Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / 2026 Predictions

Transcript

2026 Predictions · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:06
Hello, and welcome to Specialty Monster Podcast.
0:08
My name is Ryan. This is Michael Ho Zhongjun, who
0:11
also goes by Sam. Hello.
0:12
Hello. And we're the cofounders of
0:14
Sanko Matcha Products. Yeah, we launched this podcast
0:16
to discuss our learning journey in Matcha, share startup stories
0:19
and interview experts. And today is January the 2026.
0:25
Happy New Year. This is the first episode of
0:29
this year and hope we are off to a good start.
0:31
Indeed, and wish all the best to our listeners in the coming
0:34
year. And it's also the first podcast
0:36
episode we've done where we both are using our brand new mics
0:39
from DJI. Hopefully, this audio quality
0:42
issue will finally be put to bed.
0:44
So we're making investments in the new year.
0:47
That's right. That's right.
0:48
And some new equipments on, you know, shooting footage, new
0:52
cameras, new drones. Hopefully we can get some, like,
0:55
very exciting frames that we can show you when we are venturing
1:00
into the wilderness. Ryan.
1:01
Yes, we can capture a lot more at Origin, which we're super
1:05
excited about with some wearable cameras and drones.
1:08
And we'll hopefully have some much more like multimedia
1:11
content in the coming year to share what it's really like at
1:15
Origin. And this was a, you know, last
1:17
year was a particularly unique year for us because at least it
1:20
was the first time and I believe it was your first time when
1:23
we've just done so much tea travel.
1:25
I've never been to the three major East Asian tea producing
1:29
regions in the same year. And we got to see several tea
1:32
producing regions in China, in Japan, in three different places
1:37
in Japan, and then in Korea, in South Korea.
1:40
And so really just comparing and contrasting and talking with
1:44
producers and farmers, understanding what they think
1:47
about quality, not just for matcha, but for tea in general.
1:50
It really renewed my sense of appreciation for the incredible
1:56
spectrum of flavors that you can get out of tea.
1:59
Like we went from a fresh milled Goku row that we milled on our
2:05
countertop mill with the cooling system and controlled
2:09
compression that straight up tasted like, you know, avocado
2:13
in a blender. It was so rich and so creamy and
2:16
umami all the way through profiles that kind of tastes
2:20
like mud in the earth, like fresh show poor from Jingmai
2:25
Mountain that was worldwide, which is wet fermented in
2:29
hmonghai, which is so earthy and dark.
2:32
You would look at it and think that it's black coffee and all
2:35
of the this spectrum is mind blowing of the flavors that can
2:40
be expressed just from this one plant.
2:43
It's kind of miraculous. Yes, indeed, in retrospect we
2:46
should have invest all these new equipments much earlier.
2:50
We can get some pretty amazing footage on all of these things
2:54
we have experienced and not only we end up tasting all these tea.
2:58
We went to all these places doing a lot of these places
3:01
during their production season and just seeing the difference
3:05
between all these people in how they understand the T plant
3:10
itself. How do they farm them, how do
3:12
they gardening them and how do they process them into the end
3:16
product and how do they understand their preference and
3:21
their quality for the product? They wanted to create very
3:24
interesting contracts. And I would say in some ways
3:27
they are quite in the opposite direction almost if you compare
3:32
how tea is getting farmed, not not necessarily getting farmed,
3:36
getting, you know, treated in the wilderness in in in in
3:41
Yunnan and in some places in Korea.
3:43
And how like some of the tea plants gets farmed in these like
3:47
hyper engineered, hyper accurate gardens in Japan and also in
3:52
some places in China too. And they both, like, they all
3:56
end up producing very incredibly complex flavors, just very, very
4:01
different flavor profile. I think it's quite interesting
4:04
to see an experience and also in such short period of time we
4:08
literally get to experience all these things back-to-back, which
4:12
was quite amazing. Pretty interesting contrast in
4:15
perspective shifting moments for me.
4:19
You know, this podcast is titled Predictions for 2026, but we
4:22
wanted to reflect a little bit about what we learned in 2025
4:26
and what we saw Zoom June. What were some of the more
4:28
surprising things that we learned with respect to
4:31
specialty matcha or even specialty team more generally in
4:36
the last year that we learned or that we saw became a trend?
4:41
Let me think, I guess from a practicality standpoint, we
4:44
really learned a lot actually for a lot of the knowledge that
4:49
we have learned previously. You know, we never see them in
4:53
practice, especially in much of making and much of farming.
4:57
And we learned all these things in a very, very interesting way
5:02
for our listeners. If you have listened to some of
5:05
our previous episodes, we commissioned a little Tancha
5:08
farm in a place called Qiman in China.
5:11
And we were very naively trying to apply it our own
5:16
understanding of how to make Tancha into this little farm
5:20
that is sitting in a mountainous area in Anhui, which
5:26
historically produce Hong cha, red tea or black tea.
5:31
And no one knows how to make tensha in the area.
5:35
We were kind of the quote UN quote expert and we were telling
5:39
working with the farmers on how to how to how to do shade
5:43
growing, how to do picking and how to do processing and
5:48
everything is super, super, you know, bootstrap and grassroot.
5:53
And obviously we end up making some pretty, you know, not tasty
5:57
tea. But I guess one thing that we
5:58
did end up learning is just how incredibly difficult it is to do
6:03
all of these and how incredibly, how much assumption I would say
6:10
that we made before we kind of dice into doing this whole
6:14
Commission project like steaming time, processing time, toasting
6:19
time. How to how exactly do we control
6:22
the moisture? How much moisture do we want to
6:25
leave in the teeth? And how do we how could we even
6:28
know that, you know, the tea is dry enough by the end of the
6:31
day? We have no idea what we were
6:33
doing and obviously we didn't do everything right.
6:37
And and that was actually a pretty interesting head start
6:41
for us to kind of or, or how do I say it, it really prime us
6:46
into a very good mentality when we actually got to experience
6:50
all of these in Japan. So the harvest season in Japan
6:53
is later than Chimen. So from back-to-back we finished
6:57
our processing in Chimen and we had to, we had to Japan to see
7:02
some actual, you know, Macha farming and Macha production.
7:05
And that was pretty, pretty interesting.
7:07
Like we, I think the whole Chimen experience kind of prime
7:11
us into a mindset that we, you know, know exactly we want to
7:17
look for. Like we know a lot of the
7:20
questions we wanted to ask. And that's kind of prep us into
7:25
the mentality of not just a learner, but a participator of
7:30
the whole process. We want to learn it so that we
7:33
can actually do it in one day. And I think that's a very
7:37
interesting mindset that the Ho Chi Minh project has primed us
7:40
into. Yeah, it's like one of those
7:42
things they say that you haven't really learned something until
7:44
you're able to teach it. It's a very similar mindset,
7:48
like even small list of details, like how do you homogeneously
7:53
steam the tea? Because we were doing everything
7:56
100% hand process. So we had a gigantic wood fired
8:00
wok and even just like keeping lasting the right temperature
8:04
with some gigantic chopsticks in what is essentially a big dim
8:08
sum tray. I for about 8 hours I steamed
8:12
200 gram wet leaf batches and just making sure everything is
8:17
steamed the right time and homogeneously steam.
8:21
So there's some parts that aren't under or over.
8:23
It really makes you appreciate like, just like one very tiny
8:28
piece of tea processing that's done has been mastered in Japan
8:33
when it comes to to the steaming uniformly at the right
8:37
temperature at the right time and in such a uniform way.
8:41
Yeah, it's think, you know, when it comes to steaming, like
8:45
modernization or mechanicization of the process really helped
8:49
improve quality because when you look at, you know, Shachi, like
8:53
pan fried shachi for other teas like green tea in China or Korea
8:59
or poor in Yunnan, I think that the traditional way still use a
9:03
better product because unlike steam shotching, pan fry
9:07
shotching, you can actually touch the tea in the process,
9:11
feel the density, feel the moisture and you have a lot more
9:14
control in the end product versus steaming.
9:17
You know, you close the lid and you can't see anything.
9:21
Yeah. It's a blind box and I think
9:24
there's, you know, like too little control of the process
9:28
that we couldn't really do a lot of on time optimization along
9:32
the way. In a handmade framework, yeah.
9:35
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was interesting.
9:38
The other interesting thing is for my entire like quote UN
9:41
quote tea career, I've been educating on tea for close to a
9:45
decade. And I always used to say that,
9:47
you know, if with matcha shaded cultivation leads to light
9:51
deficiency in the plant and the plant kind of freaks out,
9:54
produces tons of chlorophyll, and that's why it has this
9:58
really bright green color. And I always thought that to be
10:01
true. And that's what I've been told.
10:03
That's what everyone says. It's actually really not true.
10:07
It's much has much more to do with the cultivar because we
10:10
were using what are generally red tea or black tea cultivars.
10:16
And in this case it's not exactly a cultivar because it
10:19
was what we were using, a seed propagated field.
10:21
So technically, if you put it in Japanese terms, it was xyri, but
10:25
a xyri lineage that's really suitable for black tea, really
10:28
high catechin content. And it wasn't that green.
10:33
It was shaded I think for four weeks with 80% sunlight blockage
10:38
from raised Tana shelf, raised Khande Shah, and it was still
10:43
pretty pale. It would be like what's, you
10:45
know, someone who like wouldn't, didn't have the context, could
10:49
very easily assume it was an under shaded or not shaded green
10:53
tea at all. And we, we, you know, obviously
10:57
steaming time will also affect the color, which we really well
11:00
optimized to be a short steaming time as possible without, you
11:04
know, getting any reddening. So the steaming was actually
11:07
effective at denaturing the enzyme polyphenyl oxidase, which
11:11
keeps green tea green. But it's, it was pretty shocking
11:14
to me that the chlorophyll production, at least to the
11:17
naked eye, was not obviously better looking.
11:22
Our end tensha product was still pretty pale in a way that was
11:27
really weird to me. Maybe it's there was some others
11:30
very, very yellow all throughout production too.
11:33
And even the wet leaf, the way it was picked, like it was very
11:36
far away from these general tensha colors that we're seeing
11:40
out of Japan, which, you know, at the highest end almost have
11:43
the score of blue hue. Yeah, and the, the shape of the
11:47
bushes or the shitate is very different.
11:51
The growth is very different. It's very interesting.
11:54
I I think it you're right, it has a lot of things to do with
11:57
the cultivar. Like all these tea bushes in
11:59
Chieman they didn't like really end up growing all these very
12:04
thin long soft stem that shoots out some new leaves.
12:10
Like the tea we end up picking in Wuji, the growth it's quite I
12:15
would say the growth was actually quite weak for the
12:19
bushes we end up shading. I don't know if the bushes would
12:23
just trying to adapt to this new shading, you know, practice or
12:27
it's just, you know, like the cultivar and how did responds to
12:31
blockage of sunlight Very unclear.
12:33
Almost too many variables to know, but it was really a
12:36
fantastic learning experience for us.
12:38
And, you know, at the end of the day, it was very low cost and we
12:42
really learned a lot just by, you know, working through the
12:45
fundamentals. OK.
12:46
How do we do this in a place that's never done this before?
12:50
Making the knowledge we learned in Japan and then kind of
12:53
filling in our own knowledge gaps when we went to Japan for
12:56
harvest season. So that was really cool.
12:58
But the other thing that I think we learned that kind of was
13:03
surprising is how much a difference of fertilizer can
13:07
make to the final flavor profile of the tea or the matcha.
13:10
It's incredible. Like we taste a Uji Asahi 1 is
13:16
fertilized, 1 is not fertilized back-to-back and they were just
13:21
two different teas. I think arguably fertilizer
13:25
probably end up making the biggest difference in matcha
13:29
flavor profile, but to the point that I think we should consider
13:33
fertilizer as part of the recipe.
13:35
Yeah, 2025 was the year that that discovery really cemented
13:39
in our brains and our stomachs. It's having that back-to-back
13:43
sample. Like, you can talk about terroir
13:45
and processing and history all day, but until you've tasted the
13:49
difference between fertilized and unfertilized tea and what a
13:53
massive difference it makes to the flavor profile, like that
13:58
other stuff is just kind of fluff.
14:01
Yeah, that was shocking. I mean, I used to be quiet, I
14:04
would say having a lot of criticism in this over
14:07
fertilization practice in Japan, But I think I have slowly
14:11
changed my opinion about this. I mean, like, you know, you
14:15
should really view fertilizer as part of the flavor of product
14:19
creation. It's part of the process
14:21
processing of matcha. It's not just a farming
14:24
technique. It's not just, you know, aiming
14:26
for shooting at higher production, which is the goal of
14:29
fertilizer in many other tea production regions in the world,
14:33
but in Japan, it's really part of the flavor creation.
14:36
And you know, if you really do it well and you do it
14:39
organically, you can create some pretty amazing product, amazing
14:44
flavors, without harming the environment or the tea.
14:47
Absolutely. And I guess one last thing to
14:49
put on reflections that we've really learned in the last year
14:52
to put a capstone on on this segment is I think this year we
14:56
were the most academic we've ever been when it came to
14:59
reading books and looking into the literature.
15:03
Been doing a lot more deep and primary research, you know,
15:07
talking to different scholars and, and different tea farmers
15:10
themselves and, and learning these different histories.
15:13
Is that the the feeling that the specialty matcha movement people
15:20
who are interested in matcha itself as a product outside of
15:24
the deep cultural context of tea ceremony is a really distinct
15:28
and separate culture than tea ceremony that has been like
15:32
really firmly cemented in my mind.
15:35
Like these two groups care about completely different things and
15:39
they form preferences on 2 entirely different things,
15:42
right? Like the Japanese tea ceremony
15:44
people, well, it's a beautiful art.
15:46
They really fundamentally do do not care about product
15:49
distinctions beyond what they are told by other people.
15:53
It's not about the ground truth, objective truths of the product
15:57
itself. That it's hand picked, that it's
15:59
honzu shaded, that it comes from a particular cultivar, that that
16:02
particular cultivar has a particularly interesting history
16:06
or came from an interesting lineage or you know, the way it
16:09
was processed, the way it was milled.
16:11
All of these factors really fall outside of the scope of
16:15
appreciation that tea ceremony, almost most tea ceremony people
16:22
have. And if they do have it it, they
16:25
didn't learn it from Chana Yu from one of their schools.
16:28
They learned about it on their own.
16:30
And especially reading the books like Cultivating Femininity and
16:33
Making Tea, Making Japan. And after talking to a whole lot
16:36
of people, it's become very apparent that these are two
16:39
completely different markets that are building preferences on
16:43
2 completely different axes. And I don't know if these worlds
16:47
will meet each other, but it's I think it's best to keep these
16:52
two segmented. Yeah, and it's a really
16:55
interesting microscope to look into Japanese history and
17:00
culture as a whole. A lot of these phenomenons are
17:03
kind of the reflection of, you know, what the social
17:06
hierarchies historically been in Japan.
17:09
And the very reason why, you know, all of these knowledge is
17:13
not part of Channel U is because, you know, like this
17:17
class or this group of people of practitioners has historically
17:21
been very far away from the farmers.
17:24
I almost get a friend on behalf of the farmers and the legacy of
17:27
matcha production. I mean really, if you read
17:30
through any of the literature in the books, especially anything
17:33
Japanese tea related, especially at the intro level, but even at
17:36
the advanced levels, looking at these different histories, tea
17:39
farming is entirely outside of the scope of tea culture.
17:43
You go to like a cultural booth. I went to a cultural booth at
17:48
UNESCO, and there's not a single thing really about tea farming.
17:52
There's a lot about Chanoyu. The Ersenke Foundation was
17:55
there. They had some Chassen makers
17:57
there at the UNESCO headquarters here in Paris.
18:00
Or you go to different art exhibits.
18:02
And just the way that this is presented to the world, the
18:05
people who actually make the product are entirely considered
18:09
outside of the scope of the culture.
18:11
Yeah, I mean, not only they're outside of the culture, they
18:14
historically, well, thanks to industrial revolution nowadays,
18:18
but historically they can't even consume the very product they
18:21
made if they can't afford it. It's quite an interesting
18:24
phenomena, yeah. Very bizarre.
18:26
It's I'd love to double click on that more and in the next year.
18:32
All right, we just came from Yunnan in some pretty rural
18:34
areas in Yunnan and comparing and contrasting that
18:38
agriculture, which I don't even know if it's fair to call it
18:40
agriculture. Forest management maybe to
18:43
compared to what's going on in Japan is was an interesting
18:46
breath of fresh air seeing trees that can live to 600 years old
18:52
or 1000 years old. The oldest one that we saw is
18:55
estimated to be 2000 years old. And you can compare it to these
18:58
agricultural practices in Japan, where it's not uncommon to hear
19:01
some Rockstar uji macho farmers will replace their tea trees
19:05
every 25 years because it's more fragrant and they generally
19:10
produce more flavors as young bushes.
19:12
Just very different mentalities and what is considered quality.
19:16
And it kind of inspired me to be super interesting to take like
19:19
the top high end matcha and serve it to someone in like
19:22
rural Yunnan and take one of the best, you know, ancient tree,
19:27
single tree, gushu poo ours, Tong poo ours and bring it to
19:31
Japan and have, you know, one of the top matcha producers taste
19:36
that and be really interesting to show that ideas of quality.
19:41
Probably there's a lot that's in common across borders and across
19:44
cultures, but there's also probably a lot that is very
19:47
different and that it really is a social construct of what
19:50
people consider most human intervention being matcha shaded
19:56
fertilized process, but is probably the least human
20:00
intervention. You know a lot of these 2000
20:02
year old tea trees and they can't be picked, but the ones
20:05
that are hundreds of years old that can be picked, right.
20:08
It's it's really not intervened. The tree is in the forest doing
20:12
its thing. They pick the leaves, they
20:14
process them and it's two really complete.
20:18
Very contrasting things. Yes, indeed.
20:20
And I would argue that they are really just two different
20:25
product and it just happens that tea is a common ingredient.
20:29
But and even the tea itself, I would argue that it's not really
20:33
the same thing. Yeah, it will be like having or
20:38
Burgundy producer to drink a high end Chinese Baijo and have
20:42
a Baijo drinker that drinks a very high end like elegant
20:46
Burgundy. But the flavor profile is too
20:49
different and the gold or the assessment of quality is it's
20:53
two different 1 is about, you know purity and cleanliness and
20:58
the other one is about explosion of flavors.
21:01
Their indicator of quality almost a contradicts each other.
21:05
Yeah, the practices of both parties would horrify the other
21:09
outside of their context. Yes, indeed.
21:11
You know, coming from a Chinese tea drinkers in the beginning,
21:14
I'm certainly biased towards, you know, how how tea gets made
21:19
in Vietnan. But you know, after all these
21:21
years, I think I'm getting more open minded.
21:23
It's really just two different theories and you know,
21:27
criticizing 1 framework or one theory using another.
21:31
I think it's it's unfair. Yeah, that's true, and it's very
21:34
unfair. It's they, they they both
21:36
produce very interesting tasting flavors.
21:39
And I think it's really by the end of the day, your own
21:42
preference of the product. And also what do you care about?
21:45
Yeah. In those stack rank priorities.
21:47
Absolutely shout out to our favorite podcast episode ever.
21:51
What do you care about? Love the title, this was a good
21:54
recording. Yes, it was I.
21:56
Really liked that episode. All right, predictions for 2026.
22:02
So just to give everyone a bit of a primer, we did not
22:05
coordinate. So Sam and I do not know what
22:07
each other's predictions are. Sam, would you like to go first
22:10
or should I? Hello.
22:11
Go ahead, Ryan. We might end up having some
22:13
overlaps, you know. After all, we experienced a lot
22:17
of these things together. Indeed.
22:20
But even if it's overlaps, we might have contradicting
22:23
predictions, which will be very interesting that.
22:26
'D be. That'd be interesting.
22:27
OK, prediction I5 and maybe I'll have 6 by the end of this
22:31
recording. Well, why don't we go 1 by 1?
22:33
OK, let's go 1 by 1. So my first is that the matcha
22:36
shortage intensifies. I think demand is way more
22:40
sticky than what appears at the surface.
22:42
So like at the surface level, if you look at what's happening
22:45
with the international consumer base for matcha, you have the
22:48
loudest, fastest movers creating the most viral content.
22:52
And I think they're moving, they're actually not a very good
22:55
bellwether to what what's happening with the majority of
22:59
consumption. And I think the average consumer
23:02
moves a whole lot slower than the people that might want to
23:06
move off matcha or say that they want to drink it less or maybe
23:09
they're getting into hojicha powder or something else.
23:13
And that the average consumer, it's really much slower moving.
23:17
I think it also that's correlated in this is that the
23:20
Japanese yen is still incredibly weak.
23:23
So especially for countries that have really high relative income
23:28
and purchasing power, going to Japan feels incredibly cheap at
23:33
the moment, which you know, when you're in Japan, you want to go
23:36
do touristy things and cultural things.
23:38
And one of the cultural things, especially now, especially after
23:41
the March is shortage is by matcha, which is going to
23:44
continue to fuel domestic demand driven by tourism.
23:48
But even when we were in Japan and Tokyo most recently a couple
23:51
months ago, and it seems it like the Japanese consumer market has
23:56
sort of beginning to rediscover their own products.
24:00
And matcha lattes are, you know, becoming, they are a thing for
24:05
tourists that come to Japan. But they seem to also be gaining
24:09
A popularity among Japanese consumers themselves as a new
24:14
format to drink matcha and tea and to get caffeinated in.
24:18
And so I think domestic demand is going to continue to grow.
24:22
And I think that and I think that people are just beginning
24:26
to get a taste of a good product for the first time and like this
24:30
average consumer base is growing and that these movements happen
24:33
slowly and consumer awareness happens slowly and that we're
24:38
just building up this momentum. I mean, even if you pick like a
24:41
random market like Paris, this is not a trend.
24:45
Matcha is absolutely not a trend.
24:46
If anything, it feels like it, it's growing in a market like
24:50
this. And then you multiply this times
24:52
like the 100 most important cities in the world, people are
24:55
just beginning to get a taste of this product.
24:57
So I think the demand is going to go crazy again.
25:01
Yeah, I, I largely agree, although I do have a little bit
25:05
more pessimistic comparing to you, Ryan.
25:09
And I think in some regions actually is going to be
25:13
saturated or even plateaued. For example, in Thailand, sheer
25:17
amount of matcha cafes or places that serve matcha is just
25:22
incredible. And we were talking to some cafe
25:25
owners in Bangkok and they were telling us also that it's
25:30
definitely saturating, but there's still new matcha cafe
25:33
being opened every day or, you know, every month in in Bangkok,
25:36
which is buy incredible. Yeah, I think, I think Bangkok
25:41
is just on a different level because one, it's a much more
25:44
mature market, but two, the pricing sensitive, the price
25:48
sensitivity and price increase is driven by the matcha boom.
25:51
I think price is out a reasonably large portion of the
25:56
everyday consumer market like even in Bangkok to get a good
25:59
much that's about four or five U.S. dollars and for the quality
26:03
you're getting, it's incredibly good deal.
26:05
But it's still like three times the price of a meal that's, you
26:09
know, pretty delicious that you can, you know get randomly.
26:12
So it's like really still very inaccessibly priced.
26:16
So I think, I think that also has to do with that, that churn.
26:19
I I agree. I agree.
26:20
I mean, like it's just, you know, a next level or future
26:24
version, but a future conversion probably for a lot of the
26:28
regions in other places too. I think that, you know, Paris or
26:33
you know, places it is in the US or, you know, other cities in
26:37
Southeast Asia or even in Japan will probably at some point
26:41
evolve into a pretty similar situation in Bangkok, which is
26:46
also my other concern about the saturation or the slowdown of
26:51
expansion of matcha. Is that true specialty?
26:55
It's still in the brewing like there's not enough specialty out
27:00
there yet. Japan is too small and it's it's
27:05
really not diverse enough in terms of productions in
27:08
different regions that makes very different products.
27:11
And also global participation in forging this specialty movement
27:16
is still very slow. Most of the innovations we see
27:18
nowadays are still coming out from Japan in very slow pace and
27:25
from China, which is, you know, mainly on how to mass produce
27:29
this new product. So I think that's a obstacle
27:33
that I hope, you know, we can overcome together because you
27:37
know, right now for for for people that want to add value
27:41
into matcha, it's really largely still on consumer facing
27:45
products and how to optimize them.
27:47
I mean, people outside of Japan like new innovative format or
27:51
technique in preparing A matcha drinks do more educations on
27:55
culture and context and new packaging design.
27:58
I think that's it. Like people still lacks in
28:01
agencies in making a difference, which is I think something that
28:05
that's blocking a lot of innovation and creativity
28:08
globally. Yeah, I, I totally agree.
28:11
And I think this is something that, you know, not only are we
28:14
going to see overwhelming demand in the coming year, but I think
28:17
the specialty movement might actually taper a little bit.
28:21
I think it will still grow, but I don't think it can grow as
28:24
much as it could. And by specialty, you know,
28:27
people featuring, you know, single farmers, single
28:31
cultivars, single origins, special processing techniques
28:35
like really making product distinctions about the ground
28:38
truths of the way the product was produced, how it was picked
28:42
and etc, versus just being poetically named product.
28:45
But the biggest structural barriers is that all the good
28:49
material is basically spoken for by existing companies and all of
28:53
the big existing companies, whether it be the blend houses
28:56
or, you know, some of the really large players that we see even
29:00
in the specialty space, there's very little oxygen left in the
29:03
room for anyone else left to do anything interesting that is a
29:08
newcomer. Like let's say for, you know,
29:10
the gigantic Kioto based blend houses get a lot of the best
29:14
material that's grown in Uji, that's grown in the surrounding
29:17
areas. And they're servicing that
29:21
material, servicing A largely a more international audience, but
29:24
also traditional tea ceremony base.
29:27
But it's largely focused on the traditional side, which is
29:30
great. That needs to be kept alive.
29:32
But there's very little good or interesting material left that
29:35
can be transparently labeled for anyone doing anything innovative
29:39
or outside of that scope in a traditional world, which which
29:44
it's not good for the specialty movement.
29:46
That's, that's so true. Like a lot of these interesting
29:49
regions around Buji, like Mia and Shiga Shiga, they, they,
29:53
they make sting. They they, they make interesting
29:58
raw materials. They they they use interesting
30:01
single cultivars for their production, but they all goes
30:04
into all these large blend houses.
30:07
There's very little left to be purchased for people outside of
30:11
the system. Yeah, it's like all the best
30:12
coffee in the world gets dumped into, you know, Nest Cafe or
30:17
Maxwell House or. Or better comparison would be
30:21
like all these vintage or interesting whiskey end up
30:25
getting blend into like a Johnnie Walker Blue label or a
30:29
very high end McAllen. I mean they are good products,
30:32
but there's no specialty. Like you can't really learn
30:34
anything by tasting them. You can learn the craftsmanship,
30:38
but you can't really learn anything about the the product
30:42
itself or the tea itself or the ingredient itself, which I think
30:45
it's really blocking this specialty movement.
30:48
And the other very discouraging fact that we kind of experience
30:52
is that for the other places that are not necessarily getting
30:57
bounded by the system in Japan, we've vent ventured into some of
31:02
the areas, for example, of Fukushiyama.
31:05
It's just all Yabukita really, Very little interesting things
31:09
being made in those places, which was a little discouraging,
31:13
yeah. Absolutely.
31:15
All right, Zhongjun, what's your second or what's your one of
31:18
your predictions? Well, we kind of both talked
31:21
about our prediction on the market.
31:24
I guess my second prediction will be which one should I talk
31:27
about first. I guess kind of continuing your
31:30
comment about things are slowly changing in Japan too.
31:34
I think Japan will open up more and we are already seeing this
31:37
happening. There are more traditional
31:40
brands start to embrace this global matcha trend, start to
31:45
kind of forego their old tradition in matcha has to be
31:49
consumed this way and this way that they are creating new
31:52
brands that were optimized for the Western palette, are
31:56
optimized for making matcha latte.
31:58
They're optimized for this increasing demand.
32:01
And I think they are really less rigid than we expected.
32:06
And also we are seeing a lot more participation of people
32:09
outside of Japan that's making a difference inside Japan.
32:12
All these people that we met at Ububu, they were or largely
32:16
foreigners that are really doing some pretty incredible works on
32:21
site in farming matcha, taking care of Tanja and the
32:24
traditions. And we saw, you know, Mark from
32:28
Oyeka is working with, you know, the new generation of OGT
32:31
farmers in preserving the traditions.
32:33
And we also seeing like people like Nekohama, who is, you know,
32:37
going around Japan trying to revive, you know, all these
32:40
abandoned tea fields. And I think this is a wonderful
32:42
thing to see, you know, like Japan is opening up just like,
32:46
you know, it was back in major restoration, how he opens up to
32:51
to the West and, you know, miracles happens.
32:53
Yeah, a conversation gets to start.
32:55
Yeah, I I totally agree. That wasn't one of the ones that
32:59
I have. But we're starting to see that.
33:01
We're starting to see that more and more and hopefully more and
33:04
more tea farmers move away from the auction route or the
33:07
wholesale route and try to build relationships directly with, you
33:11
know, people starting brands and other places.
33:14
And so that people can go and source direct from the farmer,
33:17
which is what it would be a more healthy ecosystem for,
33:20
especially for the farmers. But it's also something that
33:23
every new western or non western actually non Japanese company
33:27
wants to do is to have these direct relationships.
33:30
And the reality is the majority of the people that say that they
33:32
do actually have a direct relationship with the
33:35
intermediary that might also do a little bit of agriculture
33:39
themselves. But what they really are
33:40
refiners, sort of blenders that, you know, they they might have
33:44
some production that they have. But you know, the majority of
33:48
their volume is, you know, from purchased RHR and that they then
33:52
refine and mill into product. But having a much more direct
33:55
connection with it would be would be a great direction to
33:58
see this industry go. Yeah.
34:00
You know, this is really AI would say kind of related to my
34:04
last prediction is how a lot of these agencies, a lot of these
34:08
in the processing capacities do largely being controlled by
34:12
entities in Japan. And I think that's really
34:15
blocking a lot of innovations and creativity.
34:17
But you know, like we are slowly seeing this being changed.
34:20
I would say one elephant in the realm is China.
34:23
China is really picking up productions and right now most
34:27
of the products are still very mass market quote UN quote
34:30
culinary grade. But you know, like they are
34:33
acquiring the technology and I think it's not super far away
34:40
for them to start acquiring the art in making a good product.
34:43
And I think that's my next prediction too.
34:46
I don't know if that overlaps with you, Ryan, but the Chinese
34:49
matcha is going to prevail very soon, I think.
34:52
Yeah, that is mine as well. And the way I put this is that
34:55
the bamboo ceiling on Chinese mouthful will finally break.
35:00
And I think it's going to break for a couple different reasons.
35:03
One, exactly as you said. So, you know, if you think about
35:06
anything as the art and science of doing something, the Chinese
35:09
are like really accurately in the phase of the science of
35:14
making matcha, right? They brought in experts.
35:16
They brought in Japanese processing equipment.
35:18
A lot of the companies and subsidiaries that are set up in
35:22
China are Japanese owned or partially owned by Japanese.
35:26
And they're really investing in volume, investing in volume to
35:30
for exportable matcha to Europe and the United States, because
35:34
that's the direction of the growth.
35:37
I mean, a lot of the conventional Japanese
35:38
agriculture is literally not exportable because the pesticide
35:42
residues are way too high. So it makes sense that they're
35:46
investing so much in the science of making tensha and then making
35:51
matcha. And it's very much it filling
35:53
the bottom of the market, which is where the market is going,
35:57
right? Like if it's showing up in
35:58
ingredients in 10,000 places and there's a bunch of cafes that
36:02
don't care about origin that need like reasonably priced
36:05
supply that's relatively consistent.
36:07
You know, China is an expert at this, but the art of making
36:11
matcha, I think will, is slowly starting to develop in China.
36:16
And we've recently had some samples that blew our minds and
36:20
yeah, really reset our expectations for the quality
36:25
ceiling of what Chinese matcha can be.
36:27
And I think that the current matcha shortage has moved so
36:31
many vendors and so many matcha brand owners to the point of
36:35
desperation. And desperation in some cases
36:37
might be a bit of a more of an extreme word.
36:40
In other cases to be more creative in their sourcing and
36:44
start looking outside of Japan to pockets of value.
36:47
And Japanese matcha is going to get a little bit in trouble at
36:51
some point. I don't know if it's going to be
36:53
in 2026, but in the coming years the price to quality ratio of
36:58
Chinese matcha is going to reach parity with the price to quality
37:03
ratio. You know of Japanese matcha, I'm
37:06
not talking about the highest and uji matcha, like I'm talking
37:10
about mass market, like average ceremonial grade coming from
37:13
Shizuoka or Kagushima or some from high volume area that is
37:19
exportable. So it's not just Japanese
37:22
conventional agriculture, but it meets American or European
37:25
standards for export. The Chinese are going to surpass
37:28
the Japanese in that cost equality ratio and that middle
37:33
of the market and low end of the market in Japan is going to be
37:37
in a lot of trouble. Yeah, although I think that the
37:40
one thing that I think it's good for the buyers or consumers is
37:44
that the Chinese much are not necessarily being bounded by
37:47
this weird auction system that we see in Japan.
37:51
So the price I think will be much more transparent and the
37:55
dynamic between buyers purchasing willingness of
37:59
purchase and the the the the suppliers willingness of selling
38:03
I think will be more kind of in the equilibrium than you know
38:08
the phenomena things as the conditions we are seeing in
38:10
Japan. Yeah, it's much easier to do
38:12
business in China for many different reasons.
38:15
It's not only culturally speaking, but it's also a
38:18
buyer's market. It's not a seller's market,
38:20
which is what it is in Japan. Also the reason I phrase it, you
38:25
know, breaking the bamboo ceiling is I think a major
38:28
Japanese, Western Japanese focused matcha brand that's, you
38:33
know, not Japanese based is going to offer a really high
38:37
quality Chinese matcha and it's going to break the ceiling it we
38:42
just need one first mover, you know, I hope.
38:45
So I hope so. That will be great.
38:47
If someone like Kettle or someone like Rocky's Matcha or
38:52
someone you know, this sort of well known, well respected brand
38:58
caliber offered a really high quality Chinese product, I think
39:02
it's going to like it gives everyone else permission to like
39:07
it breaks the stigma a bit. So I think that the feeling.
39:12
Actually saw this happened before in wine, like a Chinese
39:16
wine really picked up some momentum after Chateau Lafitte
39:20
decided to open their first winery in Shandong.
39:24
It really broke the stigma of Chinese wine at the time and
39:29
really unleashed a lot of freedom and people's willingness
39:33
into into doing productions and also on the consumer side,
39:38
buying and trying. Yeah.
39:39
And the investment too, like the stigma even within China itself
39:44
about what the risks that producers are willing to take to
39:48
try to improve the art of their product to make it tasty, that's
39:51
better. And I think China also has a
39:53
couple other headwinds at its side.
39:56
And, and the other is that it's it's cultural claim to the
39:59
origins of matcha. You know, this can be a very
40:02
long debate about whether or not matcha is Chinese or Japanese,
40:06
literally depending on what you care about and how you frame it,
40:08
you can argue both sides. But China does have a cultural
40:12
claim, at least to. Yeah, the Matcha or matcha's
40:17
predecessor and you starting to company glean into it China can
40:22
re own its own product. Yeah.
40:24
And you know what, Ryan? Not only they have the cultural
40:27
claim, they don't have the baggage in doing any innovations
40:31
or changes. There's no continuous history or
40:35
entity to hold anyone accountable.
40:37
They, they, they have the pass to do it and they don't have
40:41
anything to hold them accountable, which I think is
40:44
it's, it's going to be very, very exciting actually.
40:47
It's an interesting renaissance because, you know, there's a lot
40:50
of revisionist history out there about Chinese matcha, Chinese
40:54
mota. It's a dead culture.
40:56
It hasn't been practiced. The practitioners are dead,
40:59
they're long dead. The farmers and producers that
41:02
made it are long dead for 800 years.
41:05
And anything that you see now is revisionist.
41:08
It's not a continuous or living culture.
41:10
It's not bound by any rules or lineage.
41:13
It's some people reading some old text and making a whole lot
41:16
of assumptions trying to replicate this thing.
41:18
And that's great, but it could lead to a new powdered tea
41:21
renaissance in China of them, like leaning into that
41:24
disconnected heritage. I guess it's still heritage and
41:28
kind of reinventing it. There's a new cafe in Indonesia
41:32
that focuses totally on Chinese matcha and they're doing some
41:35
really interesting specialty drinks.
41:37
There's even like an Osmanthes matcha specialty drink there.
41:41
And Osmanthes is like a real, really trendy flavor in mainland
41:45
China right now. And I think Chinese like
41:47
reclaiming that heritage and reinventing it is a really cool
41:53
way that just tea culture can evolve in general and then be
41:57
exported to the rest of the world.
41:59
I totally agree which this leads to.
42:01
My next prediction is that the definition of macho will become
42:05
more and more blurry and I think it's a very good thing to
42:08
happened. I think it should be blurry
42:11
enough to actually. I have have some contradicting
42:15
thoughts. One hand, I think the very
42:18
definition of matcha is itself should be blurry so they can
42:22
unleash more freedom. And on the other hand, I think
42:25
it might be actually better for matcha to remain as matcha.
42:30
And this powder tea or this Chinese morcha should live in a
42:35
totally different bucket. Or maybe people should start
42:38
adopting the term morcha to vaccinate for, you know, powder
42:42
tea or powder. Not just green tea, but all
42:45
kinds of powder tea. That's not coming from Japan.
42:47
I don't know which way is the correct way.
42:49
There's probably no correct way in doing this, yeah.
42:53
But I think this, this is something that needs to happen.
42:57
And I think it's really good that China can be part of it
43:00
because it can really kind of shut that shut down or conclude
43:05
a lot of these debate over traditions or cultural heritage
43:10
relating to Japanese matcha. You've unleashed a can of Worm
43:14
Sam. That's for our listeners.
43:17
This might be the single most debated topic between Sam and I
43:21
Privately. We have probably spent close to
43:23
20 hours disagreeing with each other over whether or not matcha
43:29
should be exclusively made from Japanese tancha.
43:32
Or is it just a format? It's just like another way of
43:35
calling, you know, powdered green tea.
43:37
And still unresolved. But I think I've moved you a
43:41
little more in the center than you were before.
43:43
Yeah, yeah, maybe maybe, you know, like I think, you know,
43:47
owning Mwacha is still very beneficial in a way that it
43:52
really gives everyone a fresh start in doing things
43:55
differently and it really kind of help everyone cuts cleaned in
44:00
receiving any criticism or accusation of, you know, not
44:06
respecting the tradition, which I think, you know, in some ways
44:10
it's it's true, right? Like people disrespecting the
44:14
tradition in some very unique and interesting and really
44:18
stupid way that we saw in some products last year, to which one
44:22
of the product is a much apace. Coming from Oku Midori, Japan.
44:28
Oku Midori, that's the actual place is it?
44:30
But I think I think that people needs kind of like a safe
44:34
umbrella to to do creations and to do innovations.
44:39
And I think Chinese Mocha, I'm speaking from a Chinese myself,
44:43
is a very safe haven for people to do so.
44:45
Yeah, On the other side, it's very confusing for consumers.
44:49
A lot of Chinese mocha will look, taste and have the same
44:52
health benefits of matcha. And you have thousands, 10s of
44:56
thousands of unique players out there that are all going to
45:00
label it the same way because there's no labeling standards
45:03
and you're already seeing it. And you're going to what is
45:06
probably going to happened as a gigantic chaotic sea of people
45:10
labeling, classifying things their own way.
45:13
Some might call it muchas and yeah, call it Chinese muchas and
45:17
the original matcha. Some might call it just muchas.
45:20
Might call it other powdered teas like Goku or matcha.
45:23
But call it matcha or Goku or matcha like you just cannot
45:27
control people do in a highly unregulated market.
45:30
That's true, that's true. It's there's a very high risk
45:33
for a mucha being the next ceremonial grade.
45:38
Yeah, I'm against abstractions in general, like ceremonial
45:42
grade or even just like classifying and defining matcha
45:45
or mocha as a form of information reduction.
45:49
My, what I think is the cleanest solution for most people is to
45:52
embrace as descriptive a name as possible.
45:56
So, you know, Chinese Morcha is OK, I guess.
46:00
And some people can call it Chinese matcha.
46:03
If it's made from Gokaro, you call it Gokaro matcha and you
46:06
just treat it as a format because otherwise it gets so
46:09
confusing for people. Or powder I.
46:11
Don't just call it tea powder. More powder tea, but then
46:15
there's stigma and then so long as there's money to be made and
46:18
so long as there's stigma, you know, people are going to go for
46:21
the term that is more trendy, especially if you're in a less
46:25
educated market. I mean, if you're, I'm going to
46:28
pick some more random, if you're in Romania and you have a tea
46:31
brand there and you are introducing powdered Gokoro, are
46:35
you going to call that powdered Gokoro or are you going to call
46:38
it Gokoro matcha, right. Like the correct business
46:41
decision and what I would actually advise raise this
46:44
person to do is to call it Gokoro matcha because people are
46:48
going to instantly be able to understand it versus powdered
46:52
Gokoro. Like people don't know what
46:54
Gokoro is for the most part, right?
46:55
But people do know what matcha is and it looks, tastes and
46:59
feels very similar to matcha. And they're not lying because
47:02
they're saying it's Gokoro. They're just 1000 little use
47:04
cases like that that will happen and it's just going to be a
47:09
mess. I agree.
47:10
I agree. Messy and fun.
47:12
We will see. New culture formation, I mean
47:15
new culture formation is always chaotic.
47:18
So you know, standards will eventually come, it's just going
47:21
to be on much longer time horizons.
47:23
So, you know, especially within like specialty coffee movement,
47:26
for example, and 3rd wave coffee, so-called 3rd wave
47:28
coffee, you know, the movement grows, it develops standards, it
47:31
will self police. And you know, you, you're always
47:34
going to have disagreements with change and introducing new
47:38
products to new places and with different marketing lenses.
47:42
And it's, it's going to, it's going to happen.
47:44
But anyway, to conclude, I think the bamboo ceiling on Chinese
47:47
matcha is going to break in 2026 and people will begin to accept
47:51
that high quality matcha can and will be grown in China.
47:54
And I think it's going to happen with one or two well known
47:57
brands adopting it to their menu or to their offerings, which
48:01
will give everyone else quote UN quote permission to to offer one
48:05
with with less stigma. Agree.
48:07
Agree. All right, Brian, you want to do
48:09
a next one or do you have another one?
48:11
I do have another one. I think that Gokoro matcha
48:14
format will also be unleashed in 2026.
48:19
We've tasted it and. The.
48:21
Cost equality, Yeah, it's amazing.
48:23
The cost equality ratio you can get on Gokoro is insane when you
48:27
compare it to matcha from Pencha.
48:29
And I recently learned. And thank you to Mark from Olika
48:32
for sending me this article. Is that Starbucks?
48:35
Japan just launched 2 new what they call, quote, Gokoro matcha
48:41
drinks to their menu even. Yeah, talk about that debate.
48:44
You have brands like Starbucks, which are like the literal early
48:48
adopter of matcha to the rest of the world are calling it Gokoro
48:52
matcha. So there you go.
48:57
Wow. Decision made.
48:59
Hard decision. Maybe it's hard to fight trends
49:01
that are controlled by other people, so sometimes it's just
49:05
easier to pick the easier term. And sometimes stir self
49:08
fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, absolutely.
49:11
Literally create their own trend because they are they have so
49:14
much control and influence. Absolutely.
49:17
So I think Gokoro Matcha is going to become a thing.
49:19
It tastes incredible and it's there's and it's more fragrant
49:23
too. So in a lot of like latte
49:25
formats or even like cold formats like Frappuccinos in
49:28
general, at least in our experience, the fragrance that
49:31
you get from Gokoro, I think will Pierce through a lot of
49:35
form factors even better than matcha.
49:38
And I actually think if you think about like what could
49:41
overtake matcha as a trend. And like a lot of people talk
49:44
about Hoji Cha, but I disagree with that one because Hoji cha
49:48
doesn't have the same functional benefits as matcha.
49:50
You know, it's not as nutritious and has way less caffeine, which
49:54
really matters what people care about.
49:56
It's Gokaro. The price to quality ratio is
50:00
better and it looks, tastes and smells so similar to matcha,
50:03
especially when you're putting it in these quote, UN quote
50:06
watered down formats, these lattes, these Frappuccinos, It
50:10
might actually be better. And, and actually, if anything
50:13
overtakes matcha like go Caro matcha could really dominate.
50:18
And if you think about it from a Cafe brand owner perspective,
50:21
like if you're thinking, OK, what cool new innovative menu
50:25
option would I want that might get people interested.
50:27
While everyone's interested in matcha right now, I tried to go
50:31
Caro matcha. So fragrant.
50:32
Honestly, it tastes better in like my latte than the
50:36
ceremonial grade matcha, which cost double, which I'm sourcing
50:40
tastes in this beverage. I'm going to get a Gokoro latte
50:44
or Gokoro Macho latte. It's just a very obvious line
50:48
extension or innovation that cafes can bring to their menu.
50:51
And, and it's from a specialty standpoint, it's much closer to
50:59
the craftsmanship of the farmer themselves.
51:02
Because when when you're comparing to tension, making
51:05
tension really requires a lot more interventions of machinery,
51:09
which are now largely controlled by all these shaggy factories in
51:14
different area. But for Gilcro like farmers can
51:17
process them themselves. And that's a much, much more
51:20
interesting specialty landscape for people to explore.
51:23
And it opens much more freedom of creativity from farmers to
51:28
farmers. And actually after talking to
51:31
some farmers in Japan, like Yokoro is the product that they
51:34
feel proud of making because like the tent shot they end up
51:38
making just gets blend or gets procure by all these large blend
51:41
houses. Like they don't have their own
51:43
stage in the final product, but for Gilcro they do.
51:47
Yeah, absolutely. And the the ability to source
51:50
direct from farmers is so much easier and people just need a
51:53
way to mill it. So I don't know whether or not
51:55
they get it ball mill there. It also mills super well in our
51:58
mill that we're launching, which we'll talk a little bit about
52:00
the end. All right, Sam, I have a #4.
52:02
Do you have a last one? I do, I do actually relates more
52:06
to the Chinese matcha topic that we were talking about.
52:10
Mine does too. OK.
52:12
I'm curious. Oh really?
52:13
Well, my prediction is that not only the production in China
52:17
from matcha is going to show some tractions to market to I
52:21
think in a lot of areas is finally making a comeback for
52:25
people to start consuming matcha in China.
52:28
Because for all these years, like people in China, they, they
52:31
don't drink matcha as far as it goes, Matcha latte and all these
52:34
people are, you know, fighting their brains outside of Asia for
52:38
this new hot popular drinks. And there were nothing going on
52:42
in China. But I think there's finally that
52:46
we're seeing some changes happening here.
52:48
And I think it's not only due to the global trend, but also it's
52:53
of the increase of production of matcha.
52:55
I think it's it's it's making a very interesting influence onto
53:01
the market itself, especially if we are start seeing some places
53:05
getting, you know, some markets in some areas getting saturated
53:09
or plateaued or the production of Japan is not catching up to a
53:14
point that they can service all of these areas.
53:17
I think naturally a lot of these factories and farms that
53:21
invested so much money in making all these new facilities, I mean
53:25
making all these new production equipments available, I think
53:30
they naturally going to want to seek new lands of expansion.
53:35
And I think the domestic market is a very, very easy decision
53:38
for them to make. That's easy, and especially if
53:44
that actually creates a overproduction of matcha in
53:48
China. We actually saw this happened in
53:50
the US before in the 80s when they launched the Got Milk
53:53
campaign. Ryan, I don't know if you know
53:55
that. Yes, but you know, there was a
53:58
systematic over production of milk in the US back in the 80s
54:03
and 90s that the government actually sponsored a campaign to
54:07
create this trend of drinking milk.
54:09
Like drinking milk is healthy, drinking milk is hot, drinking
54:13
milk is, you know, very beneficial.
54:16
And it's it's the new trend that people like to enjoy.
54:20
And it actually created a trend because of there is oversupply
54:25
from the back end. And I think that this might
54:28
happen in China too, from Mata. That's interesting.
54:31
I could see totally happening especially because one of the I
54:35
think the five year China just released its five year plan and
54:38
one of them is to increase domestic consumption.
54:41
So especially domestic consumption for product that
54:45
China has cultural heritage to, that's tea.
54:49
And you're already seeing all of this really interesting tea
54:52
innovation happened in China like brands like Chagi, brands
54:57
like Luck and Coffee, introducing tea in new and
55:00
interesting formats. Luck and Coffee just had a huge
55:03
promotion on Guizhou grown Matcha talking and bragging
55:07
about how finely milled the macho was.
55:11
Like this is a pretty interesting campaign from a
55:14
extremely large, like almost unbelievably large from a
55:18
western perspective coffee chain that exists in China called
55:21
Bucking Coffee having a taste for their own product.
55:24
And actually I think that there are going to start to have a
55:28
taste for for Japanese matcha too as interest in matcha grows.
55:32
There's no reason why they wouldn't want to taste higher
55:36
and higher and Japanese products.
55:38
And if if Chinese like, there's no reason why Chinese people
55:41
wouldn't like these profiles. You see other regions in the
55:44
world have very large Chinese diasporas like Malaysia,
55:49
Thailand, like Singapore, those those Chinese people, ethnic
55:53
Chinese people that are part of the diaspora.
55:57
We're seeing much of boom over in these markets and outside of
56:01
mainland China and Taiwan, same thing.
56:04
Are, you know, the the taste for it definitely is something like,
56:09
you know, false that that I would say Chinese consumers are
56:13
primed for probably especially in the tier one cities like
56:16
Shanghai or Guangzhou or Beijing or Shenzhen.
56:20
And even in places like Hong Kong, it's really, really,
56:23
really trending matcha. Yeah, Japanese matcha.
56:27
So, you know, I think if that happens, like it's like that
56:31
will be a very interesting world because the purchasing power of
56:35
even just kind of 2% is so mind blowingly large that we might
56:41
have a very different level of shortage.
56:43
There's probably a lot of money to be made starting a high end
56:46
Japanese market brand in China. I think for, you know, the
56:51
Western markets, production, the geopolitical political tension
56:55
between China and Japan is serving everybody a benefit.
57:01
Doing business between China and Japan right now is not the
57:04
easiest. But really, if you imagine that
57:07
the, you know, all these consumers in Japan, in China
57:11
start to buy Ujimacha in bulk. My God, yeah.
57:16
It could be very interesting market, but even you see a lot
57:19
of like really specialty Chinese producers lean into, you know,
57:23
Chinese matcha too. There's some really interesting
57:25
new cafes have opened in Shanghai that really look like
57:29
elevated expressions of what a matcha cafe can be, all serving
57:33
a Chinese product. And if that cultural thing could
57:36
totally spread within the country.
57:38
So I think the opportunity in mainland China and also India,
57:42
I've heard matcha is really trending in India to extremely
57:46
large populations, which could really affect the whole global
57:49
market. OK.
57:50
Do you have a last prediction not?
57:51
Necessarily a prediction for 2026, but into the near to far
57:56
future, I think globalization of macho farming is the direction
58:01
that we are heading towards now. We're seeing it being mass
58:04
produced in China. We saw some productions in Korea
58:07
and we know of some productions in Taiwan.
58:09
And I think that this needs to spread further.
58:12
It needs to go to India, it needs to go to Africa, it needs
58:15
to go to even the the Americas. And I think a true globalized
58:20
product is when it's also produced globally.
58:24
And I think that's that's really will be a very hopeful direction
58:29
that we can head towards. It's happening in Germany.
58:32
There's someone, there's a someone in Germany, yeah, doing
58:36
doing some matcha production. I think it's very small moment,
58:40
but it's still very interesting to see.
58:43
And I've heard there's. Some experimental matcha
58:47
production being done in the Pyrenees too in France.
58:50
Nothing a commercial scale I think, but still very
58:53
interesting to see. I am not, I wish I was.
58:56
I have one last prediction, and this is 1 is a little bit
58:59
self-serving, so we put it last. But Sam and I and our team
59:03
member Gwen run the company San Kamacha Products, which is
59:05
developing A matcha mill to mill matcha fresh anywhere and
59:09
everywhere. It is similar quality standard
59:11
as an Ishiyusu or traditional Japanese stone mill.
59:15
It has a cooling system. You can control the compression.
59:18
The plates are swappable. So we have industrial ceramic
59:21
plates, but in the future we also have stones.
59:23
So you can stone mill your matcha and has cooling system so
59:26
it doesn't get too hot and it can mill matcha considerably
59:30
faster at the highest speeds than what can be done through a
59:34
traditional stone mill. So I think matcha innovation not
59:38
only from our company but from other companies will also really
59:42
start to make some changes in 20262026 will be the go to
59:46
market year for us. We're launching, we've already
59:50
launched our countertop matcha mill.
59:52
The first units will be delivered early this year.
59:56
So we'll get those out into the world, which is super exciting.
59:59
And I think fresh milling in general is going to enter really
1:00:03
the mainstream thoughts of the average matcha consumer this
1:00:07
year, not only through our mill, which we hope is going to have a
1:00:10
pretty major impact on the way people view matcha and matcha
1:00:14
freshness. But for everyone out there, all
1:00:16
the businesses that are requiring each uses all over the
1:00:19
world, people are buying the equipment and the infrastructure
1:00:23
to develop, to have the agency to mill much of themselves.
1:00:26
And I think this idea was sort of in its infancy and let's say
1:00:30
2023, in 2024 and 2025 was really the year where you really
1:00:36
started to see it pop up in new places. 2 in Paris and there's a
1:00:40
bunch in Germany, There's a bunch all over the United States
1:00:43
now in, in places like Philippines, in Thailand and
1:00:48
Singapore, in Malaysia. It, it went from sort of
1:00:51
something that was very uncommon to something that more and more
1:00:55
brands are starting to adopt and realizes incredibly important
1:00:59
for quality. And so I think this is the year
1:01:02
of fresh ground Matcha where it starts to take root.
1:01:05
This idea like really firmly starts to take root where it's
1:01:09
not just the novelty or a trend, but it slowly becomes like
1:01:12
status quo for quality. And we hope that this is will be
1:01:16
not just the first step, but also very important step that we
1:01:21
trying to unlock the blockage of all these capabilities of how
1:01:26
people can add value into matcha production.
1:01:28
Milling is a start, but next blending, next shiage, there are
1:01:35
a lot of critical components in this value chain that people can
1:01:39
start to make a difference. And right now, a lot of these
1:01:43
components are largely being locked because these machineries
1:01:47
or these capabilities are just not that easily accessible by
1:01:51
people outside of Japan. And I think that's also part of
1:01:54
the company's mission, is to create new equipments, new
1:01:59
leverage for people to unleash their creativity and
1:02:02
imaginations. Absolutely couldn't have said it
1:02:05
better myself. All right.
1:02:07
So just to summarize it, we've got the matcha shortage
1:02:10
intensifies bamboo ceiling on Chinese matcha brakes, Gokhoro
1:02:15
in matcha for we'll begin to, we'll start to see that more and
1:02:20
more. The market in mainland China and
1:02:23
potentially India too really starts to take off for in terms
1:02:27
of domestic consumption and fresh milled matcha enters the
1:02:31
mainstream. Do I miss anything?
1:02:33
And also specialty market, the specialty movement is going to
1:02:37
either continue to explode or plateau left the market to
1:02:42
decide which direction it wants to go.
1:02:44
I think it will continue to grow so long as the supply is willing
1:02:48
to sell to us newcomers. Yeah.
1:02:53
So it's, but I think the future is bright in general.
1:02:56
And if they don't, and you know, a lot of these matcha brands,
1:03:00
new matcha brands focusing on specialties, single origins,
1:03:03
being single cultivar, you know, you know, if they don't, who
1:03:06
knows what innovation that brings, you know, when you don't
1:03:09
have access to your plan A, Plan B can lead to a lot of new
1:03:13
innovation. In fact, we would have never
1:03:16
started milling Gokaro experimentally had it not been
1:03:20
so challenging for us to source the tension that we wish we
1:03:23
could source. So could be just some really
1:03:25
interesting new innovations in this new culture formation we
1:03:28
have in the specialty matcha world.
1:03:31
Totally, totally. Well, that's all the predictions
1:03:34
we have for this year. Actually, by the end of the
1:03:37
year, Ryan and I were thinking about doing a recap to see if
1:03:41
all these predictions got validated or invalidated.
1:03:44
Hopefully this is an annual tradition, the new tradition,
1:03:47
new tradition. See if there we go, new
1:03:50
movements, new traditions. Hopefully it's one that will
1:03:54
stick. So let us know, what do you
1:03:56
think? Do you agree with us, disagree
1:03:58
with us? Is there anything that we
1:03:59
missed? We'd love if you you reached out
1:04:02
and let us know what you think and let us know if you where you
1:04:05
agree and disagree. We'd love to make this a
1:04:07
conversation. So thank you so much for
1:04:09
listening and have a happy 2026. See you in the future.