48
against that. So we'd love to learn more about
0:50
your background as a scientist and how you got into Matcha.
0:54
Yeah, definitely. So I am a chemical engineer.
0:56
That's what I studied in undergraduate studies.
1:00
And then I came to the West Coast, to California, and I did
1:02
my PhD at Stanford in chemical engineering as well.
1:06
But most of my research I'd say, was in the intersection of like
1:09
chemistry and biology. I did drug delivery.
1:12
So I sort of bridged this area between like formulating things
1:16
with my hands and also doing like animal studies with cancer
1:20
and things like that and health related things.
1:22
So I'd say I'm pretty diverse, scientific interests.
1:26
And during grad school I was really lucky to actually intern
1:29
at Impossible Foods. So I got a little bit of
1:32
exposure to food science there and kind of what matters, like
1:36
oxidation and things like that. And so after I finished at
1:39
Stanford, I went on, and now I work in biotech at a
1:43
pharmaceutical company developing mostly cancer drugs,
1:46
but all sorts of drugs for different indications.
1:49
I'd say I'm very passionate about health.
1:51
You know, I pay attention to a lot of my own health choices.
1:54
Yeah. And so I'd say towards the end
1:56
of my PhD, when I was at Stanford a few years ago, we
1:59
took a trip to Japan. And that was really my first
2:02
exposure to like, proper matcha. I didn't really know too much
2:06
about it before then. You know, I was getting like the
2:09
matcha smoothie at Jamba Juice and things like that.
2:11
Before then, I'm not really like what I'd say I drink now at all.
2:16
My going to Japan just really opened my eyes up to like, what
2:20
matcha can be. We went to a tea ceremony.
2:23
I'd say that changed everything. When I came home, I started
2:25
drinking a lot more matcha from cafes, eventually started making
2:28
it at home. And yeah, that was kind of my my
2:30
intro into Matcha and how how I got here.
2:33
Very cool. Chemical engineering.
2:35
I was a chemistry undergrad but I always had a lot of admiration
2:39
for the chemi people because I feel like you had to take like
2:42
10 times more math and physics and like it was more application
2:45
based. I was like, oh wow, I wish I had
2:47
the brain for that, but I never did.
2:49
I'd say my heart probably lies more in chemistry and biology,
2:52
but I I think the applications with math enable a lot of things
2:57
and jobs and opportunities. So that's kind of why I went the
3:00
path I went. Yeah, cool.
3:02
You have the crossover and food too, and product development,
3:05
like a lot of cool stuff going on in that space.
3:07
Pretty cool. So what was the impetus for
3:09
starting Like the Channel? Yeah, so as I got more into
3:13
matcha and was, you know, after this trip to Japan, sort of
3:16
drinking at home, I'd say I first embraced it really for
3:20
its, its taste and its beauty and its health, all of those
3:23
reasons. But then I started asking myself
3:27
questions related to the science, like, what's the best
3:30
way to make this? How does temperature affect it?
3:32
Why are some matches so much more expensive than other?
3:36
Why does certain matches taste really nutty?
3:38
Other ones taste really earthy. And so I started asking myself
3:42
those questions and I started doing actually my own research
3:46
to answer those questions myself.
3:48
I definitely found that, you know, just like general social
3:50
media content, there's a lot of people who focus more on visuals
3:55
and, you know, making cool drinks.
3:57
And then there's a lot of brands that, you know, put out some
4:00
basic educational content, but they're really focused on their
4:02
their marketing materials. And so I couldn't really find
4:06
what I was asking myself, you know, these kind of basic
4:08
scientific questions. I'm from the point of view of
4:12
someone who's buying the matcha. And so then one day, kind of
4:15
impulsively, I'd say, like, I was like, why am I doing all
4:18
this research? Just for me?
4:19
I should be like, sharing this to people who have these
4:22
questions like me. And really my goal is to empower
4:25
the consumer so that, you know, they feel educated when they're
4:28
buying matcha. Lovely.
4:31
Get rid of this like black box of like hundreds of matches
4:33
available. Like which one should I buy?
4:36
Yeah. Interesting.
4:37
Actually what, what was your experience researching all of
4:40
these topics? Because we, we kind of been
4:42
doing a lot of these research as well.
4:45
And frequently you know, a lot of the information are just not
4:47
available in like English. No, definitely.
4:50
There's a huge, huge lack of scientific content available.
4:55
And so it is a challenge to do research.
4:58
You know, I was looking on on Google Scholar and there's
5:01
literally 1000 times more entries on Google Scholar about
5:05
coffee than matcha. And there's about 100 times more
5:11
Google Scholar entries about green tea than specifically
5:14
matcha. Yeah.
5:15
And so there's really a lack of academic study, like, you know,
5:19
peer reviewed study on matcha. There's not a lot out there.
5:23
And so primarily, you know, I have to really scan the Internet
5:26
from brands using different AI tools to find real educational
5:31
content to share. And obviously things like even
5:34
this podcast, you share a lot of great information.
5:38
I really loved your episode about the different grinding
5:41
techniques and going deeper into the science there.
5:44
So definitely, it is a challenge to find very legitimate content
5:48
to share. And so I have to do a lot of
5:49
digging. Yeah, it's a lot of digging.
5:52
And I found too, like I'm deep down a rabbit hole around like,
5:55
what actually is Ujimacha, which will eventually it will but
5:59
definitely be the most researched thing that we ever
6:02
put out because it is such a complicated story and like there
6:06
are contradictions everywhere. And then I'm wondering, OK, why
6:09
are half the people on the Internet saying this?
6:11
Why are the other half saying this?
6:13
And then like you have to go deep down these rabbit holes.
6:15
And I actually think the new AI tools are really good at
6:18
understanding like the intent of a question just for research.
6:21
OK, I sort of trust summaries. I don't trust it for like blind
6:25
answers, but like just as a more sophisticated search engine I've
6:30
had a lot of success. Totally.
6:31
I'm leading you to sources too, I think giving you like 10
6:35
different things that maybe contradict each other, but at
6:38
least you have the 10 and you can kind of self bring them
6:42
together, yeah. Kind of amazing because even
6:45
like 5-10 years ago, like the translation tool sucked.
6:48
It would be way more difficult to just run through like a 20
6:51
page PDF. But like now in the last two
6:54
years, it's kind of a great time to be on the edge of knowledge,
6:57
researching this stuff. No, definitely.
6:59
It definitely accelerates how quickly I can put together a
7:02
video, you know, because you don't have to spend all that
7:04
time like self self finding all the sources.
7:08
You've done a lot of recent posts about using the color
7:11
imagery. OI am aware that color imagery
7:14
exists. I'm aware that measuring color
7:17
is a pretty well understood science as compared to something
7:21
like sensory science where, you know, there's lots of problems
7:24
with different sensory methods. You basically always have to
7:27
make a compromise. But from what I understand,
7:29
color imagery, you can basically objectively measure color color.
7:32
So if you could talk a little bit about that and then how it
7:35
works and then what you've found based on using this method.
7:39
So when I first started thinking about my channel, one of the
7:42
initial ideas I had, I was like, what science can I do?
7:45
You know, what can I easily do at home on a minimal budget?
7:49
You know, I'm not earning any money with this.
7:52
It's really purely for fun. And the first kind of idea I
7:56
came across was color imagery. It's something you can just
7:59
order a colorimeter on Amazon. It's an extremely, like you
8:03
said, objective measurement. You know, it's pretty easy to
8:07
do. There's not a lot of mess
8:10
involved. And so, yeah, I ordered this.
8:13
Let's see this NYX colorimeter. So it's literally this little
8:17
machine. I mean, it is expensive, but
8:19
I've gotten a lot of use out of it.
8:21
And so literally what I do is I take about like 1/8 of a
8:24
teaspoon of this. Just a little scoop of matcha.
8:28
I'll put it on a white mat background.
8:31
I'll take a spatula and basically pat it into his flat
8:34
of a film as I can such that there's like really, it's really
8:38
no cracks or view of any white underneath.
8:41
You want just like a packed film, I'll very gently place
8:45
this on top such that there's no cracks like in this in these
8:49
grooves. And then I'll use my phone and
8:51
take a measurement. And I try to do this in a dark
8:53
room. And so yeah, this is definitely
8:55
something I've I've leaned into as a feasible thing to do at
8:59
home with science and I'm definitely trying to find other
9:02
measurements I can do at home to help people understand matcha
9:07
and put date out there. Cool.
9:08
Have you tried over your like elongated period like when you
9:12
have like a can of matcha open from day-to-day to day?
9:15
So like what's the longest period from like can first open
9:18
to some date? Like, was there a significant
9:22
change in the color? So I'm working on that now.
9:24
I don't have a full set of measurements yet.
9:27
Typically I just have measured open within a few days and I
9:30
take the measurement. But it's something I'm doing
9:32
right as we speak, is trying to take a time course to see if we
9:37
can actually quantify over time what it's looking like.
9:40
And I'm also looking at the different storage methods, like
9:44
keeping one out in the day, sunlight in the room, 1 packaged
9:48
away, one in the freezer. So I'm going to making those
9:51
like temporally right now to see what what happens to the color.
9:55
Love it. It also could also be
9:56
interesting to take different measurements for different
9:58
cultivars because different cultivars have different
10:01
pigments and Coralville content so.
10:03
Yeah, that's where I focused on, I'd say blends people are
10:05
familiar with just to stay relevant.
10:08
You know, people have certain matches they really love and so
10:11
those seem to appeal. But definitely as I move
10:14
forward, I'm going to start region cultivar, breaking it
10:18
apart more and more. It is interesting.
10:19
I've noticed the Yami are definitely less green than the
10:23
Uji matcha's. They sort of, it sort of makes
10:26
sense because they're roasted differently or and so they just
10:30
go through a little bit of a different processing technique.
10:32
And so it makes sense they're a little darker than maybe the
10:35
Uji. Yeah, grinding method plays an
10:38
impact too, because something we've noticed in our own
10:40
grinding experiments. So the finer you go, the
10:43
brighter it gets. It makes sense.
10:46
There's a few different things going into this.
10:49
It makes sense why the most I've consistently seen that the most
10:52
expensive matchas are the most green.
10:55
The trend is definitely there. So I think that should hope,
10:58
hopefully help give consumers some confidence that if they are
11:01
spending more, it's pretty likely it is a better quality.
11:04
There's not a lot of deviation from that.
11:07
Yeah, for sure, for sure be cool to do a humidity experiment too,
11:11
because like we've been interacting with so much tensha
11:14
and like a relative, we're developing machine and like
11:16
Shenzhen, Guangzhou area just like super humid and like if we
11:20
leave a you like don't properly seal a bag of tensha, it's like
11:24
almost soft. It's like shocking.
11:27
Yeah. I mean, I definitely notice over
11:29
time just from consuming matcha that like the more time you've
11:33
used a tin, you see more and more little like clusters
11:37
forming the, you know, the humidity is bringing them into
11:39
like little pebbles basically. Yeah.
11:41
What would that be? Is there would be like some like
11:44
hydrogen bonding going on? So like it sucks in the water
11:47
and then those form and that's why it gets sticky.
11:50
Yeah, I think, I mean, matcha's I guess #1A very hydrophobic, so
11:54
it's super prone to clumping, and then when some get some
11:58
water it, it wants to basically eat it and form like a self
12:01
conglomerate basically. So yeah, there's a lot of
12:05
different physical interactions going on with Matcha.
12:07
Yeah, I wonder if moisture, too, effects packing efficiency.
12:10
So I was talking with one of my friends who's in food
12:12
engineering. He kept using term packing
12:14
efficiency. I was thinking, I never thought
12:16
about it that way and how like I bet even like a like A1 Micron
12:21
lower like from 5 to 4, like you can really affect that.
12:25
I don't know at what point that starts getting like a really
12:29
clumpy from a packing efficiency perspective.
12:32
One thing you do notice is that all these facilities have AC
12:35
just blast on, you know, 21st century.
12:39
Yeah, matcha is very delicate, and I think that's what makes it
12:42
so fun, is that there's all these different parameters to
12:46
understand about what's making it degrade.
12:49
There's a million different ways that degrades, and so there's a
12:52
lot of different ways to understand it and improve upon
12:55
it. And yeah.
12:56
Yeah, wow. I bet there were.
12:58
There are like a lot of shocking similarities between matcha and
13:02
like pharmaceutical like all these drug powders Like do you
13:06
find that like. The definitely, you know, I
13:09
think my experience in lab, you know, measuring little amounts
13:13
and being precise and, you know, having patience and rerunning
13:17
experiments, I think all of that is direct translation to, you
13:22
know, running home experiments with little bits of matcha
13:25
powder and things like that. So there's a lot of lab skills.
13:29
And then I just general science skills as well, just the
13:31
scientific method and being able to parse a lot of information on
13:35
the Internet into something that I believe is, you know,
13:38
scientifically credible. Yeah.
13:40
Yeah, it'd be really cool if you take like a fresh can of matcha,
13:43
open it, let it sit for a day and weigh it before and after.
13:47
I would love to know how much water.
13:49
Is these are awesome ideas? Yeah, we don't have access to a
13:51
scale like that, but I'm sure you do.
13:54
No, I have a decent scale. I'd say as I get more momentum
13:58
on my channel, I am starting to invest a little bit more and
14:02
more to improve all my tools. That's awesome.
14:04
I read through a lot of your comment sections from your
14:07
videos, but like, what's your take on the online discourse and
14:11
like the way this goes and like the, the way people approach
14:15
these dialogues. It's interesting to read
14:18
through, like especially your videos because they're
14:20
educational content actually, I'd say like, I don't know, it
14:23
feels like over 50% are like pretty constructive, which is,
14:26
it's an interesting space to read through actually.
14:29
No, yeah, I was honestly blown away by the amount of enthusiasm
14:32
I got when I started. You know, I get tons of direct
14:35
messages with random questions about when people be saying
14:40
like, I'm so glad there's a matcha scientist like, and a lot
14:45
of people have questions about what matcha to buy.
14:47
I'd say that's the number one thing is overwhelmed with
14:50
choices and not sure where to start.
14:53
But overall, I've been amazed by the amount of enthusiasm.
14:56
I'd say in terms of online, I think there's definitely
14:59
different communities and demographics of people who are
15:02
interested in matcha. There's people who are probably
15:05
more interested in the aesthetics and the brands and
15:09
things like that. There's kind of the the tea
15:11
specialists who know a ton about tea.
15:14
Definitely I'm, I'd say I'm a scientist learning about matcha,
15:18
but there's tons of people who have lived in Japan and studied
15:21
the technique and know all of the kind of culture around it.
15:25
So there's kind of that community and there's also kind
15:28
of a community really focused really on Wellness, people
15:31
drinking matcha for the health benefits.
15:34
And so I try to design my content to appeal to all of
15:37
them. Some of them speaks to
15:38
different, you know, groups more than another.
15:41
I really think just focusing on education can can bring them
15:44
together. But overall, yeah, I think the
15:46
response to my videos are super supportive, constructive, and
15:50
people are really respectful. You know, sometimes I'll get a
15:53
comment saying like, you're not making matcha the right way or,
15:57
you know, you're not speak saying the Japanese terms
15:59
correctly. How dare you.
16:01
And honestly, I really do my best to do things correctly and
16:05
honor the tradition. And so I think people need to
16:07
have grace for each other that, you know, we're all trying to
16:10
share the celebration of matcha and just just be happy.
16:15
I think a scientist learning matcha is like, the best way to
16:18
put it, like because you know, like we're all learning matcha
16:21
every day. Yeah, I mean, I've learned so
16:24
much through doing these videos. Like I said, the inspiration was
16:28
just I had questions and I wanted to answer them.
16:30
And so still I don't know all the answers to my videos.
16:33
You know, all of my future videos, I'm going to have a
16:35
question and then keep keep answering the questions.
16:37
So yeah. Yeah, I love that it's non
16:39
commercial too, because it's one, it's a curiosity driven,
16:42
like very obviously curiosity driven.
16:44
And like you bring a very clear and objective point of view like
16:48
because a lot of including our own content, right.
16:51
Like if you're connected to this economically some way like we
16:55
are or some of the brands doing basically content marketing, but
16:58
you always have to like question the perspective.
17:01
So it's really refreshing to see that and someone like also just
17:04
like directly pointing out people like ceremonial grade
17:08
doesn't mean anything. The best of the content that's
17:11
probably resonated the most is just different marketing terms,
17:16
understanding what's legitimate and what's not.
17:19
I think people really need that and want that.
17:22
That's been clear from my content.
17:24
Did you get any pushback on that on your ceremonial grade
17:27
content? I'd say there's some people who
17:29
are like, of course it's their right to do marketing tactics.
17:32
And I agree. I'm just pointing it out, you
17:34
know what I mean? I think some people take it as,
17:38
you know, maybe anti capitalism or something like that.
17:42
And I'm not bashing capitalism at all.
17:44
I'm just pointing it out so that the consumer's aware that it
17:47
really doesn't mean anything scientific.
17:49
Yeah. OK, interesting.
17:52
Actually, I'm surprised you didn't get more pushback on that
17:54
term because it's so many people use it.
17:57
And what's interesting is like the matcha founders that we
17:59
talked to, like some people know, like, yeah, we know it's
18:03
not good, but we kind of have to.
18:05
So it's like the other side of capitalistic too.
18:08
Almost like if you don't put it on your tin, someone might not
18:11
buy it because it's not mark ceremonial grade at this point.
18:14
So it's a it's a tough like Gray area to navigate.
18:17
If you have a matcha brand, probably.
18:19
Yeah, and also realistically you do, you know by the end of the
18:22
day need a system to kind of indicate quality.
18:25
So like what wish you people do? No, definitely it's you're,
18:29
you're in a tough space and it's it's tricky.
18:31
I'd say there's, they try to mark it as like ceremonial
18:34
grade, premium and then maybe culinary grade.
18:37
But there's even in when I was creating this kind of matcha
18:40
greenness list, there's not many just premium matchas, matchas
18:44
that don't identify as ceremonial and don't identify as
18:47
culinary. It's pretty binary.
18:49
There's not many people in between.
18:51
I might say. Some of the Japanese brands
18:53
blatantly say, you know, this is more meant for sucha, it's not
18:57
meant for koicha, and it's not culinary.
18:58
But by far the most are marking themselves as ceremonial.
19:03
Yeah, makes sense. What do you see some of the
19:05
biggest problems right now in the matcha world?
19:08
Because across the vendors, across your audience, across
19:11
like this whole landscape as you see it, maybe other than the
19:14
storage, which is well documented.
19:16
No, totally. I think there's a few.
19:18
I think the first is Westerners have sort of this black box
19:23
barrier to understanding matcha. Like like I said, I I didn't
19:28
know where to start when I was interested in matcha, You know,
19:31
I bought like a matcha latte mix, not knowing it was any
19:34
different from matcha. You know, even since I've
19:37
started this channel, my dad texted me like, how do I order
19:41
this? You know, he, he wants to be
19:42
supportive. He's like, how do I make this?
19:45
Where do I start? You know, I think a lot of
19:47
Americans grew up with coffee and just have no clue where to
19:50
start. So it's sort of this enigma
19:53
barrier to entry. You know, a lot of it is labeled
19:56
in Japanese. We don't know how to even get
19:59
going. I get so many messages on
20:01
Instagram of people asking me like, what macho should I buy
20:04
from my Cafe? They're, you know, they're just
20:06
lost in this, in this category. And so I think that's.
20:09
It's one. It's just not even knowing how
20:12
to enter is a problem. I think another big problem is
20:16
transparency from brands. You know, so many brands put out
20:21
these blends and tell us nothing about them.
20:23
I think I would love to know like you were saying, like can
20:27
we measure cultivars, Can we say what region it's even from and
20:31
more specifics. And I think by brands revealing
20:34
this information, it would actually lead to more
20:36
enthusiasm, not less and more interest in their product.
20:41
Because it's hard for me to say anything about a certain blend
20:44
if I know nothing about it, right?
20:45
It's just labeled with a, with a name.
20:47
And so a lot more transparency there, but also transparency
20:51
with health related and ingredient related things.
20:54
Very few matches actually reveal their their caffeine content,
20:58
you know, altheanine content. I would love if more of them
21:02
measured for heavy metals. You know, I, I did a video on
21:08
getting my own blood tested for lead and heavy metals and you
21:12
know, I was clean. But those tests, even the
21:14
smallest amount of heavy metals is actually dangerous and bad,
21:18
you know, even if a test can't pick it up.
21:20
And I definitely think for like women who might want to have
21:22
kids, like no one wants to be drinking heavy metals and
21:27
caffeine levels are super important for that too.
21:30
And so I wish there was more transparency on the ingredients.
21:33
And that's definitely something I'm interested in just
21:35
potentially actually testing in the future is like getting a
21:38
whole slew of popular module that'd be cool Measured.
21:42
Yeah. The problem is that's very
21:43
expensive. So a lead safe Mama has some
21:47
initiatives to measure different machas for heavy metals.
21:50
She's found a handful that have higher than I'd like amounts of
21:54
heavy metals in them, which is a little concerning.
21:56
So yeah, I definitely think from that front, brands could could
22:00
be more transparent. Yeah, I think it was James
22:03
Hoffman, the famous coffee influencer.
22:05
It was either him or Michael Pollen or something.
22:07
Someone in the coffee food world or food world said that caffeine
22:11
is like the most widely consumed drug where we have no idea what
22:14
the dosage is. Caffeine, it's measured even
22:16
like where like marijuana is legal, like it's measured, but
22:20
caffeine, like we have no idea. And I know that the variance is
22:24
huge and matcha. Exactly.
22:26
I guess number one is there's a baseline variance in caffeine
22:30
and then in matcha then we have no idea.
22:32
And so I have people asking me, am I safe to have six cups of
22:36
matcha per day? And so, you know, I don't know
22:40
how to respond. I mean, maybe they're drinking
22:42
Batcha that's way lower in caffeine.
22:44
You know, like who really knows? It sounds probably, probably not
22:49
safe like I recommend like 3 or less, but it's tough to answer
22:54
that when there's not transparency from the brands and
22:56
you don't know what you're consuming.
22:58
So I, I think that's a major one for me is just add things to the
23:02
label, do the measurements. You know, supplements are like
23:06
omega-3 fatty acid supplements have to publish a lot of their
23:10
like mercury levels and things like that and oxidation levels
23:14
and like, it's matcha. If people are drinking it every
23:17
day, we should be confident that it's safe.
23:20
Yeah. Absolutely.
23:21
Yeah, I think one other problem just relating back to really the
23:24
whole mission to my channel is, you know, a lack of scientific
23:27
studies. I think that's a last one is
23:30
just there's so much more research on coffee and green
23:35
tea. Like I mentioned, like 1000
23:37
times more on coffee, like 100 times more on green tea.
23:40
And so some really clean clinical trials looking at the
23:44
health effects would be amazing. As I mentioned, a deeper dive
23:48
into what it's actually made of would be amazing.
23:51
And so I think that's a major problem as well.
23:53
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. A little bit hard to get, you
23:57
know, this kind of research funded in the non biased way
24:00
nowadays because we have been running into some research that,
24:06
you know, properly published, you know, peer review paper.
24:09
But you can definitely see, you know, like it has a bias, you
24:13
know, towards a certain way, especially some of the Japanese
24:17
language publication, you know, it's sometimes funded by, you
24:21
know, a large larger Corp into, you know, doing some sort of
24:24
research. Yeah, definitely.
24:25
I mean, if you look at like the, the skin care industry, you
24:29
know, certain brands like I really like a brand called
24:32
SkinCeuticals, you know, they run their own trials on their
24:35
products to like, you know, prove that they work.
24:38
And so I'd love a matcha brand, I guess, that got big enough to
24:42
run its own health trials. Like prove efficacy and then the
24:47
burden of proof shifts like on the manufacturer.
24:50
Because it would be huge if there was data out there that
24:53
showed having much every day can lower your cholesterol, things
24:56
like that. It likely does, but there's no
24:59
data out there proving the numbers or the amount that it
25:02
actually could. Yeah, or having fresh ground
25:05
matches healthier. And there's our corporate
25:06
interest. But actually, we truly believe
25:08
it because like it kind of makes sense.
25:11
It's such a extreme surface area to volume ratio and what's
25:13
already a very delicate product. No, Yeah, I wish I could have
25:17
one of your machines at my house.
25:18
We'll eventually make a consumer version, but might take some
25:21
time. The motor just kept getting
25:23
bigger and bigger and bigger as like we wanted to get the right
25:26
efficiency and the right particles.
25:28
The motor itself is very heavy. It has enough torque to drag
25:32
like a small like Toyota Prius. Only not very fast, but.
25:35
That's a fun, fun fact to share. So I haven't kind of a fun
25:39
question. If you could design any
25:42
experiment in any field, like the chemistry side, the
25:45
agricultural side, nutrition, I'm within matcha, how would you
25:49
set up that experiment if resources were not a constraint?
25:52
There's so many. I would do, I guess from the,
25:56
from the chemistry side, I, I think the number one would be,
25:59
you know, let's take a slew of matchas and look at the
26:03
different variations in caffeine and L theanine and lead and all
26:07
those components like a lot of like LCMS, put it through a
26:11
column. Look what it's actually made of
26:13
would be probably the first experiment I'd run.
26:17
I'd say second priority on my list is some very controlled
26:20
human trials like how, how does drinking matcha affect
26:24
cholesterol? You know, how is it suppressing
26:28
appetite? You know, that's another one is
26:30
drinking matcha and all these antioxidants could lead to
26:33
weight loss. So I mean, there's no, there's
26:35
no data on that. I think I'd be also interested
26:39
in brain effects, some trials on that.
26:42
I think in another sphere, another experiment that I think
26:45
would be really cool is just have a huge number of people
26:48
consume matcha, like a set of matcha samples, reveal how they
26:53
perceive the taste and then reveal how much they like it and
26:57
just see that, that variance. Because I, I do think like
27:00
there's a world where, you know, you could design like
27:02
personalized blends based off of like what people, what people
27:06
say about their, their sensory feedback.
27:09
Yeah. But as we said, that's, that's
27:10
really challenging because it's so subjective and someone might
27:13
give a different answer day-to-day of what they taste.
27:17
So that that's, that is hard. I'd love to use your machine and
27:21
look at different particle sizes and just look at how it's set
27:25
events. You know, there's potential to
27:28
design like, you know, ready made drinks if we had particles
27:33
that didn't set them in as easily and you know, how does
27:35
that affect mouth feel? At some point it probably
27:37
becomes gummy and like there might is there a sweet spot
27:40
where it doesn't set them in but it still feels OK in the mouth
27:44
Is a is a question I've had too. That's.
27:45
Interesting, and it'd be really cool to know too.
27:47
For especially for a latte, I think that the five microns
27:51
might be overkill because you increase the viscosity.
27:54
I think the suspension can, you know, those particles can dance
27:57
around way longer and maybe just everywhere milling way too fine
28:02
or unnecessarily fine or not, I don't know, but it'd be cool to
28:06
do too. Yeah, I guess from my
28:07
experience, I guess I consistently see things sediment
28:10
and so that's why I wish I was just wish I knew the particle
28:14
size, you know, if you're aware of a matcha that's on the lower
28:18
end of particle sizes, it would be fun to experiment with.
28:23
That's interesting. I know we were aware that some
28:26
of the really mass produced matcha, some of the grade
28:29
distinctions are actually how long it was went through a ball
28:33
mill. It's like milling was is driving
28:36
that different quality distinction.
28:38
Just super weird. That effects like the shape and
28:41
the size, right? And how big are you aware of
28:44
like the biggest end of the milling numbers?
28:47
Like how? How big?
28:48
Beyond 20 I think 2020. Larger than 20.
28:52
So actually for some of the even traditional methods, most of the
28:56
commercial you should use nowadays in Japan have a
28:59
diameter of about you know they call it the Japanese 1 foot.
29:05
So it's about like 30 ish like centimeter.
29:08
But traditionally they use like way larger, you should use, they
29:12
call it like 2 food, sometimes 5 food and they get the matcha
29:16
sometimes so fine that as you said, it starts to come up and
29:20
it's actually not a good indicator of quality and they
29:23
kind of abandoned that size nowadays.
29:26
I think that would be a really interesting experiment.
29:28
Is just have different particle size matchas.
29:31
Look at how they set them in and how they affect mouth feel and
29:35
you know, it's a distribution. So I'm also interested to just
29:38
know how messy is the distribution even even within
29:41
that? And you know, how do these
29:42
different grinding techniques lead to different distributions
29:45
probably as well. Oh yeah, Just like how the
29:47
coffee people talk about that and they're like bird geometries
29:50
and whatever different distribution.
29:53
Actually, we can share some after the call because we, we
29:56
measured distributions from Armil and from Nishiusu.
29:59
What's really weird is you have a little hump around 1 Micron.
30:03
So there's some really interesting things.
30:04
I, I don't know what it is, Our food engineering friend had a
30:08
hypothesis that when you mill that fine, there's if I think it
30:13
was within the context of like soy protein or something, you
30:16
can do dry fractions and separate the different fractions
30:20
from each other and some are more protein heavy, some are
30:23
more whatever heavy. And he was suspecting that maybe
30:26
there's some components that are coming.
30:27
I don't know what they are. Really cool to know that part
30:31
too. But in coffee too, right, you
30:33
you like, you always get like what they call the the ultra
30:37
fine, right? Like in coffee.
30:39
Yeah, ultra fines and boulders, which you don't want typically
30:42
for those and typically I I think it depends too and if it's
30:45
espresso or if it's pour over the grind size distribution that
30:49
you want. ZK 43 got very famous for having
30:51
a pretty narrow spiky, you know, unimodal distribution.
30:56
And it has something to do with like the compact efficiency of
30:59
an espresso puck in the way those because you're putting
31:02
like, what is it 9 bar through that bed of coffee and you can't
31:05
get it to channel and like you have to get it to extract evenly
31:08
to a couple talks on this like espresso physics.
31:11
It's fascinating. Like if you read into that
31:13
world, it is so much more complicated than making matcha.
31:17
But I wonder how it even effects extraction too, because if you
31:21
have different grind size distributions of matcha
31:24
particles, maybe you get different extraction.
31:26
Probably. I mean, it's all about surface
31:29
area, right? So like having different sizes,
31:32
I'm sure you extract it. You probably get way more when
31:35
there's more surface area to volume, yeah.
31:37
But according to like people we talked to in Japan that, you
31:41
know, you actually want, you know, matcha have different
31:44
sizes in the middle, you don't want it to be very homogeneous
31:47
in, you know, 1, you know, particle size.
31:50
Because I push back there and say, what's the scientific
31:53
evidence on that? Yeah, yeah, it's we don't know.
31:58
And according to them. You know, that's part of the
32:00
challenges we're talking about is there's a lot of sort of
32:05
hearsay around matcha. This is the right way to do it.
32:10
A lot of tradition which we should all respect, but also
32:14
there should be some acceptance, questioning it and, you know,
32:16
getting the data. Well, in the context that we
32:18
learned that it would have been absolutely inappropriate for us
32:21
to say, like, can you point us in the right direction, please?
32:24
Like, can you could we prove this?
32:26
It's actually really hampers our ability to learn because even
32:30
like in our learning journey and like in the podcast, we have to
32:33
preface it with we heard or someone told us.
32:36
And like in a lot of the context, it is just either
32:39
culturally or situationally, we just can't dig deeper.
32:43
And then like that opportunity goes and it's, it really slows
32:47
down learning. And I can't imagine what it's
32:49
like being a Japanese person stuck in the sphere because
32:52
we're, we're coming in from the outside looking in.
32:55
But imagine being in the system and like, you know, there's all
32:57
these formalities around talking with people older than you or
33:00
people who have won these awards.
33:02
Like it's not culturally acceptable to question how do
33:06
you know this and why can you prove it?
33:09
But like in the West, that's like totally a fine thing to
33:12
ask. Yeah, I think, I think that's a
33:14
major challenge is there's this delicate balance of respecting
33:17
culture, tradition, honoring it, not breaking norms, but also
33:22
pushing innovation, asking questions, taking data.
33:27
And so I think that's like a a fine balance to navigate.
33:30
At least it's heading in the right direction though.
33:32
Yeah because even apparently like 5-10 years ago no one even
33:36
wanted to give cultivars. Like why do you want who know
33:38
the cultivar? Like who cares?
33:39
No consumers care. Like that's like apparently
33:42
where the conversation was at and now it's like very obvious.
33:45
Like people care. Not only people care.
33:47
They're shelling out tons of money for the single cultivar
33:50
products. They're worth more on their own
33:52
than they are blended, which is probably unthinkable.
33:55
You know, knowing the cultivar, knowing the region allows us to
33:59
have a better, deeper understanding, to calibrate our
34:01
own palette of, you know, what tastes like what?
34:04
And I think ultimately, being more transparent would garner
34:08
more interest rather than than hurting it.
34:10
Yeah. Well, traditionally the
34:12
knowledge was monopolized by all these tashes like tea blenders.
34:16
You know, by showing this to regular consumers you basically
34:19
are breaking this authority discourse challenging for them
34:23
too. It's so interesting because the
34:25
question about science ends up turning into something much more
34:28
cultural very quickly about the way this information spreads,
34:32
and political and political. Yeah, totally.
34:35
I get a lot of questions. You know, I've done some videos
34:37
on the history of matcha, some videos on the the shortage, and
34:41
it's all related to the science. You know, it's like, why don't
34:43
you have these answers? Part of it is is cultural.
34:46
Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting.
34:48
And it's interesting too as like new cultures enter like this
34:52
sphere trying to source or learn about matcha.
34:54
We can get some messages occasionally and it is so
34:58
transactional and they're trying to source and they think that we
35:01
sell macho. I have to tell them that we
35:02
don't. And then they respond pretty
35:04
aggressively because I'm probably the only person who
35:06
responded to them because like, all the Japanese tea farmers are
35:10
like inundated. And I'm thinking to myself, wow,
35:13
like there's some cultural sensitivity that needs to be
35:16
learned. And like, a Japanese tea farmer
35:18
is never going to respond to the way that you wrote this e-mail.
35:21
But I can't say that. But it's interesting.
35:23
These people mix. It's a very delicate balance of,
35:28
you know, between cultures and yeah.
35:30
Yeah, required, especially in Japan.
35:32
Like there's so much sensitivity, which is both great
35:35
and like, horrible at the same time.
35:37
Like, very frustrating, but it's just a constraint.
35:40
But I think it's heading in the right direction.
35:42
You know with time things will uncover.
35:44
Yeah, and all the different projects, like even like Ububu
35:47
tea farms, like they've had what, 150 interns from like
35:50
every country of the world? Like now there's 150 people you
35:53
can ask in English, like what was it like farming tea and
35:57
Mazuka And like they know farmers.
35:59
Like that's so cool that alumni network, like that's also stuff
36:02
that didn't exist and like like things like this, which is just
36:05
awesome to see. Oh yeah, I'd love to do that.
36:07
It sounds, it sounds so cool. And get the inside scoop.
36:10
Absolutely. So I have a question about your
36:12
content creation process. You are very short form.
36:16
I think that's exclusively what you do pretty much.
36:20
How do you get it in a reasonable like timelines?
36:23
I've tried to make some scripts for short term content.
36:26
I was like, I can't do it. Like I my brain does not work
36:30
that way. It's just why we're podcasters,
36:32
I'm pretty sure. It's slightly forced because of
36:35
my my life constraints, because you know, I work full time, I'm
36:39
pretty busy and so short form is something I can kind of manage
36:42
to get out almost daily. And so really all I keep an idea
36:47
list like in my phone and on my computer.
36:49
So really whenever like a question pops into my brain or I
36:52
come across something, I write down the idea bucket the ideas
36:56
into like kind of different categories.
36:58
I'd say, you know, how how viral they could be based off of what
37:02
I know from previous videos. So that's kind of the idea
37:05
generation. And then, you know, typically I
37:08
film these when I get home from work in the afternoon.
37:11
And so I'll take the idea, say I want this to be like about 30
37:15
seconds to a minute long. That's my normal length.
37:18
And then typically I break it up into like 5 to 10 statements.
37:22
I'm like what 5 to 10 statements can encapsulate this idea and
37:26
give the message I want to give. And so then I work hard on those
37:29
5 to 10 statements basically like still it into, you know,
37:33
what is relatable, you know, what is conveying the
37:36
educational content kind of mixed in so that people don't
37:39
need to realize they're they're learning.
37:41
And so really trying to narrow down like what 5 to 10 things,
37:45
can I say? And then the filming is honestly
37:48
usually quick for me is, you know, makes the matcha, you
37:51
know, tell my story and film it. And, you know, then I'll take a
37:55
few takes of the the different parts.
37:58
Yeah, I think then and then I'll stitch together the the kind of
38:01
10 different blocks, try to add graphics or videos that, you
38:05
know, supplement what I'm saying, try to make the really
38:10
the 1st 5 seconds or I focus on a lot in the editing, trying to
38:13
make it as appealing as possible so that people don't, don't
38:16
scroll past. And yeah, that's really my
38:18
process is just kind of focusing on getting like a few key
38:23
messages, lumping it into 30 seconds to a minute and yeah,
38:27
that's all. Sounds easy.
38:30
It's not. Definitely I've been trying to
38:32
mix in like more home experiment type, you know, whisking demos
38:38
or, you know, I did the one like where I basically like ultra
38:41
boiled water and like show the differences.
38:44
See those take a little more time for me because I don't have
38:47
any training in video or, you know, crafting graphic design.
38:52
And so definitely I'm a little slower at making things look
38:55
nice if I'm focusing on that compared to just videos where
38:58
I'm talking. But yeah, it's it's pretty fun
39:00
and I kind of like the short form because I can just kind of
39:03
get it done in really one day. I won't do it all at once, but
39:08
it's sort of like a one day project and on to the next.
39:11
And definitely as I've started, I want to experiment with what
39:14
resonates with people. So putting out more short
39:16
content allows me just to see, you know, what do people like?
39:20
What do people not like? And you know, what's what's
39:23
hitting or not. And so hopefully in the in the
39:25
future, I can expand and do more long form on, you know, the
39:28
things that I get a lot of great feedback from love.
39:30
It and I love the consumer like centricity too, science
39:34
perspective, curiosity driven and then like really just
39:37
helping making people make better decisions and choices
39:40
and. Yeah, I mean, that's the goal
39:41
is, you know, for me, I felt like I had a lot of questions
39:44
that just weren't being answered through the current offerings on
39:48
social media. So I kind of wanted to be that
39:50
person that's scientific, but still fun.
39:52
Awesome, it's working. It's.
39:54
Really captured the attention of a lot of people.
39:56
Yeah, I've been surprised by the reception.
39:58
It's it's been awesome. Yeah, we were excited to see us
40:01
like, oh wow, finally someone started to watch a science
40:04
account. That was my first thought sort
40:07
of this. One last question to wrap up.
40:09
Love to learn about your future plans and where you're going to
40:12
take the, I don't know what to call it, the channel, the
40:14
content, the the brand forward. Yeah, definitely.
40:18
So I'd see right now I still see myself in the the early stages.
40:22
Oh, it's only been going a few months and the reception's been
40:26
awesome. So definitely my, my goal for
40:28
now is just building the community bigger, keep putting
40:32
out fun content, see what people like, see what people are
40:36
interested in. So that's, that's really my
40:38
goal. I think I'd love with time to
40:41
expand on the, the science, you know, like we said, I focused a
40:44
lot on these color imagery measurements.
40:46
I've done a lot of different like whisking home experiments,
40:49
you know, how can we make better matcha?
40:52
But I'd love to expand on that and try to find new tools, you
40:54
know, can I do particle measurements?
40:56
So can I measure for lead and things like that?
40:59
I'm definitely expanding on the science.
41:00
And then potentially in the future, maybe going into long
41:04
form or doing a newsletter or maybe just expanding the type of
41:09
content I might do. And definitely, we traveled to
41:12
Japan really before I got into matcha, and that opened my eyes.
41:17
But I love to do another trip to Uji or all of the tea regions
41:22
and kind of go back behind the curtain, you know, and see what
41:26
that's like. So that would be pretty cool.
41:28
But definitely just for now, I want to grow my audience, build
41:32
a community. Yeah.
41:33
That's awesome. That's awesome.
41:35
The one thing could be interesting is some kind of like
41:38
crowdfunding like experiment. Like you list all this
41:41
experiment you wanted to do and let people choose, you know,
41:45
like no. Definitely.
41:46
I mean, that's something Lead Safe Mama, I had noticed does is
41:50
she has her audience nominate things they want tested for
41:54
lead. And so she's measured a few
41:57
matches, but I'd say they're typically more like, it was like
42:01
Jade Leaf, matcha.com. I'd love to see some of the
42:05
Japanese brands as well, and more of a mix.
42:08
So I think that would be pretty cool, yeah.
42:10
Absolutely. Or even a call for experiments.
42:12
I know I'd have a bunch of requests to and if you ever need
42:15
help getting reference samples or stuff like that, that's
42:17
something we're working on at the moment.
42:19
Like we're trying to find tension.
42:20
It's like very transparently sourced, like we know like as
42:24
much detail as we can about it, but happy to help contribute
42:27
however we can. That would be amazing.
42:29
You know, like I said, like knowing particle size, knowing
42:32
even the cultivar so that I can like, you know, add that to my
42:36
color imagery, like filter, if that makes sense.
42:39
Like if you filter by cultivar, you can see the differences.
42:41
That would be so cool. Yeah, it'd be super cool.
42:44
That would be awesome. Cool, awesome.
42:45
Well, love your content and I can't wait to see your channel
42:49
grow and really appreciate it. Like the macho world really
42:51
needs this. So thank you so much.
42:53
Thank you. And to all the listeners, thank
42:55
you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this, please
42:58
consider sharing it with a friend and we'll see you in the
43:00
next one. Thanks.
43:01
See. You in the future.
43:02
See you, see ya.