Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / The Matcha Program with Jules Reyes and Marc St Raymond

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The Matcha Program with Jules Reyes and Marc St Raymond · Specialty Matcha Podcast

• 0:06
  All right, hello, and welcome to the Specialty Match Podcast.
• 0:09
  My name is Ryan. This is Micah Ho Zhongjun, who
• 0:11
  also goes by Sam, and we're the cofounders of Senko Matcha
• 0:14
  Products. Yeah, we launched this podcast
• 0:16
  to discuss our learning journey, Matcha, share startup stories
• 0:19
  and interview experts. And this episode we have Jules
• 0:23
  and Mark with us today to talk about their journey with Matcha.
• 0:26
  Welcome guys, and welcome back Jules.
• 0:30
  Thanks for. Having us great to meet you
• 0:32
  guys. Would love if we could if you
• 0:33
  guys could give just a quick introduction of yourselves or
• 0:36
  reintroduction tools and a little bit about your personal
• 0:40
  and professional back. Sure.
• 0:41
  I'll go first because I know Jules has already been here
• 0:44
  before. My name is Mark St.
• 0:47
  Raymond. My most notable venture in this
• 0:49
  world of matcha was starting the brand Jay Beef Matcha back in
• 0:53
  2014. Prior to that came from an
• 0:55
  engineering background and kind of moved to San Francisco with
• 0:59
  tech startup dreams. But somewhere along the way
• 1:01
  became infatuated with matcha tea and in those early days was
• 1:05
  kind of a an early maven, I guess of getting people around
• 1:09
  me to drink it and discover it and fall in love with it in the
• 1:12
  way that I did. And a business partner of mine,
• 1:14
  Will Brothers, who was doing tech stuff with me for a little
• 1:17
  while, I convinced him, hey, this matcha thing is actually
• 1:20
  quite an opportunity. And we kind of in a small way
• 1:23
  put together a new brand idea with Jade Leaf.
• 1:27
  Trying to solve our own problem in 2014 was still not what it is
• 1:31
  today in terms of mainstream awareness that you could find in
• 1:34
  in Whole Foods like Domacha. And then the only other place
• 1:37
  you'd really find it was in specialty T shops or or starting
• 1:42
  to show up on Amazon. But we noticed two things.
• 1:45
  One either it was kind of expensive like a Dome monster
• 1:48
  canister was like 40 bucks at Whole Foods or or the pouches
• 1:52
  you'd see on Amazon were. Cheap.
• 1:54
  But then you'd order them, then you'd get them and they would
• 1:57
  inevitably be a pretty bad quality.
• 1:59
  So we we saw an opportunity to try to, to play in the middle.
• 2:03
  It's like, hey, can we source good quality that tastes good
• 2:06
  and actually price it fairly and present it well.
• 2:09
  And, and those were the basic tenants of what Jade Leaf would
• 2:12
  become. And our, our come up over the
• 2:15
  years of 14/15/16 was on Amazon. We started to make our, our
• 2:20
  headway becoming the, the top selling matcha there.
• 2:24
  And that translated into starting to show up in stores
• 2:28
  like Walmart and Target. Our goal was not to ever be the
• 2:32
  most super high end brand, luxury brand, if you will.
• 2:36
  There there were other people kind of servicing those niches
• 2:38
  of folks who wanted a very, very specialty macho.
• 2:41
  We wanted to bring it more broadly to the the average
• 2:45
  consumer in the US that was becoming aware of it.
• 2:48
  Probably, you know, having a good latte somewhere and wanting
• 2:51
  to recreate it at home. That was our customer and and I
• 2:54
  think continues to be this to this day.
• 2:56
  But yeah, that was that was the goal and it was a very fun
• 2:59
  journey. And along the way, that's where
• 3:00
  we got to meet Jules and she can give us some of the history
• 3:03
  there. And that became our core
• 3:04
  founding team. There were just five of us up
• 3:09
  through around 2020 when we decided to transition the
• 3:12
  business to a new owner who has taken it to even further
• 3:16
  heights, which we're really happy to see, but have not lost
• 3:19
  the passion for matcha and tea in general.
• 3:21
  And always looking for ways to stay involved and, and continue
• 3:25
  to kind of push the industry forward and, and have more
• 3:28
  people enjoy it. So it's, it's, it's really a
• 3:30
  pleasure to be here. Today it's really amazing your
• 3:32
  your brand in general. Just even before I was like even
• 3:36
  like into matcha professionally, like seeing on Amazon and like
• 3:41
  all of the Amazon reviews 100,000 and then you go in and
• 3:45
  you look at like the distribution of stars.
• 3:47
  It's like, wow, like there is some deep consumer resonance
• 3:51
  there and like just spreading and getting a quality product to
• 3:54
  someone probably for the first time, which is really amazing.
• 3:58
  The groundwork that that's laid, that's like like this new layer
• 4:02
  of consumers kind of like with specialty coffee that now like
• 4:05
  they're interested in matcha, maybe they want a single origin
• 4:08
  one or you know, explore this world a little deeper.
• 4:11
  Yeah. It's, it's been cool to see that
• 4:13
  transition and we worked hard to again, kind of connect with the
• 4:17
  mostly the American consumer because that was where our
• 4:20
  distribution is, connect with them, where they were at and,
• 4:22
  and kind of educate them in ways that that didn't seem too
• 4:25
  complicated or too to, to foreign, for lack of a better
• 4:28
  word. So that again, that's where Jade
• 4:31
  Leaf was trying to be easy to, to grasp or, or the broad
• 4:35
  audience. But what I've I've noticed and,
• 4:37
  and that's why to this day, I think the, the culinary
• 4:40
  Montesquieu that Jade Leaf sells, which is the more entry
• 4:42
  level price point, continues to be its top seller.
• 4:45
  But what I've noticed and what we tried to do during our time
• 4:48
  at Jade Leaf, and I don't think the new owners are doing it so
• 4:50
  much. Is.
• 4:53
  Catering to the the consumers that wanted to level up and get
• 4:57
  to a higher quality first harvest matcha tea or even
• 5:00
  beyond that to a specialty cultivar or you know, some
• 5:04
  particular sourcing or manner of production that that created
• 5:08
  something unique. We were dabbling in that jewels
• 5:10
  knife in particular on the team trying to push towards that.
• 5:13
  I don't mean they're doing that as much now, but I do see the
• 5:17
  consumer of matcha in the US is starting to veer towards more.
• 5:22
  You know what's known here as the ceremonial matches, the
• 5:24
  nicer ones in the tins and they're willing to pay more
• 5:27
  because they're discovering that yes, in fact, it does have a
• 5:30
  more pleasing taste for most palates.
• 5:32
  And, and that's cool to see. I love that people are
• 5:35
  appreciating it and willing again to level up and not seeing
• 5:38
  it just as superfood green powder, which is how a lot of
• 5:42
  people came to it in in the 1st place.
• 5:45
  And they're seeing it as like, oh, this is unique beverage that
• 5:48
  that I really want to enjoy. But I'll stop there and let
• 5:50
  Jules introduce her. So talk too much already.
• 5:54
  I love it, I love it. I'm Jules and my journey in
• 5:58
  Matcha started over a decade ago, so it's been such an
• 6:01
  incredible journey so far. I won't get in too much of the
• 6:04
  intro, I know I shared that in one of our earlier episodes, but
• 6:07
  but Instagram completely changed my life.
• 6:10
  Launching my Instagram pages, Match SF, Matcha LE, and Matcha
• 6:14
  NYC allowed me to pivot my career from special education
• 6:19
  through that as I was trying to supplement my income as a
• 6:21
  barista. As a bartender doing freelance
• 6:24
  social media, I connected with Mark through Instagram and
• 6:27
  specifically my Match SF page as he saw that I was Co hosting EU
• 6:31
  s s first module festival and wanted to sponsor.
• 6:35
  And I did touch on that a bit in the previous episode.
• 6:38
  But it's incredible. I think today's creator on
• 6:42
  social media and the opportunities that it opens up
• 6:45
  for them to pivot their careers to change their lives.
• 6:49
  I am so grateful for things like Instagram because it allowed me
• 6:53
  to really deepen my love for matcha to contribute to the
• 6:57
  industry in various ways. And now, you know, Mark, at one
• 7:00
  point in my journey, you know, he sponsored my events.
• 7:03
  I started freelancing for Jade Leaf.
• 7:05
  He hired me on as as their first hire outside of the Co founders
• 7:09
  and I LED marketing. Today we're Co founders in our
• 7:12
  new venture. So it's incredible because he
• 7:15
  was once my manager. Now work in a much, you know,
• 7:18
  deeper capacity with him and, you know, just continue to
• 7:22
  evolve as people evolve, as leaders evolve and grow within
• 7:26
  the company that we're building and in our own Matcha journey.
• 7:30
  I think it's incredible how we continue to challenge ourselves.
• 7:33
  So we're super excited to be here and have a deeper
• 7:36
  conversation about the things that we're working on
• 7:39
  specifically with the Matcha program.
• 7:41
  So you guys have been in the industry for over a decade, so
• 7:45
  I'm sure you've seen the good, bad and the ugly of matcha
• 7:49
  program. So just in terms of like the
• 7:51
  landscape of matcha preparation, how have you seen that evolve
• 7:55
  over the years? But what was being presented as
• 7:58
  solutions for consumers at home, but then also in cafes, which is
• 8:02
  like the core of the thesis behind the matcha program.
• 8:05
  It's a descriptive name to like. What is your matcha program at a
• 8:08
  cafe? Mark, you want to take the first
• 8:10
  part. Now, Jules, please.
• 8:12
  OK, I. Think it's a much program you're
• 8:13
  you're more yeah. It, it all starts at the
• 8:16
  consumer level, but you know, taking the traditional tools
• 8:19
  like the Chawan and the Chaw San, you know, back in the early
• 8:22
  Jade Leaf days. We, I mean, when I say we, I
• 8:25
  just want to clarify, Mark and I have since then exited the
• 8:27
  company. We're no longer, you know,
• 8:29
  working in Jade Leaf, but when we were we had several different
• 8:34
  kits that we launched. We had a ceremonial kit.
• 8:37
  We had a modern kit with an electric frother.
• 8:40
  At one point Mark had this idea about a matcha shot shaker that
• 8:44
  we were. It was just you wanted to test
• 8:46
  it out and and back then, you know, we see it a lot today, at
• 8:50
  least I do in content of people traveling with their little.
• 8:53
  Plastic. Shakers And so we launched that
• 8:57
  back in 2020 to 2019 and so much operation at home has evolved.
• 9:04
  And I think the most important thing is it works for you.
• 9:07
  The challenge that I see at the food service level, which is
• 9:10
  the, you know, that's where the matcha program plays and
• 9:13
  educates is you have food service operators taking
• 9:18
  preparation like, you know, traditional preparation, like
• 9:21
  using a chawan and a chawsan and trying to use that at scale,
• 9:24
  whether they're preparing much drinks in a high volume
• 9:27
  environment. And I do want to specify the
• 9:30
  content is for and, and we tailor it to high volume cafes.
• 9:35
  I've recognized over the last few weeks since we've launched
• 9:37
  the matcha program, that distinction is very important
• 9:40
  because these cafes are managing both coffee and matcha programs.
• 9:43
  These aren't tea houses. These aren't matcha houses that
• 9:47
  are structured or or founded on preparing matcha slowly and
• 9:51
  mindfully where hand whisking makes a lot of sense.
• 9:54
  Now in your average busy Cafe you're seeing, and we've seen
• 9:58
  this and I've heard this in your your episodes that it doesn't
• 10:02
  necessarily make the most sense. Matcha stations look really
• 10:04
  chaotic toss and really sad. And I don't think fundamental
• 10:09
  knowledge baseline knowledge of how to care for the tools.
• 10:14
  And that spurred the question, is this the best preparation
• 10:18
  method for this specific context?
• 10:21
  And and you know, the consumer drives a lot of that for Opera
• 10:25
  cafe operators, they drive a lot of the interest in a lot of
• 10:28
  those viral matcha drinks which cafes will adopt.
• 10:31
  And it's smart this, you know, if, if cream tops are bringing
• 10:34
  in and driving traffic, put a cream top on the menu.
• 10:37
  And so that's a, that's a good topic.
• 10:39
  But you know, they're using traditional tools, they're
• 10:42
  preparing matcha. Traditionally, there are cafes
• 10:45
  that batch matcha, There are cafes that do hybrid models.
• 10:49
  And I think both methods have a place in a Cafe.
• 10:52
  Both have to be done very thoughtfully and done really
• 10:54
  well because I, I have personally have had way too many
• 10:58
  hand whisk matcha drinks that started with oxidized matcha.
• 11:03
  Because the first thing I do when I go to a cafe is I scan, I
• 11:06
  look at the matcha station, I see it's stored in the giant
• 11:09
  clear transparent container and it looks dies and I already know
• 11:14
  I'm not going to have a good experience.
• 11:16
  I order it validated. It tastes oxidized.
• 11:18
  It's pretty bitter. Bitterness is isn't necessarily
• 11:21
  a bad thing when it comes to matcha, but the type of oxidized
• 11:24
  bitter is. Yeah, probably.
• 11:28
  So I think that, you know, matcha preparation I think
• 11:30
  continues to evolve. It's going to continue to evolve
• 11:33
  with your product. You know that you're, you're
• 11:35
  bringing to market, especially, you know, at the food service
• 11:37
  level where we, we, you know, we'll see more freshly milled
• 11:41
  matcha to order. And, and it's really exciting to
• 11:43
  see the innovations that you're bringing to market.
• 11:45
  But it's something that I think is going to continue to evolve.
• 11:48
  And it's been really incredible to hear the conversations that
• 11:52
  are happening specific to food, food service, because I think
• 11:56
  it's been an underserviced audience in in matcha.
• 11:59
  And we know this, you know, Mark and I at Jade Leaf, when we
• 12:02
  launched our wholesale arm of the business, we had a team
• 12:05
  member dedicated to those relationships.
• 12:08
  We put resources together for our Cafe partners and especially
• 12:12
  pandemic had incredible support, financial support and other
• 12:16
  structures be put in place to support cafes that worked with
• 12:19
  us. Those programs or matcha
• 12:22
  programs are the resources of brand.
• 12:24
  And I want to say specifically maybe UKUS based matcha brands
• 12:28
  that will put those programs together.
• 12:30
  I don't know and to my knowledge don't believe they necessarily
• 12:34
  exist within Japanese founded matcha brands like tea houses
• 12:39
  who have resources or robust programs for wholesale partners.
• 12:44
  But we we worked in tandem with them to teach and educate
• 12:48
  through various resources that we would provide, whether it be
• 12:51
  videos through blogs, through having someone there teaching
• 12:56
  and doing virtual classes as well.
• 12:59
  There are Matcha brands today that do an incredible job at
• 13:02
  that and I know them at the top of my mind because they have an
• 13:06
  incredible loyal base of customers who are like would not
• 13:11
  even consider switching Matcha brand partners because they feel
• 13:15
  invested in the Matcha brand themselves because of how
• 13:17
  they've invested back into them. Now that education, you have
• 13:22
  access to that if you work with that Matcha brand.
• 13:24
  There hasn't been a resource outside of specific to cafe
• 13:29
  operators or people and food service that's accessible to the
• 13:33
  public. And you know, Mark and I, we
• 13:35
  have these conversations on the back end just we love much and
• 13:38
  we're constantly talking about it.
• 13:40
  And unless you work in the industry like we do, all four of
• 13:44
  us, you know, those conversations happen together.
• 13:48
  It doesn't necessarily happen in a place that's accessible, you
• 13:51
  know, outside of the podcast or outside of the, you know, the
• 13:55
  Matcha program that we just launched 3 weeks ago.
• 13:57
  So it's, it's interesting to see how it'll continue to evolve and
• 14:01
  you know, as this kind of sparks new ideas or new innovations
• 14:05
  that we're seeing in Matcha. Yeah.
• 14:07
  Well, I, I think this is really important because like as you
• 14:10
  are, you were talking about like all these cafes are using
• 14:13
  retrofitting, you know, ceremonial tools to make matcha.
• 14:17
  Some of them are, you know, for a demonstration purpose.
• 14:20
  But I feel like there are some cafes would do that just to, you
• 14:24
  know, demonstrate it to the consumers that, you know, they,
• 14:28
  they, they are making that effort to make the which is, you
• 14:31
  know, what the cons are expecting.
• 14:32
  But they don't necessarily they, they, they're not, a lot of them
• 14:36
  are not quite making the connection of OK, you know,
• 14:39
  maybe using the electric software in a, you know, faster,
• 14:44
  you know, consumption scenario, which is like a cafe setting is
• 14:47
  actually better than a child set.
• 14:49
  Like a lot of people are still, you know, not having that kind
• 14:52
  of realization of making the connection that, you know, a
• 14:55
  better tool actually means higher quality, not necessarily
• 14:59
  a older tool or more small tool quality.
• 15:04
  So I think that's that's super important because the education,
• 15:06
  you know, not only goes to the people who works in the
• 15:09
  industry, but also should go to the consumers too.
• 15:12
  Yeah, that's a great point because when you see, you know,
• 15:16
  customers matcha, customers have an expectation and there's a
• 15:19
  stigma against batching matcha where they see that and they
• 15:23
  equate it to low quality. I've had many hand waste matchas
• 15:26
  that from a flavor standpoint and then a customer experience
• 15:30
  standpoint has been a low quality experience because
• 15:34
  outside of just hand whisking with traditional, there is much
• 15:37
  more to consider with your broader matcha program that
• 15:41
  they's quality. And it, it's not simply using
• 15:44
  the tools to say, Hey, you know, like we're honor.
• 15:46
  And I'm curious, where did where did this notion of honoring the
• 15:49
  tradition or culture of, you know, I think it's, it's
• 15:53
  beautiful, You know, I think it's a it's a beautiful thought.
• 15:56
  But contextually in food service, it doesn't necessarily
• 16:01
  map to the realities that food service operators face and is
• 16:05
  simply using the traditional tools and enough to check the
• 16:08
  box to say we're honoring the tradition and culture of maca.
• 16:11
  What I'm curious, what is that? What does that mean?
• 16:14
  I'm definitely curious because it's something I see a lot in
• 16:17
  content. And so I question that.
• 16:19
  It's like, so if I if I'm whisking traditionally and I'm
• 16:22
  using a chawan and a chawsen, but I'm not storing my matcha
• 16:26
  properly, I'm using the incorrect water brewing
• 16:28
  temperature and all fall to the wayside.
• 16:31
  Is that enough? Yeah, well, if you really want
• 16:34
  to honor it, you should have burned your chest.
• 16:36
  And right after we whisk at that bowl.
• 16:39
  Disposable item historically. Yeah, that's.
• 16:44
  It really. That's actually a great point.
• 16:46
  Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Mark.
• 16:47
  I was just going to say it's an interesting cherry picking of a
• 16:52
  piece of a rich tradition that involves a lot of aspects.
• 16:56
  I would say the literal whisking of matcha in a bowl is just one
• 17:00
  piece of of the tea ceremony that we're trying to honor in
• 17:04
  Japan and you know, arguably not even the most important one.
• 17:08
  What's important is to host bringing people together to
• 17:10
  enjoy much all together in a space and be around each other.
• 17:15
  The performative aspect of of whiskey, it was almost as a
• 17:18
  necessity to to get the teammate.
• 17:21
  The industry has done such a good job convincing everyone
• 17:25
  that the chocolate is the single greatest tool for making matcha.
• 17:28
  It's all like, why wouldn't the cafes use the single greatest
• 17:32
  tool? Because for the last decade,
• 17:34
  every single matcha company ever, including us, we've done
• 17:37
  videos about this talk about the chasse and being the single
• 17:40
  greatest tool ever made to make matcha.
• 17:43
  So it's, it's, it's an interesting thing.
• 17:45
  But, you know, back to what you were saying, Jules, like, why do
• 17:48
  we ask this of businesses or consumers?
• 17:51
  Why does someone need to honor the tradition?
• 17:54
  If you're making a matcha latte, this, like, we don't ask that of
• 17:58
  any other food stuff that has, like, long, rich history.
• 18:03
  It's a pretty weird and unusual thing in, like, modern life.
• 18:08
  Yeah. Specific to Matcha, it's, it's,
• 18:10
  it's very interesting and I think it poses challenges
• 18:13
  because when you have like, to your point, Matcha brands and,
• 18:17
  and some of the big as well, they, the, the level of
• 18:20
  marketing that they bring. And I don't agree with a lot of
• 18:23
  it. It's something that initially at
• 18:25
  Jade Leaf, we were very thoughtful about, like we didn't
• 18:28
  run any ads about, you know, matcha is better than coffee.
• 18:32
  We tried to educate about how French, you know, I'm not sure
• 18:36
  if, if that still maps to how they, they market today, but you
• 18:40
  see that a lot with the, the Matcha brands where they set the
• 18:43
  standard. I mean, even earlier, 10 years
• 18:46
  ago with some of the earlier Matcha brands that had physical
• 18:49
  locations, cafes, I mean all the matcha station red flags, you
• 18:53
  know, like storing matcha in a giant bowl.
• 18:56
  It's like a, a mound of matcha exposed to air, you know,
• 19:00
  selling matcha jars in clear jars, you know, and, and they
• 19:04
  can, you know, as we all do, we continue to learn and recognize,
• 19:07
  oh, actually this isn't the best option.
• 19:10
  And you know, there's a better way to do this and a better way
• 19:12
  to educate. But with a lot of the marketing
• 19:15
  that I see it is this or that fake versus real, we are better.
• 19:19
  And it leaves a gap in and education where you know, I'm
• 19:23
  seeing a lot of consumers taking the initiative to educate
• 19:26
  themselves through condition, through questioning brands.
• 19:30
  And it creates a level of skepticism on their part where
• 19:34
  you know, if you have a brand saying and most macho brands
• 19:37
  will say we have the best quality, we're better than them,
• 19:40
  that's great. But how does that serve your
• 19:42
  customer? How do you, how are you adding
• 19:44
  value to educate them at a level to understand what are the
• 19:47
  characteristics of quality and and how do you judge that based
• 19:51
  of outside of our word saying that we source the best.
• 19:56
  It's an interesting thing that I see that now translates over to
• 20:00
  the food service world where they're adopting a lot of that
• 20:03
  language because it's coming from matcha brands that are
• 20:06
  educating customers about what's wrong.
• 20:10
  And now we're seeing this, we're in this interesting phase in
• 20:14
  matcha in the industry and how it's being received of people
• 20:19
  dissecting. It to a degree and I think that
• 20:21
  the work that we're trying to do, like the four of us here are
• 20:24
  trying to shift the narrative a bit to question, to offer a
• 20:28
  different perspective or alternative to get people to
• 20:31
  understand that it's not so black or white And it's it's
• 20:36
  yeah, a lot of and I speak I, I share this to someone in that
• 20:40
  has been in the role and function of marketing in Matcha
• 20:43
  specifically that it's, it's such an interesting time that
• 20:47
  we're in and I think it's created a level of confusion,
• 20:51
  especially at the food service level where I am.
• 20:54
  I'm so surprised by the level of engagement, the content we've
• 20:59
  shared and I've shared on my personal page, but also through
• 21:02
  the recently launched Matcha program pages on TikTok and on
• 21:05
  Instagram. People chiming in and
• 21:08
  contributing their perspective, contributing their questions and
• 21:12
  even their criticism because it was the criticism and critical
• 21:17
  feedback. So two different things that the
• 21:19
  critical feedback I got and then the constructive criticism that
• 21:23
  actually inspired the Matcha program because it is so I'd.
• 21:27
  Like to learn more about that origin story of the Matcha
• 21:29
  program? Which which we can get into.
• 21:33
  I feel like I've diverted a bit from the original.
• 21:38
  No worries. It's how a conversation
• 21:40
  naturally fell. Yeah, I, I kind of, I do enjoy
• 21:43
  that because this is, I mean, this is how like when when Mark
• 21:46
  and I talk about matcha offline, like we could we just go down
• 21:50
  these rabbit holes of, you know, what we see what we do.
• 21:54
  And, and, and that's also like, I love feedback, especially at
• 21:57
  our time at Jade Leaf. I know it's Jade Leaf as, as a
• 22:01
  brand. And this is the topic that I
• 22:03
  have seen. I'm, I'm not affiliated with the
• 22:05
  brand and anymore, but even if I was, I, I could receive this
• 22:08
  feedback and and you know, see it for its merit of the level of
• 22:11
  confusion with the grading system.
• 22:13
  I think that's a different conversation of people who are
• 22:16
  like early brands and no attribute a lot of that to Jade
• 22:20
  Leaf saying Jade Leaf created ceremonial grade or culinary
• 22:25
  grade in that terminology. And that's just not true.
• 22:28
  That existed. And you know, we have mark here
• 22:32
  with the brand. It was a grading system that
• 22:35
  helped early macho lovers understand format and use case.
• 22:39
  Because when I, when I see that feedback and it's, you know,
• 22:42
  it's confusing, you know, like now we, we have brands creating
• 22:46
  their own grades, calling things for, you know, like it's just
• 22:49
  this, this melting pot of information where people and the
• 22:52
  consumers have to kind of go through that themselves and try
• 22:54
  to understand well, what is high quality and what is low quality?
• 22:57
  And can I trust this source or not?
• 23:00
  Earlier in the Jade Leaf time when grades like ceremonial and
• 23:03
  culinary existed prior to the, you know, the founding of the
• 23:07
  brand helped early matcha consumers today understand, you
• 23:13
  know, is something matcha like, how can I introduce much?
• 23:15
  Is it something that I want to incorporate in my life?
• 23:18
  Is it something that I like? And, and I think it's incredible
• 23:21
  when you start from that place because I have a lot of
• 23:23
  gratitude for the Starbucks is and some of the brands that help
• 23:28
  us understand what Mata is, especially at a time when it was
• 23:32
  a relatively new ingredient to consumers outside of Japan and
• 23:38
  help us evolve in our own love of it.
• 23:40
  Like my my first experience with matcha was a tea bag, you know,
• 23:44
  a blend of matcha and sencha. I have since then progressed in
• 23:47
  my own journey and I love the high end.
• 23:49
  I mean, I'm willing to spend money on some really good matcha
• 23:53
  because it helps me understand and develop, you know, my
• 23:56
  palette for matcha. But I think there's, there's a
• 23:58
  level of gratitude I have for the, you know, the matcha
• 24:02
  brands, the early matcha brands and tea brands of the world or
• 24:05
  even places like Starbucks that brought in our scope, you know,
• 24:09
  and, and that's to the level of education we have as consumers
• 24:13
  where we can continue to evolve. And so, you know, as someone in
• 24:17
  the role of marketing at Jade Leaf years ago, I think it's an
• 24:21
  important discussion to have, you know, what is this grading
• 24:24
  system, You know, if the consumer is a lot more
• 24:26
  discerning today as they once were, and I think that's amazing
• 24:30
  and they're questioning a lot of things.
• 24:32
  And I think there's an opportunity for some of the
• 24:35
  earlier Matcha brands to evolve alongside them.
• 24:39
  Oh, yeah. I'm a bit surprised that we
• 24:41
  haven't seen more of that actually.
• 24:44
  These like things that everyone are holding on to.
• 24:47
  It's a bit of a mystery actually.
• 24:49
  Just I, you know, for like Zach Mungan, Mangan, I don't know how
• 24:54
  to pronounce his last name, wrote an interesting piece a
• 24:56
  couple years ago. Now I think about why they don't
• 24:59
  use ceremonial grade even. But like he specifically cites,
• 25:02
  you know, it hurts us on SEO. Like it's something people want
• 25:06
  something that people like search for, right?
• 25:09
  And I think that's like a large reason why everyone does it
• 25:11
  because it's just like cast the swipe with net in this very
• 25:15
  busy, noisy online environment that we live in.
• 25:18
  And but it was an interesting brand positioning, But I'm
• 25:22
  surprised that more people aren't like pivoting, especially
• 25:25
  it's like some great influencers.
• 25:27
  I feel like this is very consumer LED actually, or like
• 25:30
  just calling BS. It's like it's a meaningless
• 25:32
  term. Everyone's abusing it and like
• 25:35
  people still stick to it. And I think it's, I don't know,
• 25:38
  it's a bit of a mystery when wonder if you guys like have
• 25:41
  some insight into why so many people keep it?
• 25:43
  I think it's it's largely a disconnect between a very small
• 25:47
  group of people who dig into the details and have taken the time
• 25:51
  to. That's a great point.
• 25:53
  Understand matcha and it feels very noisy because they can be
• 25:56
  very opinionated folks. And then the actual average
• 25:59
  consumer, the mom in the Midwest who loves a matcha latte and
• 26:03
  doesn't have time to really get into the nitty gritty of the
• 26:06
  Japanese culture behind it or why 1 is more expensive than
• 26:09
  another. She just wants a good product,
• 26:11
  right? So if you're, if you're in the
• 26:13
  biz like we are, then then you can feel like there's a lot of
• 26:16
  noise. And then you could ask someone
• 26:17
  else and they're like, you know, it doesn't seem like a big
• 26:20
  controversy to me, friends trying to sell a product and
• 26:25
  they're trying to describe it to me so that I can understand it
• 26:28
  in two seconds and without having to spend an hour.
• 26:31
  So the terms are the terms. Whether they were invented by a
• 26:35
  Western marketer or, you know, had some deep history in Japan
• 26:38
  is is somewhat irrelevant. At the end of the day, you need
• 26:42
  to trust the person selling you a product and, and if their
• 26:46
  descriptors match the expectation with that you're,
• 26:50
  that you're receiving, then that's great.
• 26:52
  And if it doesn't, then don't buy from them again.
• 26:54
  I, I, I think I've maybe become a little jaded and maybe a
• 27:00
  little tired of being in the food and beverage world in
• 27:04
  general. And honestly, in in any
• 27:06
  business, marketers will say whatever they want.
• 27:09
  And I would say this is even more like annoying and
• 27:12
  frustrating in the supplement world, which we dabbled in a
• 27:15
  bit. You can literally say anything
• 27:16
  and you'll find products that were labels are just completely
• 27:20
  wrong and and straight up lying. And maybe some of it is bad
• 27:24
  faith, like they're they're trying to fool people or maybe
• 27:27
  it's just ignorance and they they didn't know that the per
• 27:29
  the seller themselves, right. But so marketing you have to
• 27:32
  take, you know, with a with a grain of salt and jade leaf are
• 27:36
  we tried our best to educate people.
• 27:38
  It's like, hey, we're calling this ceremonial.
• 27:40
  Here's how we define that. Like it should be tasty,
• 27:43
  prepared as tea and not too bitter and come from first
• 27:47
  harvest. Like those were our penance and
• 27:49
  and that's why we're calling it that.
• 27:50
  So you can you as the American consumer can kind of try to
• 27:54
  start to grasp why is this more expensive and what should I
• 27:57
  expect from a taste standpoint? But we we always would say like,
• 28:01
  yeah, some people make their, you know, traditional tea with
• 28:05
  low quality second or third harvest and they love it.
• 28:08
  And some people won't bake cookies with anything less than
• 28:10
  a $50 tin of ceremonial matcha. You know, it's the consumer who
• 28:15
  makes the call and they need to to trust the the person selling
• 28:20
  it to them and, and the brands that are misrepresenting.
• 28:23
  You would hope, and this doesn't always happen immediately, which
• 28:26
  again is frustrating, but you would hope overtime consumers
• 28:29
  pick up on that and they just stop buying from them.
• 28:31
  And the people who are describing their products and
• 28:34
  pricing them correctly will rise to the top and be the ones that
• 28:38
  that consumers gravitate towards.
• 28:40
  But yeah, you could cry foul all day and be like, I can't believe
• 28:44
  people are calling it this and that they're going to do that.
• 28:46
  You know, that's, that's marketing.
• 28:47
  That's, that's not the world we live in.
• 28:49
  So yeah, we we just try to be good stewards and very
• 28:52
  thoughtful in the way that we describe things, and that's
• 28:57
  really all you can do. That's an interesting point
• 28:59
  because you you don't you not only see that in the West,
• 29:02
  right, like this whole ceremonial culinary great, you
• 29:06
  know, distinctions. You see it in Japan too, like
• 29:08
  all these XX no mukashi and XX no shiro or like they're
• 29:12
  definite, you know, like mukashi is for, you know, koicha and no
• 29:17
  shiro is for Ufucha. But you see, you know, these
• 29:21
  terms being mixed-use for different grades all the time,
• 29:24
  even with distinct men. It's.
• 29:26
  Yeah, and there's, there's traders in Japan who are, you
• 29:31
  know, misrepresenting their product.
• 29:34
  I. Know there's there's good ones
• 29:35
  and bad ones even over there, but they're doing the same
• 29:38
  thing. They're trying to connect with
• 29:40
  their consumer and help them understand what to expect and
• 29:44
  why they should pay a certain amount for it.
• 29:47
  Makes sense? You know, I think about 10 years
• 29:50
  ago, right, like say hypothetically Jade Leaf used
• 29:54
  the terminology today or the grading system of first harvest
• 29:57
  and just second harvest. And instead of calling the
• 30:00
  ceremonial, ceremonial and culinary culinary it was like
• 30:04
  back 10 years ago when matcha was.
• 30:06
  The landscape of matcha in the US is very different than it is
• 30:09
  today. The level of education consumers
• 30:12
  had around matcha is very different than it is today.
• 30:15
  How confused people would be if we were, you know, introduce
• 30:18
  matcha and say this is a first harvest matcha you with that
• 30:24
  marketing is necessary to educate.
• 30:27
  Yes is a level of sexiness we need to bring to it to help
• 30:32
  educate people and that's that's the job of someone in marketing
• 30:36
  is to do that and do it in a way what where there's still an
• 30:40
  opportunity to educate and so you know over you know
• 30:43
  especially and I share this in in our earlier episode that you
• 30:47
  know, Mark and I very deep and passionate about matcha.
• 30:50
  We launched a, you know, this existed prior to me joining Jade
• 30:54
  Leaf. Mark launched a limited edition
• 30:57
  collection and that's something we continue to do each year.
• 31:00
  It then fell up into a greater campaign called Know Your Matcha
• 31:04
  around trusting source and transparency.
• 31:07
  And so that's something each year we were challenging
• 31:09
  ourselves and we were wanting to source the best because as we
• 31:12
  had, you know, our Evergreen products like the ceremonial and
• 31:15
  the culinary. We wanted to introduce something
• 31:18
  as, as we developed in our own journey and then recognized,
• 31:22
  yeah, I, I want to develop my palette for the single cultivars
• 31:26
  and different blends or different matcha from various
• 31:29
  tea growing prefectures. How do we bring that to our
• 31:32
  customer and educate them on that?
• 31:34
  And so we would release very limited batches to test the
• 31:38
  market. And this is earlier in the time
• 31:40
  where there wasn't necessarily a big demand for the single cult
• 31:45
  of our options like we see today.
• 31:47
  And it was incredible to see the level of enthusiasm we got from
• 31:52
  our our consumer and how we educated in videos and we were
• 31:55
  talking about how you develop your palette.
• 31:57
  And it's a very different style of marketing.
• 32:00
  I think with brands today where you see them just sharing like
• 32:04
  this is right and this is wrong and this is what you do and this
• 32:07
  is what you don't do, I think. And this is this is, you know,
• 32:11
  like we were part of that brand and now we launched the Mantra
• 32:14
  program. A lot of those core tenets of
• 32:17
  how we educate still continue to be at the forefront, which is
• 32:21
  here's the framework and do with it what you want.
• 32:24
  You know, like, here's some ideas and these are things to
• 32:26
  consider, but what you choose to do with it is really up to you.
• 32:30
  Because at the end of the day, to Mark's point, the consumer
• 32:33
  drives all of it their driver's seat.
• 32:35
  And so, yeah, it's such an interesting, interesting time in
• 32:39
  Matcha that we're seeing compared to where it was years
• 32:42
  ago and where it will be 10 years from now.
• 32:45
  Yeah, totally. So with the matcha program, like
• 32:49
  how was that boring? And like, what are your goals
• 32:52
  for this movement page, Sub stack, Instagram, TikTok.
• 32:57
  It's multiple identities, you guys.
• 33:00
  So if I can go back a few years, much education has continued to
• 33:05
  be something that I as a consumer has been very
• 33:08
  passionate about, more so privately.
• 33:10
  It hasn't been something outside of, you know, at my Jade Leaf
• 33:14
  time where I was in front of the camera lot, you know, in
• 33:17
  content, talking about specifically the limited edition
• 33:20
  collection and educating our customers on that.
• 33:23
  I've had my own journey behind the scenes where I wanted to
• 33:26
  develop my own palettes, I wanted to educate myself and we
• 33:30
  all know it is so challenging to access education from origin
• 33:34
  from tea farmers and tea producers.
• 33:36
  You really have to commit the time and the effort to extract
• 33:43
  that information. And a lot of the education I
• 33:46
  have, I attribute to people in the industry that I've admired,
• 33:50
  that I've become friends with. Mark has been my source of macho
• 33:54
  education. People in the industry who are
• 33:57
  behind the scenes who don't have public platforms.
• 33:59
  It's, I mean, unless you know who they are that you're not
• 34:03
  going to find, you're not going to access what's in their brain
• 34:06
  unless you literally speak to them because don't they have
• 34:09
  private Instagram pages? They don't have a public
• 34:11
  platform. And so I'm very grateful to have
• 34:14
  connected with many people that have allowed me to develop my
• 34:18
  own understanding of matcha and challenge my own thinking.
• 34:21
  And you both are a part of that as well.
• 34:23
  I have learned so much from the both of you and just the time
• 34:27
  you've taken to share the level of education and will continue
• 34:31
  to do over the years. So I'm sure I'll continue to
• 34:33
  challenge my own thinking as well.
• 34:35
  But outside of Jade Leaf, as I've worked with other matcha
• 34:38
  brands advising or consulting, I grew frustrated because we're
• 34:44
  much education, much education. We need to educate the customer.
• 34:47
  This is a big opportunity. No one else is doing it in the
• 34:50
  ways in which I I envisioned and the ways in which, you know, I
• 34:54
  have conversations with industry friends behind the scenes, You
• 34:57
  know, we, I see matcha craters sharing their content and when I
• 35:02
  see it, I think it's great. I'm like, wow, they feel very
• 35:04
  passionate. They're doing their own matcha
• 35:06
  reviews. But as I hear the language in
• 35:08
  which they're educating the masses because they have big
• 35:11
  platforms, I'm just like, you know, like there's a meme of
• 35:14
  this girl quietly screaming and she's like, that's how I feel
• 35:20
  where I'm just like, yes, but this or yes, and this.
• 35:23
  And so I at that point had a very private page.
• 35:27
  I didn't post much. And at that point, I was so
• 35:30
  similar to Mark, kind of jaded. I was just like, do I want to go
• 35:34
  down that rabbit hole? Like, do I want to subject
• 35:36
  myself to having an opinion And, and now like receiving all this
• 35:41
  criticism or critical feedback from people?
• 35:44
  Like I kind of like my piece, you know, I've been working
• 35:47
  really hard at my piece and and as I would try to then be that
• 35:53
  turn to spearhead that education through the matcha brands that I
• 35:56
  worked with in a more hands off capacity.
• 35:59
  Ultimately it was up to their team whether and wanted to
• 36:02
  implement that matcha education. While I do believe it to be one
• 36:07
  of the most important content pillars any matcha brand should
• 36:11
  share, for the brands that I consulted and advised, it's just
• 36:14
  like not the biggest priority. It's like, cool, maybe at one
• 36:17
  point, but it wasn't the bottom line.
• 36:20
  There was always a campaign. There was always a product
• 36:23
  launch that took precedent. And so we never saw that level
• 36:26
  of education. And I thought, you know, like,
• 36:29
  who is going to do this? And it's not.
• 36:31
  It's time. Brands aren't.
• 36:34
  It's not to say that brands aren't doing it, but like I
• 36:36
  mentioned, if a brand has a robust matcha program, it is for
• 36:42
  their customers that source from them.
• 36:44
  Yeah, it's part of like the package.
• 36:47
  It is, it's the value that they bring.
• 36:49
  And there are incredible matcha brands who I know are very hands
• 36:53
  on with their customers. Now, average matcha, you know,
• 36:56
  I'm sorry, the average cafe that may not necessarily be sourcing
• 37:00
  through them, they're left to find their own information.
• 37:03
  Cafe operators are very busy. They're likely not going to read
• 37:07
  a book on matcha. There's many books on, you know,
• 37:10
  matcha or Japanese tea. But it's about sourcing.
• 37:12
  It's about the different cultivars.
• 37:14
  It's about what happens at Origin.
• 37:16
  But now how do you take that information and make it relevant
• 37:19
  to your operations? And you know, as Mark and I were
• 37:23
  talking and I started, I just started to share content on my
• 37:27
  personal page on Instagram. And one of them in particular
• 37:30
  was a 3 minute long video about hand whisking.
• 37:33
  I had no idea that it would receive the level of engagement.
• 37:37
  I'm like, this is a three long video of me talking.
• 37:40
  And I thought because so there was a part of me that felt FOMO
• 37:44
  after I exited Jade leave, I was very reclused, very behind the
• 37:48
  scenes. I didn't want to be in front of
• 37:51
  a lot of content. And as I got back on Instagram,
• 37:54
  like I was off Instagram for a couple of years, when I got back
• 37:57
  on, I started to see voices in Matcha primarily from Matcha
• 38:01
  creators who, you know, nurtured a really engaged community.
• 38:06
  And I thought I missed the mark, you know, like I, you know,
• 38:09
  these are things I care about and I want to continue to
• 38:11
  advocate on, but I, I didn't take advantage of Instagram at
• 38:15
  that time outside of my matcha pages.
• 38:17
  Like it's a very different style of content.
• 38:19
  And I knew myself. I was like, I, I'm not going to
• 38:22
  be a matcha reader that does matcha reviews.
• 38:25
  You know, I do that for myself behind the scenes with my own T
• 38:28
  journal where I write notes, but it's just not my, it's, I think
• 38:32
  there are great people doing it. It wasn't my lane.
• 38:34
  And so I kind of felt like, what can I even talk about regarding
• 38:38
  matcha that would add value? Like, you know, there's
• 38:42
  different brands educating. I don't want to take that
• 38:45
  responsibility for them. But when I started to work with
• 38:49
  cafes and I was consulting them on their matcha programs, the
• 38:52
  same question started to come up and wow, this is like baseline
• 38:56
  matcha fundamentals. And there's so much confusion
• 38:59
  around it, like which preparation method, what's the
• 39:02
  water temperature do you use? What is the proper batching
• 39:06
  ratio? Things that, you know, I think
• 39:08
  on our end we're like, well, yeah, it makes sense because we,
• 39:11
  you know, we work in the industry and we, you know,
• 39:14
  that's the world that we live in.
• 39:16
  But I recognized an opportunity and I was like, well, there's an
• 39:19
  opportunity to not only share this, but the cafes that I
• 39:22
  consult they, you know, I'm hands on with them.
• 39:25
  And we're, we're talking and, you know, deep in conversation
• 39:27
  about their matcha program, how to design their menu, how to
• 39:30
  story tell around matcha, how to prepare matcha.
• 39:33
  And I was like, well, why don't I just talk about this on
• 39:36
  Instagram? So that post in particular
• 39:40
  received a lot of engagement and questions and really great
• 39:43
  questions, you know, questions like really, I mean, and then
• 39:46
  also constructive and critical feedback.
• 39:49
  And in all of it's valid, right? Like any feedback or any
• 39:52
  feedback or criticism that anyone shares is relative to
• 39:57
  where they are in their own journey.
• 40:00
  A reflection of them, not you. Yes, and I've received personal
• 40:04
  like, you know personal attacks and that's fine You know like
• 40:07
  years ago that would have broken me.
• 40:09
  Today I'm just like, well, thank you because the critical
• 40:12
  feedback and the constructive feedback actually inspired the
• 40:14
  Matcha program because challenging to take to to give
• 40:20
  context in a 92nd video, a 3 minute video and an Instagram
• 40:24
  caption with character limits. And so although I want to share
• 40:28
  more, I it's so challenging to do that in an Instagram, you
• 40:32
  know, a piece of content. So the substec idea came about
• 40:35
  one night when, you know, Mark and I were talking about much
• 40:38
  education and I was trying to respond to a constructive piece
• 40:44
  of feedback that I got in a comment.
• 40:46
  And if you go through the most in my recent, you know, in some
• 40:49
  of the recent content, you'll see that some of my responses
• 40:52
  are like paragraph long because try to be thoughtful and, you
• 40:56
  know, knowledge of what they're saying and maybe should
• 40:58
  alternate perspective or even say, you know what, you're
• 41:00
  right. That's great for the feedback
• 41:03
  and it got pretty mentally daunting.
• 41:06
  You know, like outside of the content, Mark and I are
• 41:08
  launching a company have personal goals.
• 41:10
  I'm like, it's, it's, it's like this, this is a job on its own
• 41:14
  is to respond and to to curate content on social.
• 41:18
  It was like, how do I take that and now scale it in a way where
• 41:21
  it can be deeper dives. People, people can do with it
• 41:24
  what they want. And so the sub SEC idea came
• 41:27
  about. To just to give a long form
• 41:30
  space for these ideas to breathe.
• 41:32
  Yeah, and there's, you know, micro content that you know, you
• 41:36
  know, connects back to that. But it was an interesting thing,
• 41:39
  you know, and I'm grateful for the feedback, the the
• 41:41
  constructive and the critical because it inspired the idea and
• 41:46
  it kind of had the aha moment of this is what you can talk about
• 41:50
  as it relates to content about matcha on social media.
• 41:53
  The most valid piece of feedback or criticism as you were,
• 41:58
  because I can imagine what these like content threads look like.
• 42:02
  Like I just have things like because I love going down those
• 42:05
  rabbit holes sometime, but like what?
• 42:06
  What change? What was a perspective changing,
• 42:09
  one that like kind of prompted? Yeah, one in particular, someone
• 42:13
  gave me feedback on my syntax and they gave feedback about how
• 42:17
  I position something in a video. Was the tail end of a video.
• 42:21
  And I said it was about batching where I basically said, you
• 42:25
  know, like if you use this framework, you, I don't remember
• 42:28
  what I said verbatim, but the ending was without sacrificing
• 42:32
  quality. And so they had a valid point of
• 42:34
  like whether you batch, if you batch, you're sacrificing
• 42:37
  quality. It's just a matter of time
• 42:39
  because they were referencing oxidation.
• 42:42
  And so I shared my perspective on it.
• 42:44
  And at one point, I kind of just took a step back because other
• 42:47
  people were chiming in. I, I don't necessarily think in
• 42:51
  my defense on behalf of me, but they were sharing their own
• 42:54
  perspective. And then I sat with it for about
• 42:57
  a week and I rewatched the video.
• 42:59
  I read their comments again. I listened.
• 43:03
  And I, I'm just like, yeah, there is an opportunity for me
• 43:07
  to refine my communication and to be thoughtful about and, and
• 43:11
  not to say that I wasn't thoughtful, but to, to consider
• 43:16
  that and how things can be interpreted.
• 43:18
  And it's a lot of mental work, but it was one piece of feedback
• 43:21
  that has that I've carried with me and brought into every other
• 43:25
  piece of content from that point.
• 43:28
  And you know, in recent, in recent contents, the feedback
• 43:32
  hasn't been so critical. And he's just like waiting.
• 43:36
  I'm like, why isn't someone mad about this happened?
• 43:41
  But it was really helpful because I think feedback is a
• 43:44
  gift. Feedback helps learn feedback
• 43:46
  helps you grow as a business owner.
• 43:48
  If you can be receptive to feedback, whether you agree with
• 43:52
  it or not, I think if you can take it and try to learn from
• 43:56
  something or, or you just, you know, sometimes feedback is
• 43:59
  feedback and it's someone's opinion.
• 44:00
  And there's not not much that I want to or will do with it, but
• 44:05
  that was one in particular that I'm grateful for.
• 44:08
  So thank you to that person to say that I won't continue to
• 44:12
  make mistakes with how things are positioned.
• 44:14
  You know, my own learning journey is continuing to evolve,
• 44:17
  I think, as we we all are. Right.
• 44:20
  Well, you're getting the conversation started.
• 44:22
  Like that's what's so necessary. Like it's short form because
• 44:25
  like sometimes we put some stuff out that I feel is a little
• 44:27
  controversial and we kind of internally debate about it.
• 44:31
  Like, should we say that, like criticize people that call
• 44:34
  Chinese matcha fake or Korean matcha fake?
• 44:37
  You know, it's like, I don't want to put this out.
• 44:39
  I don't want to deal with these comments.
• 44:41
  I. Don't want to engage with anyone
• 44:43
  that's going to engage with that in such a negative way.
• 44:46
  And then we did it and like, actually it's kind of crickets
• 44:50
  Sometimes it's a little hard to predict, too.
• 44:52
  It is. And it's so funny because I'll
• 44:54
  put time into, you know, the structure and which I want to
• 44:58
  share content and I'll talk with Mark and I'm like, hey, Mark,
• 45:01
  there's this idea. I don't know.
• 45:03
  Well, you know, if it's something about he's just do it.
• 45:07
  You know, it's it's valid and there's always going to be
• 45:11
  constructive feedback. There's always going to be
• 45:13
  someone that has an opinion that doesn't necessarily agree or,
• 45:17
  you know, with you or, or feels like it's unfounded.
• 45:19
  And Despite that, I think it's so important because no matter
• 45:24
  what you do, I think I could be talking about like, for example,
• 45:27
  like my dog passed away. Her name was Umami and I got one
• 45:30
  of the, you know, there was a, a stuffed toy replica that you can
• 45:34
  have made. Yeah, if I created content with
• 45:38
  her and that people would say that that was unhealthy when it
• 45:41
  for me, you know, like there's always going to be someone who
• 45:45
  has an opinion. And that shouldn't stop anyone
• 45:47
  from sharing content, especially if it's something that could add
• 45:50
  value or invite a different perspective.
• 45:54
  Like do you, you know, it's important, especially in macho
• 45:59
  where the market isn't as mature as coffee.
• 46:04
  You know, we're kind of we're muchas today's work.
• 46:06
  I think coffee was 15 years ago. One of the questions we got in
• 46:10
  the communities questions, the AMA that I put out yesterday was
• 46:13
  what are your thoughts on cream tops, lemonades, you know, those
• 46:17
  dessert matcha drinks? And that's where coffee was 15
• 46:20
  ish years ago and 15 years ago. So I think it's interesting
• 46:24
  because the customer likes what the customer likes.
• 46:27
  I think any Cafe that is willing to adopt matcha and willing to
• 46:32
  find ways to to promote their business and drive traffic, I
• 46:36
  think that's really smart. Personally, it's not my cup of
• 46:39
  tea. Like I don't want the cream tops
• 46:40
  and and the overly sweet drinks with purees.
• 46:43
  But that's just me and it doesn't mean I'm right or
• 46:46
  they're wrong. It's we like what we like.
• 46:48
  And I think that there are different ways to service
• 46:50
  customers. Yeah, there are always will be
• 46:54
  people liking that, you know, drink, you know, like it's it's
• 46:58
  really, really like similar to coffee in terms of the
• 47:01
  development, you know, like the coffee, like the whole latte,
• 47:06
  latte art, the latte boys, you know, back in the through kind
• 47:11
  of a shame by all these like serious coffee drinkers.
• 47:14
  Like, I feel like it's really the same narrative when we're
• 47:18
  talking about, you know, the matcha latte people, you know,
• 47:21
  like they're not drinking real matcha.
• 47:23
  You know, it's well, it gets people interested into matcha
• 47:26
  and, you know, it's generally if it's tasty, if it makes you
• 47:30
  happy, if, you know, it's not doing any harm to, you know,
• 47:33
  human or to the world like you should.
• 47:36
  We should accept it as a reality.
• 47:37
  Yeah. That's a good.
• 47:39
  Point like a push in a pool kind of thing.
• 47:41
  If so many like the, the dogmatic people in our industry
• 47:44
  are trying to push this is a product.
• 47:46
  You should like this product. I love this product because of
• 47:48
  this, this and this and you should like it for the same
• 47:51
  reasons versus like literally giving people what they want
• 47:55
  right there. Consumers, there's consumptions,
• 47:57
  there's cafes, drinks for these people.
• 48:00
  Like if that's what they want, you know what, who, who am I to
• 48:04
  pass judgement that they're not enjoying it the way I think that
• 48:07
  they should. Now there's like 1/2 argument to
• 48:10
  be made that if you're using like really scarce matcha,
• 48:13
  that's really low allocations do is everything about that made
• 48:18
  that matcha specials probably getting erased by like 90%.
• 48:23
  But you know, on the other side, I've in, you know, both Sam and
• 48:27
  I spent quite a bit of time in Bangkok for work in the past and
• 48:30
  the matcha scene there is insane.
• 48:32
  And you see people taking like really rare cultivars like
• 48:36
  Narino and very thoughtfully making lattes out of them that
• 48:41
  are fantastic high quality products, very limited
• 48:45
  allocation tea. But like, they're so like
• 48:48
  particular that if like the barista gets the whisking ratio
• 48:52
  wrong by a few milliliters, they don't serve it.
• 48:56
  And they make you a new one, right?
• 48:57
  Like it is dialed in and optimized to the milliliter.
• 49:01
  I'm like, they are just meticulous.
• 49:03
  They're like 3 Michelin star restaurants for matcha at some
• 49:06
  of these places. Is that, yeah, it's MTCH.
• 49:09
  It was really that was like very shocking to hear just how like
• 49:14
  if it is not the way the recipe is, they don't serve it and they
• 49:17
  don't charge the barista or anything for making the mistake.
• 49:20
  Like someone will drink it. Like they save it for someone
• 49:23
  like in the back, like who's a share among employees, but they
• 49:26
  don't serve it to the customer. You know, there's like these
• 49:29
  competing things because you can use it in a latte and it's
• 49:32
  delicious and it's intentional and like it's probably priced
• 49:35
  appropriately, positioned appropriately.
• 49:37
  So like, you can really argue both sides of this.
• 49:41
  Makes it a fascinating topic I. Think it's really about
• 49:43
  intention, right? Like because that really reminds
• 49:46
  me of channel youth like you need to put your bolt like how
• 49:50
  many times on the Tata and that's, you know, a practice
• 49:54
  that they really want to perfect with.
• 49:55
  And I think that, you know, like when we're talking about
• 49:59
  retrofitting all these traditional culture, like people
• 50:01
  are retrofitting the tools. But I think that you should
• 50:03
  really, what you really should do is retrofitting the idea, the
• 50:07
  intentionality, the idea about care, the idea about, you know,
• 50:11
  preparing the best thing possible with your within your
• 50:14
  capability instead of, you know, like using Chaset.
• 50:18
  Yeah. Well, there's a level of
• 50:22
  excellence. Yeah, Gary.
• 50:25
  Yeah, it's just a perfect word for it.
• 50:27
  It's just where and how that excellence is applied.
• 50:29
  And like maybe some of the foam top stuff, you know, it's a
• 50:32
  quick like fast-paced environment.
• 50:34
  The person is just grabbing it to go once, you know, a nice
• 50:38
  balanced caffeine profile on their way to work.
• 50:41
  Or maybe they want to have that contemplative experience pretty
• 50:44
  much as being used as an ingredient.
• 50:46
  And then like who am I to judge on that side too?
• 50:49
  So it's there actually really isn't a right or a wrong.
• 50:52
  It's I think on on those points. It's so it's a weird argument,
• 50:57
  especially for these traditionalists because these
• 50:59
  people who are these staunch Japanese culture defenders, they
• 51:03
  should go back and take a trip to Japan and look at what the
• 51:07
  Japanese are doing to matcha. Like what we were recently at a
• 51:11
  pretty, like touristy site and this matcha soft surf place
• 51:16
  advertised that they're, they use Oku Midori matcha and I
• 51:22
  think was equivalent to $400.00 a kilo.
• 51:25
  And that was like on the advertisement, it was the best
• 51:27
  matcha soft serve I've ever had. And like, like these staunch
• 51:32
  defenders of Japan and Japanese culture would like, if that
• 51:36
  existed anywhere else would probably be extremely upset.
• 51:40
  Yeah, because like the wholesale price per kilo, I mean that's a
• 51:44
  special product when you're if it's not expensive.
• 51:47
  So it's a lot of hypocrisy. But if you look around like
• 51:51
  matcha noodles, matcha biscuits, like matcha everything, like
• 51:55
  it's like people are doing all these things to matcha, you
• 51:58
  know, themselves inside and you're outside of Japan, you are
• 52:02
  criticizing other people doing the same thing, which is kind of
• 52:06
  crazy. No, it's a great point and
• 52:08
  there's a lot of presumption. And Ryan, to your point, I think
• 52:12
  it's people that actually have never been to Japan.
• 52:14
  I've talked to not just any Japanese person, because that
• 52:18
  isn't really fair, but like someone who's in the macho world
• 52:22
  in some way. You know, over our years at Jade
• 52:24
  Leaf, we met dozens of farmers and tea masters and tea traders
• 52:28
  and even tea, tea ceremony hosts.
• 52:32
  And I didn't meet a single one who expressed some offense or
• 52:36
  indignation around how Americans were coming to enjoy matcha.
• 52:41
  In fact, they celebrated it. They thought it was the coolest
• 52:43
  thing. They're like, Oh my God, you
• 52:46
  know, boba in it now. And they're making lattes.
• 52:48
  Like they encouraged it. They, they love that people
• 52:51
  enjoyed something that they made.
• 52:53
  And I think that's very Japanese tenant.
• 52:56
  They craft something with care and then they want people to
• 52:58
  enjoy it, but they're not prescriptive so much on on how
• 53:03
  the person does end up enjoying it.
• 53:05
  So yeah, they they celebrate it to A, to a person, at least the
• 53:09
  ones I've interacted with in in my time there.
• 53:12
  Yeah, we've had very similar experiences.
• 53:15
  Yeah. This really is like self
• 53:18
  criticism culturally speaking from outside of.
• 53:23
  Yeah, I think it, it may be an American construct of we, we
• 53:28
  think we're stepping on everyone else's cultures because ours is
• 53:31
  like a mishmash of, of all these other influences.
• 53:34
  And that's how we started as a melting pot.
• 53:36
  And now there's this backlash of how we're somehow dishonouring
• 53:40
  the way they do it in Italy or the way they do it in France or
• 53:43
  the way they do it in Japan, when in fact we, we largely
• 53:46
  aren't. And, and those, those cultures
• 53:49
  are, are excited that we like their stuff and, and they think
• 53:52
  it's neat and creative. A lot of the times the, the ways
• 53:54
  that we're coming to enjoy it. And sometimes those things
• 53:58
  trickle back to those countries. Yeah, intention really matters.
• 54:01
  I mean, if you come from a point of view of admiration, I think
• 54:05
  it's fine. But the people are calling out
• 54:07
  like, you know, other people being culturally appropriating
• 54:10
  stuff simply because they want to enjoy it in their own ways.
• 54:13
  I think it's a little bit too much.
• 54:15
  Well, that's that's another topic.
• 54:17
  Is it appropriation? Is it appreciation?
• 54:19
  And I argue on the side of I'm grateful for the early US or
• 54:26
  Europe based matcha founders that brought Matcha and
• 54:30
  introduced it to a new market. You know, I don't even know if I
• 54:36
  would even be a matcha consumer today had it not been for them.
• 54:41
  And so I think that while I do, you know, I, I think drawing
• 54:44
  back to trust and source, it's like if you know, there are
• 54:48
  brands who see opportunity in it, who could care less about
• 54:52
  the product. And you know, if you have a
• 54:55
  discerning eye, you can see that through the in ways in which
• 54:58
  they talk about matcha, if they talk about their product, how
• 55:01
  they market it. And there are brands who they've
• 55:03
  devoted their lives to the product.
• 55:06
  And you can see that as well, you know, like, I think it's
• 55:09
  really again, up to the customer.
• 55:11
  And I think in the level of education that I admire from the
• 55:14
  specialty matcha podcast, it's you're presenting information
• 55:18
  and customers now or Matcha consumers take that and question
• 55:22
  their own thinking. And they bring that level of
• 55:24
  that critical eye to other, other brands, you know, like the
• 55:28
  brands that are dogmatic, that say this is real, this is fake,
• 55:31
  we're the best screw you. You know, like it's a matter of
• 55:36
  time because that I mean, that worked early on, that that
• 55:40
  working worked 10 years ago. It's not working today.
• 55:42
  And. 100%. And I've had conversations with
• 55:45
  some of these founders that they, they are, they believe
• 55:48
  what they believe. And I think that's awesome.
• 55:50
  But there's an opportunity here to help the industry evolve to
• 55:54
  provide information to customers that are seeking it.
• 55:57
  And we know that because, I mean, I mean, in subreddits, I
• 56:02
  have seen the specialty Matcha podcast referenced, you know, as
• 56:06
  you know, this is what Ryan and and Samjan have said.
• 56:09
  This is, you know, this is what the facts that they're
• 56:10
  presenting. I believe this for this reason.
• 56:13
  So there is, and through my own content and the Matcha program
• 56:16
  that Mark and I have shared, we're surprised by the level of
• 56:20
  engagement that we've gotten. I mean, it's, it's, it's still
• 56:24
  in its infancy. You know, the, the sub stack
• 56:26
  launched 3 weeks ago on a whim. Thank you to the constructive
• 56:30
  feedback and the critical feedback that inspired it.
• 56:33
  The Instagram page I think launched soon after that.
• 56:36
  Our TikTok page launched maybe a week and a half ago and it's
• 56:40
  almost at 600 followers. Oh wow.
• 56:43
  Wow. Nice.
• 56:45
  But the level of engagement that it's getting in viewership is, I
• 56:50
  mean, for any brand, macho brand founder listening, if you aren't
• 56:55
  investing in education, and that also means educating yourself
• 56:59
  and and having that growth mindset to question your own
• 57:02
  thinking, you're missing an opportunity to connect deeply
• 57:05
  with where your customer is because where they are today.
• 57:10
  You know, like in from the lens of marketing in matcha, many
• 57:13
  matcha brands will share their own narrative that supports
• 57:16
  their goals. You know, this much fake.
• 57:18
  Ours isn't Matcha from China and Korea are bad.
• 57:21
  Ours isn't. And I'm not saying I agree with
• 57:23
  that or not. I think there are incredible,
• 57:26
  you know, tea growing prefectures outside of Japan
• 57:29
  that are heavily stigmatized as you both have also mentioned as
• 57:32
  well. But where the customer is today,
• 57:36
  you know, hypothetically one of the questions is like, if we
• 57:38
  started a matcha brand, what would we do differently?
• 57:41
  It would vesting in education and and not education that
• 57:45
  serves our brand, but education that adds value to the matcha
• 57:49
  consumer and how we can continue to partner with them and help
• 57:52
  give them framework to question what's what's out there in the
• 57:56
  market because it's confusing. It's a confusing market and you
• 57:59
  know, that requires a level of self reflection, I think from
• 58:02
  people on the other side, some matcha brand founders to
• 58:06
  question what they know. Like, I'm willing to say, yeah,
• 58:10
  I was wrong or I didn't know that there are many that are
• 58:13
  like, Nope, this is right, this is wrong, this is good, this is
• 58:16
  bad. And and you'll service a a
• 58:19
  portion of the market, but I think you'll you'll miss out on
• 58:21
  a great opportunity to stand out against the very saturated
• 58:26
  matcha market today because all of that, you know, the good bad
• 58:29
  much is better than coffee. For whatever reason, that's
• 58:34
  continuing to being perpet. That's being perpetuated.
• 58:37
  It's being perpetuated for years and it doesn't really resonate.
• 58:41
  Consumers are far more discerning than they were 10
• 58:43
  years ago. So, well, I just my two cents,
• 58:47
  it's much education has been and continued to be a passion of
• 58:51
  mine. And you know, I learn a lot from
• 58:54
  these creators as well, you know, like the level of time
• 58:57
  that they have invested in their own learning journey.
• 59:01
  I am so surprised by that because it's so challenging to
• 59:03
  access that information unless you are at origin and you have
• 59:07
  access to people in the industry.
• 59:09
  Even at Origin it's difficult and everything that you're told
• 59:14
  in Origin is not true. That's the other very annoying
• 59:17
  part is sorting through all of that very upset.
• 59:20
  We have a article in future episode about Uji Macha.
• 59:25
  But like, even if you're an origin, you're being told this
• 59:28
  is Uji Macha, this is Uji Macha. And if you really were to see
• 59:32
  where that tea was from, it's definitely not from Uji.
• 59:36
  It's like we mean it's why are you calling Uji Macha?
• 59:40
  It's, I don't know, it's a lot of sorting and it's like, where
• 59:44
  do you start? Like especially if you're coming
• 59:46
  in fresh, it's really difficult to just even build the
• 59:49
  foundational layer to be skeptical.
• 59:51
  And then when you're at origin, it's often culturally
• 59:54
  inappropriate to be skeptical. Like when you like, if I were to
• 59:58
  go in and ask, this is Uji Macha.
• 1:00:01
  But is it from Uji grown Tensha like that?
• 1:00:03
  Like everything about. That question is very rude,
• 1:00:07
  like, and it's like an implicit culture.
• 1:00:09
  So it's like then you got to figure out, OK, how exactly do I
• 1:00:12
  ask this? Do I ask this at all?
• 1:00:14
  Like it's it's. So.
• 1:00:16
  Tricky to learn. I think it's, but actually
• 1:00:19
  there's probably never been a better time to Start learning
• 1:00:21
  about Matcha with, with the resources that are out there and
• 1:00:25
  the translation tools and the access to these primary
• 1:00:28
  documents and to interviews and hearing everyone's perspective.
• 1:00:32
  So I guess that's a, you know, a nice silver lining.
• 1:00:35
  And I think, you know, all these influencers giving context and
• 1:00:38
  dimensionalizing Matcha in new ways will really help fight
• 1:00:42
  against these price hikes that we're seeing.
• 1:00:44
  Because my fear and I feel this already actually is that the
• 1:00:48
  whole industry is very stale. We have the same products that
• 1:00:51
  aren't increasing in quality. The variety is not really
• 1:00:56
  increasing, right? We're seeing the same cultivars
• 1:00:58
  from the same regions or the same blends from the same
• 1:01:01
  regions. And nothing is increasing or
• 1:01:04
  changing in this whole market except price.
• 1:01:06
  And you know, these prices are increasing by 50% sometimes
• 1:01:11
  they're doubling. Every single consumer in the
• 1:01:13
  entire world that drinks matcha needs to be OK paying more money
• 1:01:18
  for the same or worse products. And that is like a horrible
• 1:01:23
  state for this industry to be in.
• 1:01:25
  And like what I'm hoping with, especially with a lot of this
• 1:01:27
  consumer LED movement is if there's a little more dynamism,
• 1:01:30
  a little more change, you know, pushing into origins outside of
• 1:01:33
  Japan, maybe opening their minds to other types of milled tea to
• 1:01:38
  dimensionalize this in some new ways that take pressure off the
• 1:01:42
  system. So that like there are very
• 1:01:46
  interesting and delicious things for people to try that don't
• 1:01:49
  cost $40 a can, right? Like that's just not accessible
• 1:01:54
  by most people. We're $50 a can over the really
• 1:01:57
  interesting stuff. But you know, we praise on the
• 1:02:00
  specialty Matcha podcast, like that stuff costs $100 a can, if
• 1:02:04
  you can even find it, right? Like that is not an interesting
• 1:02:08
  or dynamic or inclusive world, right?
• 1:02:11
  Like, and so it's like I really like to see people push further
• 1:02:15
  in their own education, finding these interesting pockets of
• 1:02:18
  value and deliciousness is and I just hope.
• 1:02:22
  Yeah, it's that's my little rant on that.
• 1:02:26
  I feel like we could have many rants on that because I even on
• 1:02:29
  that topic, I feel like there's an opportunity for consumers to
• 1:02:34
  question their own thinking. I, I shared a video about how
• 1:02:40
  to, you know, some framework around developing your own
• 1:02:42
  palette. And that was fired by a lot of
• 1:02:45
  the matcha review content that I see where some of the earlier
• 1:02:49
  creators who started reviewing Matcha brands, you know, there's
• 1:02:52
  a level of admiration and respect that consumers have for
• 1:02:56
  them. And so as I would watch their
• 1:02:58
  content and I would see other creators that are trying to
• 1:03:01
  build up their pages, share Matcha reviews, I'm hearing the
• 1:03:04
  same language and the same framework and even the same
• 1:03:07
  tasting notes, you know, like tasting the same matcha.
• 1:03:10
  And they're saying, yeah, I do taste lemon, or I do taste this,
• 1:03:13
  or I do taste that. And I'm like, that's great.
• 1:03:15
  I think it's helpful to have that fundamental foundational
• 1:03:18
  framework. But to now lean in on your own
• 1:03:21
  palate. And, well, how do you even do
• 1:03:23
  that? So I was trying to educate.
• 1:03:26
  These are the things like lean in on the foods that you know,
• 1:03:29
  taste different foods challenge your palate.
• 1:03:32
  You know, sometimes it's not only just a flavor, but a memory
• 1:03:35
  or other sensorial aspects of it that you can lean on outside of
• 1:03:40
  just tasting chestnuts or snap peas or it doesn't have, I mean,
• 1:03:44
  it's. Not.
• 1:03:46
  Like a Michelin, you know, menu. And I think that's great, but
• 1:03:49
  for someone who's never been to a Michelin restaurant or doesn't
• 1:03:52
  know what snap pea or pea tendrils taste like, like, what
• 1:03:55
  do they lean on? You know, like I did a matcha
• 1:03:58
  tasting with are Jade Leaf, a limited edition collection years
• 1:04:02
  ago with my nephews. We're at the time six and four.
• 1:04:07
  OK, well, we didn't tasting and we tasted some really good
• 1:04:11
  stuff. We, we also tasted different
• 1:04:12
  yokoros and different senchas. And I didn't tell them what they
• 1:04:16
  should taste. I said, you know, tell me, tell
• 1:04:18
  me what you taste. And one of them tasted Lucky
• 1:04:20
  Charms 1 tasted soup when they tasted Yo Caron is like, well,
• 1:04:24
  that makes sense because it's brothy, you know, like it has
• 1:04:27
  that, that mouth feel to it, but they're drawing on the foods
• 1:04:31
  that they know it doesn't mean that they're wrong.
• 1:04:34
  And so I, I even think within, you know, inviting a level of
• 1:04:37
  objectivity at the consumer level, because you know, on the
• 1:04:41
  end of, you know, knowing, you know, being very familiar with
• 1:04:44
  the Jade Leaf brand and Jade Leaf operating at the scale that
• 1:04:47
  they have and, and you know, they do now I see matcha reviews
• 1:04:52
  of Jade Leaf against other matcha brands and there are
• 1:04:56
  matcha brands that source from Jade Leaf.
• 1:04:58
  And so when I see reviews of these offerings, you know, JP
• 1:05:02
  get review and this friend, I'm like, they're kind of the same.
• 1:05:06
  You know, it's it people take the framework of Jade Leaf being
• 1:05:10
  maybe AUS founded brand and being like, you know, it's lower
• 1:05:14
  quality. This is entry level, you know,
• 1:05:16
  whatever whatever notions they have about it against this
• 1:05:20
  brand. And you know, I know on the back
• 1:05:22
  end of well. It's the same product.
• 1:05:26
  And it got a much higher rating. That's where you need to lean in
• 1:05:30
  on your palette and lean in on the education and not
• 1:05:34
  necessarily discounting a brand because it's the lower, you
• 1:05:38
  know, like a lower price point. This price was fair and
• 1:05:41
  accessible because we were operating at a scale in which we
• 1:05:43
  were able to do that. Not many brands, especially US
• 1:05:47
  funded brands, operate at that scale.
• 1:05:48
  Yeah, to get prices lower. So you know that's just a some
• 1:05:53
  two since Mark, I don't know if you want to add anything to
• 1:05:55
  that. No, no, I agree with everything
• 1:05:58
  you guys were saying. I think to your point, Matcha is
• 1:06:01
  still early in the curve where where this type of confusion
• 1:06:04
  exists and people are trying to understand what's good and
• 1:06:07
  what's bad and, and the descriptors are one way to try
• 1:06:11
  to understand that, that the marketers are saying.
• 1:06:14
  But the other big signal is price.
• 1:06:15
  And again, because it's a newer market, people can kind of price
• 1:06:21
  things to their own, their own desires and sometimes do it
• 1:06:25
  incorrectly. Like they'll, they'll tell a
• 1:06:27
  story and say like, This is why this tin of Matcha is $60.00
• 1:06:30
  when when in fact, like the cost to produce it wasn't nearly that
• 1:06:36
  much. But if they're able to tell a
• 1:06:37
  good enough story, they can charge that kind of price.
• 1:06:39
  And I think that those kind of disconnects will even themselves
• 1:06:43
  out over time, but never disappear.
• 1:06:45
  It's the same thing as the wine industry I would always draw
• 1:06:49
  lots of connections to because they're to the day there's
• 1:06:52
  there's wines that cost a lot of money for unknown reasons,
• 1:06:56
  because of a rarity factor, not because of the cost of
• 1:06:59
  production or or even a quality advantage.
• 1:07:03
  It's just they're being priced by the person who wants to price
• 1:07:06
  them. And if they can convince people
• 1:07:08
  that it is worthy of that price, then great.
• 1:07:11
  It's like art. They can't.
• 1:07:13
  Yeah, yeah, art is. Then it's the eye of the
• 1:07:15
  beholder, right? Like what Someone attributes
• 1:07:18
  value to it. And The funny thing is I think
• 1:07:21
  this would exist in matcha 2. You'll probably do taste test
• 1:07:23
  where you take a $60.00 tin and $20 one and you'll blind taste
• 1:07:28
  test with someone and they'll be like this one's better without
• 1:07:32
  knowing the price. But if they had known the price
• 1:07:34
  beforehand, they would have kind of potentially thought
• 1:07:36
  differently. That happens with wine all the
• 1:07:38
  time. The sommelier will be tricked
• 1:07:40
  and given a cheap wine and they're like, this is amazing.
• 1:07:43
  And I taste few leather and tobacco.
• 1:07:45
  And you know, they'll elevate it because they didn't know.
• 1:07:47
  And then it'd be like, ha, that's actually 2 bucks.
• 1:07:50
  So it's a funny thing how we trick ourselves.
• 1:07:54
  And like I was saying, I think that that will always be
• 1:07:57
  present. But hopefully as the market
• 1:07:58
  matures, more and more people have a better sense of what
• 1:08:02
  should cost what and, and who's charging fairly for the, the
• 1:08:07
  type of quality that they're delivering.
• 1:08:09
  And so that's why I hope we had and what we tried to do at Jade
• 1:08:11
  Leaf and and what through the Monster program trying to
• 1:08:14
  educate in that way as well. They need to trust their own
• 1:08:17
  judgment as we live in a paradigm where we had to be told
• 1:08:21
  what was good but like it's only flipping to you deciding
• 1:08:25
  yourself what's good. Yeah, it's a great point.
• 1:08:29
  I hope that like that's that's it keeps turning that way, yeah.
• 1:08:32
  Yeah. And I think that's the great
• 1:08:34
  part with brands that that share that level of education is
• 1:08:38
  here's the framework and now decide, you know, like question
• 1:08:42
  it, you know, I, I, in the last few weeks, I've received so many
• 1:08:46
  comments and DMS about what is the best way to do this?
• 1:08:49
  What is the best matcha brand? What is the best?
• 1:08:51
  And, and my responses to them. It's very similar to how I
• 1:08:55
  navigate my personal life when, when people, my friends and
• 1:08:58
  family ask me for advice, I'm never going to tell someone what
• 1:09:01
  to do. Like if some fools, what do I do
• 1:09:04
  in this situation? I try to ask them questions
• 1:09:08
  like, well, what is important to you and help them get to their
• 1:09:11
  own answer that they were going to find on their own.
• 1:09:15
  And same thing with with matcha questions and education.
• 1:09:19
  Best matcha brand. What is the best preparation for
• 1:09:22
  a cafe? It's so nuanced because every
• 1:09:24
  operation looks different. And I can't say you should hand
• 1:09:27
  whisk when I've never been in your cafe.
• 1:09:29
  I don't know what your velocity, I don't know what feed like, I
• 1:09:34
  mean, there's so much framework around going into your, your own
• 1:09:37
  data, look at your POS, see what's doing well, look at the
• 1:09:42
  feedback. And I know like on the business
• 1:09:45
  side, feedback can be really tough.
• 1:09:47
  Like we're all people. So when when someone criticizes
• 1:09:51
  something that you put your heart into and says something
• 1:09:54
  that is constructive or even critical, like that could be
• 1:09:57
  hard to receive. But if you can separate yourself
• 1:10:00
  and, you know, as if I was a cafe owner and I got feedback
• 1:10:03
  around my matcha, I would question, you know, what are we
• 1:10:07
  doing? Just like, how could we do
• 1:10:08
  something differently? People are saying it this way.
• 1:10:11
  How am I brewing it? How am I preparing it?
• 1:10:13
  What is my dosage like? What are the ratios like?
• 1:10:16
  Like there's so much to to ask ourselves versus going to
• 1:10:20
  someone like me, Mark, or yourselves and saying, hey, tell
• 1:10:23
  me what to do. What is the best?
• 1:10:25
  It's almost the wrong question because it's you don't have
• 1:10:28
  enough context to answer it. Yeah, because there's like 100
• 1:10:33
  right answers, just like which one's like, which one's the
• 1:10:36
  right for you? That's.
• 1:10:37
  Yeah. That's a great point.
• 1:10:39
  And, and it's interesting because in the topic of hand
• 1:10:43
  whisking or even batching matcha, there are people who are
• 1:10:46
  going to say hand whisking is the best for whatever reason,
• 1:10:49
  Cafe operators that maybe manage both a coffee and matcha program
• 1:10:53
  will say batting matcha has been incredible for us and we
• 1:10:55
  actually take the necessary precautions to slow oxidation.
• 1:10:59
  And I think that's, that's great.
• 1:11:01
  I think the most important thing is you find a method or even
• 1:11:04
  structure matcha program that works for you.
• 1:11:07
  And, and that's how you differentiate yourselves.
• 1:11:08
  Because if we were to just essentially say this is the
• 1:11:11
  matcha program everyone should adopt, well, what would
• 1:11:14
  appreciate you from competitors in your community, you know,
• 1:11:17
  like I think bring our own flair.
• 1:11:19
  That's such a good point too, because there's like you have to
• 1:11:22
  compare yourselves to the other cafes and like what is the
• 1:11:25
  unique value that you're bringing?
• 1:11:26
  Because if everyone does it in the same way, like that's super
• 1:11:29
  boring, right? That's like not any like richer
• 1:11:33
  thriving like industry from cafe drinks perspective.
• 1:11:37
  It's a what are like now I'm going to ask what's the best way
• 1:11:41
  to make a batch group? What are the principles that
• 1:11:44
  someone needs to know in a high velocity environment to make
• 1:11:47
  drinks quickly? I'll phrase it that way.
• 1:11:50
  To make drinks quickly, gosh, your, I mean your broader
• 1:11:54
  matcha. I'm going to lean back on the
• 1:11:56
  broader matcha program because it's it's not even just about
• 1:11:59
  the preparation method, but it's the systems you have in place.
• 1:12:02
  So it goes back to your, your, the barista training and
• 1:12:05
  education. Do they understand how you brew?
• 1:12:08
  No matter what preparation method you leverage, are they
• 1:12:12
  educated on it? Can they do it efficiently?
• 1:12:15
  Is your matcha station structured and designed
• 1:12:17
  efficiently? And, and I do this for fun.
• 1:12:20
  I go to a cafe and I just like to observe.
• 1:12:22
  And it's my version of people watching, you know, I'll watch.
• 1:12:25
  And I'm like. I do need to.
• 1:12:27
  And with within batching, there's its own set of
• 1:12:30
  considerations to like your ratio, how you're dispensing,
• 1:12:36
  how you're storing, how you're keeping it cool and batching.
• 1:12:40
  From what I've seen, and I'm just one person and I recognize
• 1:12:43
  that, but in my time over the last several years going to
• 1:12:47
  cafes and traveling, I've seen batching mostly done
• 1:12:50
  incorrectly. But it's not my length to say
• 1:12:53
  hey, you need to do this. Hopefully they find the content
• 1:12:56
  and can question their own methods themselves.
• 1:13:00
  But to sell or serve matcha at scale is going to be different
• 1:13:04
  in a high volume cafe as it is in a pop up Like their their own
• 1:13:08
  sets of considerations to explore.
• 1:13:11
  But I would argue if you are a cafe, a high volume cafe.
• 1:13:15
  So a cafe serving 100 plus drinks a day or even per hour
• 1:13:20
  because they do exist to explore methods and explore ways to
• 1:13:26
  evolve your broader matcha program.
• 1:13:28
  So what if that is batching matcha?
• 1:13:30
  And to do that at scale and efficiently?
• 1:13:32
  There are ways in which you can do that while still educating
• 1:13:36
  people on why you do it and how you try to maintain its quality.
• 1:13:42
  Because batching is stigmatized. Yeah, there was actually,
• 1:13:45
  there's a really interesting parallel in the coffee world.
• 1:13:48
  I've been into coffee actually as long as I've been into tea.
• 1:13:51
  And I moved to New York City in 2016 and it was right around the
• 1:13:54
  time when the narrative started switching between pour overs
• 1:13:58
  made to order and batching. And there was a new wave of
• 1:14:02
  Australian run cafes that took a really radical stance to me
• 1:14:06
  because I got into coffee at like the peak of the Blue Bottle
• 1:14:09
  era where you'd see like lines out the door.
• 1:14:12
  We're not compromising on quality.
• 1:14:14
  We're brewing everything to order.
• 1:14:17
  We don't care how long you have to wait.
• 1:14:18
  We are product focused companies like, oh wow, that's so cool.
• 1:14:22
  It's so cool that you can be a big brand and raise tons of VC
• 1:14:26
  funding and can kind of promote these concepts.
• 1:14:29
  And then I do started to hear these narratives about batching.
• 1:14:32
  And then you you buy a couple pour overs, 5-6 bucks, the
• 1:14:36
  person behind the bar, it looks like it's an inconvenience.
• 1:14:39
  They don't really care, right? Like this is just does not
• 1:14:42
  belong in this high past like high paced environment and they
• 1:14:47
  don't taste very good. And then like these cafes
• 1:14:50
  started popping up. They're like, yeah, we've like
• 1:14:52
  rethought batching. We're not going to let it sit
• 1:14:54
  for four hours. And it started to taste better.
• 1:14:58
  And then everyone in the city started switching where this
• 1:15:00
  whole pour over movement switched to a like batch brew.
• 1:15:03
  And I'd go in, I'd say ask for a batch brew.
• 1:15:05
  And I feel like we're right at that stage with matcha.
• 1:15:08
  It's like we're so close to it being very good and stigma just
• 1:15:12
  it just needs to deliver in the cup.
• 1:15:14
  Yeah. And, and that comes through the
• 1:15:16
  education because with these who are batching to optimize their
• 1:15:22
  workflow and, and create a better, you know, more efficient
• 1:15:24
  workflow. Yes, you're batching, but there
• 1:15:27
  are additional considerations like, you know, how do you
• 1:15:30
  batch? And even with that, like this
• 1:15:32
  could be its own conversation about batching because it's so
• 1:15:36
  complex and again, has to be tailored to that cafe's
• 1:15:40
  operation. So I don't have a simple answer
• 1:15:42
  to say this is, this is the way you batch, but there are things
• 1:15:45
  to consider if you choose to batch.
• 1:15:48
  And one of the best matcha drinks that I have had started
• 1:15:51
  as a batch and the batch and you know, the matcha they used
• 1:15:54
  kettle. So batch with such a high
• 1:15:56
  quality matcha offering and brand done really well, you
• 1:16:01
  know, and, and I've had similar in one of the our sub stacks, a
• 1:16:05
  different Cafe was using kettle and they batched and it was a
• 1:16:08
  very different experience. So you could take this, correct.
• 1:16:11
  And I think that's something cafes don't recognize is they,
• 1:16:14
  you know, they're of course wanting the high quality because
• 1:16:17
  that's what priest says, is this ceremonial great?
• 1:16:20
  Is this first harvest? So they're like, we absolutely
• 1:16:22
  should source high quality matcha, despite the format in
• 1:16:26
  which they serve the drinks, which is mostly iced matcha
• 1:16:28
  lattes. And if you could start with a
• 1:16:29
  really high quality products, But if you don't have the
• 1:16:32
  systems in place to protect its integrity through storage,
• 1:16:36
  through the proper, you know, water temperatures in which you
• 1:16:39
  dial in matcha artist goes out the window, you know, then you
• 1:16:43
  know, what started as a a great high quality product doesn't
• 1:16:47
  translate over to the customer's experience.
• 1:16:49
  And so there's a big gap in in education at the food service
• 1:16:53
  level. And so there's some
• 1:16:55
  traditionalists and even a lot of the constructive feedback
• 1:16:59
  we've gotten were from tea houses and founders of matcha
• 1:17:03
  bars who are like, we would never batch.
• 1:17:06
  And I'm like, absolutely, this content isn't for you.
• 1:17:09
  I'm like I they had, they serve a very important purpose in the
• 1:17:13
  broader matcha market for people like me who have developed in my
• 1:17:17
  own journey and people like ourselves and, and I know Mark,
• 1:17:20
  we would absolutely love to sit in a tea house or a matcha bar,
• 1:17:24
  have our drinks whisk to order and eat the nuances of the
• 1:17:28
  different offerings they have. The average Cafe likely serves
• 1:17:32
  one offering of matcha from one brand have loosely teas, but you
• 1:17:38
  know, hand whisking to order with the tools that are
• 1:17:41
  available like the bamboo whisk or even, you know, silicone
• 1:17:44
  resin whisk. There are pros and cons to that
• 1:17:47
  and and from what we've seen, right.
• 1:17:49
  I know maybe last year I sent you a video about I created a
• 1:17:53
  video called Sad Matcha. Yeah, I remember song.
• 1:17:57
  Was it Angel? By Sarah.
• 1:17:59
  McLachlan, who's like, you know, in the eye.
• 1:18:03
  It was just all this, like, yes, yes, I know.
• 1:18:05
  Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:06
  Sad looking damn melancholic. Song, yeah, and.
• 1:18:10
  So. They're, you know, yes.
• 1:18:13
  Cafes are hand whisking. But again, you know the question
• 1:18:16
  that that I brought up earlier in the conversation, is that
• 1:18:18
  enough? Like is that enough to to use
• 1:18:21
  these tools without the baseline knowledge about how to use it
• 1:18:26
  correctly, to use proper technique if a cafe is adopting
• 1:18:29
  it to honor culture or tradition, because there's so
• 1:18:33
  much more to that. Like I as a matcha consumer and
• 1:18:37
  even someone who questions that thinking of, you know, should a
• 1:18:40
  cafe even have to honor? Do we have, why do we have that
• 1:18:43
  expectations for food service just to honor culture?
• 1:18:46
  There's different ways to honor it.
• 1:18:48
  Can a barista tell me where the matcha's from?
• 1:18:50
  Can they out the to war as they do coffee, you know, and and I
• 1:18:56
  can count on one hand how many times I've asked a question to
• 1:18:59
  different baristas that have a response with the level of
• 1:19:02
  confidence and conviction, because most times they're
• 1:19:05
  confused. They're like, I actually don't
• 1:19:07
  know where this from or I don't know what brand we use.
• 1:19:10
  And, and again, I don't think it's a cafe or a barista's
• 1:19:14
  fault. It has been difficult for them
• 1:19:17
  to access much education that is relevant to their operations.
• 1:19:21
  Yeah, that makes sense. And about the product itself, I
• 1:19:25
  mean just being. Told that something is
• 1:19:26
  ceremonial grade or good for lattes isn't interesting at all.
• 1:19:30
  Like what is there to remember about that product that you're
• 1:19:33
  serving versus like come from Kagoshima and has very volcanic
• 1:19:37
  soil and it's from Oku Midori, which is generally very green
• 1:19:40
  cultivar and has his great taste.
• 1:19:42
  Like that's interesting. Like we aren't meeting with like
• 1:19:45
  these interesting things that someone can actually attach
• 1:19:47
  themselves to or just like being told that this is good or that's
• 1:19:51
  good or use a chasa and respect the culture.
• 1:19:53
  But like if we make it more product focus, I think that we
• 1:19:57
  meet coffee people where they're at coffee people are interested
• 1:20:01
  in coffee and all the specialty components of the coffee, which
• 1:20:05
  are totally and that's the name of this podcast.
• 1:20:07
  So we're advocating for it. Like the specialty aspects of
• 1:20:12
  Matcha just get totally ignored. Like no wonder they don't care.
• 1:20:16
  They don't know anything about AAA blend culinary slash
• 1:20:21
  ceremonial grade suitable for. Totally.
• 1:20:25
  There's nothing interesting about that product and there's
• 1:20:28
  just enough consumer are. Pulling that information out
• 1:20:32
  like it's not a expectation like abide from the consumer like the
• 1:20:37
  Breeze does, doesn't necessarily need to have that level of
• 1:20:41
  education to present to the consumer in a very professional
• 1:20:45
  way. Like, it's not an expectation
• 1:20:47
  yet, but I feel like, you know, as, you know, the matcha program
• 1:20:51
  educating more and more people know like more about matcha, you
• 1:20:54
  know, there will be more people pulling the information like
• 1:20:57
  from the baristas, from the industries.
• 1:20:59
  And that becomes the new expectation, the new status quo.
• 1:21:02
  Yeah, I I agree because baristas as it relates to matcha.
• 1:21:05
  Education. A lot of people will have one of
• 1:21:09
  their first matcha experiences at a cafe, whether it be a
• 1:21:13
  Starbucks or a local cafe. They're at the front lines of
• 1:21:16
  that education and they aren't resourced.
• 1:21:19
  And there was a comment recently I saw on Abby, you had her on
• 1:21:25
  the pod. Yeah, Abby, a matcha brand, had
• 1:21:28
  some critical feedback for her. And I read it and I.
• 1:21:30
  Responded to it because I thought, wow, it is, is actually
• 1:21:35
  a matcha brand's responsibility to educate the consumer, not a
• 1:21:38
  consumer like herself having to extract information that they
• 1:21:43
  expect of her, to educate her community.
• 1:21:47
  So if you start a matcha brand, there's a level of
• 1:21:51
  responsibility. I personally believe you have to
• 1:21:54
  access the information and to share it.
• 1:21:56
  And it's it's interesting for a matcha brand to have that
• 1:21:59
  expectation for a matcha consumer.
• 1:22:01
  Yeah, that playing the role of the police like you have the
• 1:22:04
  police. Yeah, it's a it's a wild time
• 1:22:08
  we're. In Yeah, yes, it is.
• 1:22:10
  Yeah, I'm personally curious about.
• 1:22:12
  Like has your mission? And mission changed moving from
• 1:22:16
  Jade Leaf into the Matcha program.
• 1:22:18
  And if there is like what are the changes and what you would
• 1:22:23
  not probably have done back in Jade Leaf and you are doing
• 1:22:26
  right now at the matcha program, Mark, I feel like I've been
• 1:22:29
  talking a lot. I know, very.
• 1:22:32
  Concisely, I think our. Understanding.
• 1:22:35
  Of where good matcha comes from, what makes good matcha, how
• 1:22:38
  consumers in the US should come to understand it or or enjoy it
• 1:22:42
  themselves has broadened Jade Leaf by by necessity, brands
• 1:22:47
  have to stand for something. So Jade Leaf particularly hung
• 1:22:51
  its hat on Japanese matcha that was certified organic.
• 1:22:54
  And then we promised a fair price, which people just had to
• 1:22:57
  trust us on. And those were the tenants of
• 1:22:59
  that brand. And other brands have different
• 1:23:01
  tenants, like we only sell Uji matcha or we only sell matcha of
• 1:23:05
  a certain quality level. And and it did Joe, his point
• 1:23:09
  earlier, it was frustrating when other brands would kind of be
• 1:23:12
  dismissive or, or outright mean, I guess, in the way they talked
• 1:23:16
  about other brands like that steak matcha or those guys,
• 1:23:20
  they're selling culinary because they're they're a bad company.
• 1:23:23
  Like that's not the case. I think different businesses can
• 1:23:26
  serve different consumers that are looking for different
• 1:23:28
  things. And that's all right.
• 1:23:29
  We don't have to poke fun at each other.
• 1:23:31
  And there are cases where people are, like we said before,
• 1:23:34
  misrepresenting or just doing something bad.
• 1:23:37
  They're calling something high quality when it isn't.
• 1:23:40
  They're charging too much money for something and, you know,
• 1:23:43
  soaking up that profit themselves.
• 1:23:45
  And it's not making it back to a tea farmer like you're expecting
• 1:23:48
  it to. Those brands, I hoped, again
• 1:23:51
  kind of fall to the wayside and eventually go away.
• 1:23:53
  But the idea that, yeah, brands are kind of calling each other
• 1:23:56
  out for stuff, I've never found to be super productive.
• 1:23:59
  But to answer your original question, what, how is our
• 1:24:01
  understanding expanded or what, how would we do things
• 1:24:04
  differently in a new mantra business?
• 1:24:07
  I think I would be more broadened in the way we source
• 1:24:11
  things. Again, as long as we're being
• 1:24:14
  honest and telling the proper story about where things came
• 1:24:18
  from. I do think good tea and good
• 1:24:21
  matcha tea in particular can come from other places outside
• 1:24:24
  of Japan. I do think there is great matcha
• 1:24:27
  that is not certified organic. Arguably it's it's better in a
• 1:24:31
  number of dimensions and can still be very clean and healthy
• 1:24:34
  and trustworthy. So I think we would, we would
• 1:24:36
  broaden outside of some of the constraints that we put on
• 1:24:39
  ourselves at Jade Leaf, you know, in this new age and with
• 1:24:44
  the the overarching goal of, again, just connecting more
• 1:24:47
  people with matcha that they will enjoy and allowing more
• 1:24:51
  people to enjoy it, allowing more people to access it,
• 1:24:53
  allowing more people to understand that the cool things
• 1:24:57
  about where it comes from or, you know, or the people behind
• 1:25:02
  it that made it amazing. You know, I think we would, we
• 1:25:04
  would broaden ourselves in those respects.
• 1:25:06
  That's wonderful. Makes sense.
• 1:25:09
  Yeah. So as we wrap.
• 1:25:10
  Up. I know you guys are.
• 1:25:11
  Starting a new venture mindful, you guys want to talk a little
• 1:25:14
  bit about that store Jewel, you want to take that one So do you
• 1:25:18
  do you want? Me to well, I'll take it off and
• 1:25:21
  you can. Give it some some nuance.
• 1:25:23
  Yeah, Mindful and the the more complete name that we've now
• 1:25:27
  evolved to is Mindful Drops, which is very descriptive of
• 1:25:30
  what the product actually does. It stems from our love for
• 1:25:34
  matcha and in particular when you get into the the nerdy
• 1:25:38
  science behind matcha. There's there's a lot of reasons
• 1:25:41
  why matcha tastes the way it does and why it makes people
• 1:25:44
  feel the way it does. And one of its most magical
• 1:25:47
  properties, which is really almost exclusive to the green
• 1:25:50
  tea plant is the the natural occurrence of a compound called
• 1:25:53
  L theanine. And it does exist in some
• 1:25:56
  mushroom species, but in very small concentrations.
• 1:25:59
  It's the green tea plant where it really is expressive and, and
• 1:26:03
  people can get its benefits and its effects.
• 1:26:05
  And it's a very neat compound and very well studied at this
• 1:26:09
  point that hey, the occurrence of belphinine alongside caffeine
• 1:26:13
  actually can in most folks promote a better sense of focus
• 1:26:16
  or a more harm alert feeling. And it draws back to cool
• 1:26:21
  history of like why monks turned to Matra in the 1st place or
• 1:26:25
  green tea in the 1st place. It helped them concentrate to,
• 1:26:28
  to meditate for extended periods.
• 1:26:30
  So it's a, it's a pretty magical compound and, and it has been
• 1:26:33
  extracted and fermented and isolated into a supplement form
• 1:26:38
  for people to take in the morning with caffeine to, to
• 1:26:41
  achieve a better focused state or reduced jitters.
• 1:26:43
  And it's taken in the evening as more of a relaxing agent to help
• 1:26:47
  you calm your mind and wind down and sleep better.
• 1:26:49
  So it's become a popular supplement, but for us coming
• 1:26:52
  from matcha, one of our favorite things was to always try to pair
• 1:26:56
  it with, you know, our caffeine in the morning.
• 1:26:59
  For a while now you've kind of either had to take take it
• 1:27:02
  alongside anything other than Matcha to get that LPNI effect.
• 1:27:07
  But what we're trying to do is make it more convenient and and
• 1:27:09
  easy to use. So the mindful drops are a
• 1:27:12
  liquid form of Alpheanine that is unflavored.
• 1:27:16
  So you can add it to your cup of coffee and recreate that that
• 1:27:20
  magic synergy that exists in matcha, or you can even add it
• 1:27:24
  to your matcha to increase the Alpheanine attacks.
• 1:27:27
  Because even in naturally occurring matcha, even in the
• 1:27:30
  highest quality where, where the umami flavor, which comes
• 1:27:34
  largely from Alpine is, is expressed, you're getting maybe
• 1:27:39
  30 to 40 milligrams per per gram of matcha.
• 1:27:43
  And if you're having a couple grams that maybe you're getting
• 1:27:45
  100 milligrams of Alpine and in a really high quality cup of
• 1:27:49
  matcha. And in the scientific studies,
• 1:27:51
  the dosage that is effective in folks can often be many times
• 1:27:55
  that right around the 200 milligram mark.
• 1:27:58
  So there's, there's reason you would even, you would even add
• 1:28:01
  Alpine to matcha to increase that, that Alpine concentration.
• 1:28:06
  So the, the hope with the drops is it allows you to do that and
• 1:28:09
  it broadens the, the the feeling benefit of matcha to a larger
• 1:28:14
  base of, of consumers that can now get it through coffee or
• 1:28:18
  they can add it to their chamomile tea at night to to
• 1:28:20
  relax more just trying to take this magical compound and and
• 1:28:23
  make it easier. So that's what mindful drops is,
• 1:28:26
  is trying to be the jewel. You can expand on that and I
• 1:28:29
  think making. Accessible in and versatile
• 1:28:35
  because, you know, at our time at Shade Leaf, we had many
• 1:28:39
  coffee drinkers come to us saying, you know, I still love
• 1:28:42
  coffee, but I don't like the way it makes me feel.
• 1:28:44
  So I'm matcha. And so they've had to learn to
• 1:28:46
  love matcha matcha. It, it, it can be an acquired
• 1:28:50
  taste, you know, unless you really love it and there's going
• 1:28:54
  to be a camp of people who don't necessarily enjoy the flavor
• 1:28:58
  components of matcha, and that's OK.
• 1:29:01
  The thing about L theanine is in what we're doing with mindful
• 1:29:04
  drops is you can add it to any drink.
• 1:29:06
  Like I, I've been experimenting with it.
• 1:29:08
  By the time this episode launched, it'll likely be
• 1:29:11
  available for purchase or very close.
• 1:29:13
  I add it to water at night, you know, 2 squeezes, 400
• 1:29:17
  milligrams. And it helps me because I've
• 1:29:19
  historically have had issues falling asleep, like my sleep
• 1:29:23
  hygiene is terrible. And it's something that I'm
• 1:29:25
  working on. And I take 400 milligrams at
• 1:29:27
  night sometimes I've done 6. You know, I've, I've just been
• 1:29:29
  experimenting with the effects and it helps me especially with,
• 1:29:33
  you know, my racing mind just kind of come down a bit, feel a
• 1:29:39
  little bit more grounded so that I can actually sleep.
• 1:29:41
  How about whiskey or wine? Yeah, I don't drink alcohol.
• 1:29:44
  So that's it's, it's really. Helpful, you know, like we're
• 1:29:46
  seeing. The rise of nootropics and
• 1:29:49
  people that are, you know, not drinking alcohol.
• 1:29:52
  And so we're seeing, you know, compounds like L theanine being
• 1:29:56
  integrated into cocktails and, you know, other drinks.
• 1:29:59
  And so that's something we're we're hoping to bring is a very
• 1:30:03
  convenient, you know, drop format of L theanine that you
• 1:30:07
  can take throughout the day depending on what your goals
• 1:30:09
  are. And it doesn't only have to be
• 1:30:10
  in coffee or matcha. It doesn't have to be just at
• 1:30:13
  night, but added to anything like if for me, you know, as
• 1:30:17
  someone that can be in a heightened state, you know, if
• 1:30:20
  I'm feeling anxious, I took some before this call.
• 1:30:23
  I took a drop before this call because, you know, I'm telling
• 1:30:25
  my like, it's always nerve wracking having to speak about
• 1:30:28
  anything, but it helped me feel just a little bit more grounded
• 1:30:33
  so that I could share what I was hoping to share in a more
• 1:30:36
  composed, confident way. And I hope that came through.
• 1:30:40
  But so it's something that I think could benefit a lot of
• 1:30:43
  people. I know a lot of people take it
• 1:30:44
  for anxious feelings if they're in a, you know, a stress state.
• 1:30:49
  And that's something, you know, a lot of the feedback that we've
• 1:30:51
  been getting of people who are already Athenian customers is
• 1:30:56
  that it has helped them in those various ways.
• 1:30:58
  So we're excited for mindful drops.
• 1:31:00
  It's, it's going to be a convenient, you know, travel
• 1:31:04
  friendly bottle that you could take anywhere.
• 1:31:06
  And I've, I've truly loved it, but I might be a little biased,
• 1:31:12
  but we're, we're hoping people, you know, find value.
• 1:31:15
  In it and helps. Them and and helps them really
• 1:31:16
  unlock what they're hoping to do, whether it be, you know, com
• 1:31:20
  focus during the day to get into their flow state with work at
• 1:31:24
  night to relax or throughout the day when they're just needing,
• 1:31:26
  you know, a little bit of emotional support in my support
• 1:31:30
  bottle. Love it.
• 1:31:31
  Bringing the the magic of matcha.
• 1:31:33
  Like outside inside of the matcha.
• 1:31:35
  Context into other parts of life or for people who just don't
• 1:31:38
  like the tastes. It's really awesome and but
• 1:31:41
  we'll leave a link to when the show notes too if anyone wants
• 1:31:43
  to order it. Thank you.
• 1:31:44
  That's really generous of you. Thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:31:47
  Thank you so much for. Your time and your work.
• 1:31:49
  Both the Jade Leaf and the Matcha program and for coming on
• 1:31:52
  the show, it's a really great conversation.
• 1:31:55
  It's always nice to have like these insider industry talks.
• 1:31:57
  So it's almost like group therapy sometimes.
• 1:32:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:32:02
  Because you're, you know, we're in the arena, so.
• 1:32:04
  It, you know. Thank you.
• 1:32:05
  For everything that you both have been spearheading with the
• 1:32:09
  level of education and you know how robust it is because, you
• 1:32:13
  know, I mean, prior to the Specialty Matcha podcast, these
• 1:32:17
  conversations happened behind the scenes with industry
• 1:32:20
  friends. You know, outside of that,
• 1:32:22
  brands share their own narrative of what they wanted to come up.
• 1:32:25
  This is really incredible what you both host and continue to,
• 1:32:28
  you know, to share with the world and and I'm very grateful
• 1:32:31
  for the both of you. Thank you.
• 1:32:33
  It's our pleasure and thank you so much to our listeners.
• 1:32:36
  And if you. Enjoyed this.
• 1:32:37
  Please consider sharing with a friend and we'll see you in the
• 1:32:40
  next one. Thanks.
• 1:32:41
  See you in the future. Thanks.
• 1:32:42
  Yeah.