Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / 100th Episode 🎊 : No Easy Answers

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100th Episode 🎊 : No Easy Answers · Specialty Matcha Podcast

0:06
Hello and welcome to the special Too Much Podcast.
0:09
My name is Ryan. This is Michael Hozongjun who
0:11
also goes by Sam. Hello, hello.
0:13
And we are the Co founders of Sanko Matcha Products.
0:16
Yeah, we'll launch this podcast to discuss our learning journey,
0:19
Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts, And this
0:23
episode marks our 100th episode there.
0:30
We go, we got 1 sound effects. Yeah, wow.
0:35
Yeah. So I went back and listened to
0:37
our first recording recently, conditions for a specialty much
0:40
preference acquisition, but it aged pretty well.
0:43
So it's been quite the journey so far.
0:45
It has just been a fantastic excuse both to document our own
0:49
learning journey and kind of as a forcing function for us to
0:53
make sure we have something interesting to talk about every
0:55
week. It's if you're not accountable
0:58
to, you know, close you down. Exactly what I've been saying
1:02
for I guess 100 times. You have discussed our learning
1:06
journey and much our share startup stories and interview
1:09
experts. It's just also been a fantastic
1:12
excuse to interview people that have much more.
1:15
Knowledge. That's a that's a really, really
1:18
interesting. I would say kind of disarm a lot
1:22
of people and let them share a lot of honest opinions.
1:26
Yeah, and it's allowed us to fill our own curiosity gaps.
1:30
The more we learn, the more questions we have.
1:33
And a lot of that knowledge is locked inside someone's head for
1:37
some reason or another. And I think especially the gift
1:43
of a podcast format is one that ideas are allowed to breathe a
1:48
little easier. It's a little more
1:49
conversational, like it's less pressure to get something right,
1:53
but also people start to open up.
1:55
A lot of people in the Japanese tea community and in the matcha
1:58
community tend to be a little more reserved and less willing
2:02
to be critical. But typically after about 20
2:05
minutes in a podcast format format, people really start to
2:08
open up. Yeah, take some time, and
2:10
everyone has sort of their own way of opening up.
2:12
But it's interesting because, you know, if it's buried in
2:15
minute 40 in a podcast episode, the likelihood of someone taking
2:20
it out of context is much less likely than, you know, writing
2:25
an article and someone you know being critical of Chano you or
2:28
criticizing some part of the Japanese.
2:31
The ecosystem to this podcast format has been oddly I don't
2:34
want to call it successful, but effective at getting people to
2:37
express more controversial opinions.
2:39
Yeah. Like we're trying to really
2:43
offer kind of like a safe space for people to share their honest
2:47
opinion. And you know, we, we, we kind of
2:52
trying to do that for ourselves, too.
2:54
Yeah. And it's not so black and white.
2:55
I mean, there's some positions that we take that we're not
2:59
totally confident are going to age well.
3:01
And frequently it's, you know, Ryan and I both take a slightly
3:06
different position and we're trying to either debate or argue
3:11
or convinced each other. But eventually we reach to a
3:14
common ground. And I think that's pretty
3:17
typical scenario how a lot of episodes unfold.
3:20
And that's the. Beauty of that form.
3:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is.
3:24
I mean, it is hard capturing nuance in the 32nd reel.
3:28
Like I love short form content. I think the people who do it
3:30
well are just incredibly talented.
3:33
But like, a lot of these concepts are like very nuanced
3:36
and like to be examined from multiple sites, which also makes
3:40
this podcast very hard to clip. But today, for the 100th
3:44
episode, we wanted to look back and have a conversation between
3:47
us about what we feel like we've gotten wrong or what are areas
3:51
that we think might not age well or.
3:54
How has our opinion? Changed so if you would have
3:57
talked to me 10 years ago before I was into matcha in in the
4:02
industry the way I am now I I was really into Chinese tea
4:06
ceremony I was in a Moto senke student and I was really into
4:10
the concept of tea as a product. If you would have talked to me
4:13
10 years ago, I would have told you told you that Japanese tea
4:17
is incredibly industrial on mass if you compare it to other types
4:21
of tea. That was a judgements that I had
4:23
that I think I got wrong the deeper and deeper I go.
4:26
I agree to the statement sort of still, you don't see the levels
4:31
of artisanal craft and production the way you see in
4:36
Taiwan for a new loan or in poor in mainland China and other
4:40
types of tea where it's actually truly being hand processed.
4:44
And in Japan, the vast majority of the tea is not handpicked.
4:47
It's all using machine harvesters.
4:50
It's actually pretty technologically advanced.
4:53
A lot of the major farms are sending soil samples off to lab.
4:56
Amino acid measuring content in the leaves.
4:59
But actually I think it's the future of farming the deeper we
5:02
go. I actually have grown to
5:04
appreciate this very science first approach to Japanese tea.
5:08
It is one of my former opinions that doesn't age well.
5:12
Well, it's really a system that has evolved to adapt what Japan
5:16
is truly right, the lack of Labor force, the terrain that
5:21
they need to overcome to do a consistent and sustainable
5:25
farming for themselves. And I think that being so
5:29
critical about it from a Chinese or Taiwanese point of view, I
5:34
think eventually these countries are going to face this reality
5:37
sometime in the future, too. Yeah, just the entire Asia is
5:42
declining in population. Actually, very recently I was
5:45
listening to an old interview with Lee Kuan Yew, the founder
5:49
of modern Singapore and their first Prime Minister, and he was
5:53
talking about Japanese immigration situation.
5:56
And if you talk to anyone who's tried to immigrate to Japan, it
5:59
is just incredibly difficult to stay there.
6:01
That country like basically tries to reject foreigners in
6:05
every way it can, less so for students, but it's very
6:08
difficult to actually go and try to live in Japan.
6:11
And he was saying demographics is destiny basically, and that I
6:15
think at the time of the recording there were like two or
6:18
three productive adults for every non productive old
6:22
citizen. And it was projected and he, I
6:24
think this interview was done in like the 1970s and it was
6:26
projected by the year 2050, there'd be 1.2 productive
6:31
working adults for every one person, which is really
6:34
demographically imbalanced and is a sign of a dying country,
6:38
literally. And that he was actually
6:41
praising the United States for its immigration policy.
6:43
I don't think we can do that anymore.
6:47
Saying that having levels of immigration to support the
6:50
country and it makes sense within the context of a country
6:53
like Singapore, which has embraced immigration to the
6:56
extreme. It's actually a wonderful case
6:58
study of a bunch of different ethnic groups living together in
7:01
harmony among Chinese, Malays and Indians primarily.
7:05
So I think Japan's has to have this level of extreme
7:12
automation, and that's the future.
7:14
There's an interesting tension there because also that means
7:18
the death of these artisanal crafts.
7:20
If you you know, watch any of Mark from Aleka's content, a
7:25
very typical framing is preventing the extinction, the
7:30
endangerment of these very old crafts where there is indeed a
7:35
lot of knowledge. Or a quote to protect or
7:38
preserve heritage. So there's an interesting
7:41
tension you can criticize that it is becoming so industrial so
7:46
fast and economically speaking from like a macroeconomic lens
7:51
that has to if it's not going to embrace immigration and if it's
7:55
a dying country demographically speaking.
7:57
But with that, death is also a death and culture.
8:00
So it's, you know, our opinions on the levels of
8:05
industrialization. There is such a natural tension
8:09
there that we've explored on the podcast.
8:11
And I think sometimes we take one side being lovers of a hand
8:16
produced product, artisanally crafted tea, really old school
8:20
knowledge to produce interesting things, and the preservation of
8:24
genetic diversity like Zyrai and the use of honzu shading with
8:28
rice straw instead of synthetic canopies.
8:32
And but it's also not sustainable.
8:35
You can't love 1 and be critical of the other at the same in the
8:39
same breath if you really care about the system as a whole.
8:42
It's true, It's true, but also like, it also comes down to
8:46
like, you know our discussion topic about authenticity, right?
8:50
It's about the intention of doing something if the intention
8:54
of doing something is not trying to restart.
8:58
Dying culture is a pretty interesting take.
9:00
Dying culture is a pretty interesting observation, But if
9:04
you view it from a kind of authenticity lens, culture is
9:11
dying because it doesn't necessarily have the soil to
9:15
thrive and survive anymore. And, and in in order to, to, to
9:19
kind of force it to exist, you have to kind of put it in, into
9:24
a museum, into a glass shelf. But, but it's really not
9:28
sustainable because the environment has changed.
9:31
And the new culture right now, the new status quo is a fully
9:35
automated, be heavily industrialized tea production
9:40
environment that we are seeing in Japan.
9:42
This is the new culture. This is the new phenomenon that
9:47
you know that that's that's the only I will say maybe not only,
9:53
but the very few sustainable way that the Japanese can still to
9:57
produce tea right now and maybe in the future too.
10:00
So. We find ourselves on both sides
10:02
of these arguments. Actually, it's and.
10:06
And it's, it's very difficult because on one hand, you can
10:09
really advocate and demand like culture or tradition being
10:15
preserved. On the other hand, we are not
10:17
doing it. It's the farmer on the ground
10:20
that's actually need to overcome all these difficulties.
10:23
And you cannot just like tell them what to do.
10:26
Like they have to survive. They're human beings too.
10:29
And they have a business to run. Yep, and the legacy to carry on
10:34
it's. Complicated, it is complicated.
10:35
And I think that, you know, for someone to make the claim or
10:39
advocation that has some gravity or weight into it is that they,
10:44
they, they also participate, right?
10:46
Like, for example, like a bark from Oyekao or even like
10:49
Nekohama, who's been, you know, going door to door to farmers in
10:53
Japan to, to, to, to help them revive their wages for doing
10:57
agriculture. I think, you know, but but it's
11:01
hard, right? It's very difficult seeing them
11:03
and doing all these kind of things and overcoming all these
11:06
societal changes almost feels like it they're, you know,
11:10
heading towards a inevitable failure, which is very.
11:14
Well, really, in what way do you mean inevitable failure?
11:18
Well, there will be fewer and fewer farmers.
11:21
You mean as a whole, a system as a whole?
11:24
A system as a whole. Right farmers aging out.
11:26
They, they're working with farmers that are literally like
11:30
not going to be with us for the next maybe a decade or two and
11:35
there will be no one taking over or very unlikely.
11:38
So it's, it's there's a lot of respect to, you know, all these
11:43
people, you know, making their endeavor, but at the same time,
11:49
you know, being so critical about the current system, like
11:52
the current like industrial system that people are doing in
11:56
Japan, trying to produce more tea and trying to maintain
11:59
business. I think there's a really a fussy
12:01
line out there, like how it's hard to be critical after
12:05
learning so much context. Yeah.
12:08
And going back to the but and also their policies don't make
12:11
it very easy. We've talked to probably four or
12:15
five very serious people who are non Japanese that wanted to do
12:21
farming in Japan. That too.
12:23
That's. Really hard.
12:25
Don't want your help? Apparently even if you are
12:28
Japanese, getting land in the right licenses, etcetera, it's
12:32
very hard to do agriculture if you are Japanese.
12:36
So it's this, there's also these types of barriers, but the
12:39
number of conversations we have really serious people, like
12:42
people who would put time and money and effort into reviving
12:46
abandoned tea plantations or starting their own, they just
12:50
can't do it. They face so much friction.
12:53
And you hear about people on the Internet complaining about this
12:55
all the time. It's hard to open a bank
12:57
account. It's hard to open start a
12:59
company there. Like it's just like very tricky
13:03
to do this. And then even if you do want to
13:05
like, let's say license a plot of land from another farmer, it
13:09
it's a very difficult work and business environment to do so.
13:12
I mean, we would love to have a little contract plot someday to
13:16
do a bunch of experiments and really understand the
13:19
agriculture a little bit more, but it would be almost
13:22
impossible for us. It's it's such a daunting task.
13:25
It's honestly not worth the effort of even try it at least
13:28
where where we're at at the moment.
13:30
I mean, as soon as our mill becomes economically viable and
13:33
starts generating some profit for us, it is something we would
13:37
love to do. And the reality is we're
13:39
probably going to do it in China.
13:41
We're actually certainly going to do we.
13:43
Have fun. In China, because it's so much
13:47
easier to navigate and there's not all of these quote UN quote
13:51
stupid rules which offer some level of protection.
13:57
They help protect, protect against over consolidation of
14:02
farming and allow, you know, smaller farmers to thrive.
14:05
There's some merits to some of these rules.
14:08
Yeah, but the reality is there will be no farmers to protect in
14:13
the future. Yeah, more and more if you look
14:16
at the the overall demographic tables.
14:18
So that's an interesting attention that we've explored
14:21
over the course of 100 episodes. And I think you'll find some
14:24
episodes where we're very pro small farmer, intergenerational
14:28
preserving the craft. And you're also going to find
14:31
some episodes where we're very pro technology and the necessity
14:35
for innovating higher yield, higher quality tea science first
14:39
approach using automate means of automation.
14:44
Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, like it really
14:46
comes down to, you know, what do you care by the end of the day?
14:49
Where do you care the most? Which?
14:51
Which ground do you stand? Another.
14:53
Thing that we aren't sure will age well or if our opinions will
14:59
change is our take on Channel Yu, our Japanese tea ceremony.
15:03
We have been relatively critical of both Emoto Sanke and Odo
15:08
Sanke and the whole system at large.
15:12
Not that we have a bone to pick, but they're very it's very rare
15:16
to have people question assumptions.
15:18
And I think it honestly, it's over romanticized and over
15:22
glorified and it's not a popular opinion.
15:25
And we've actually gotten some hate mail about it over the
15:28
course of 100 episodes basically saying stop slandering tea
15:32
ceremony. I don't think that they have the
15:34
path has to not be criticized. We were were former
15:38
practitioners. I studied a multi sank for three
15:40
years. Sam studied it for I think about
15:42
a year and a half. But we were in a really unique
15:45
educational scenario where we first started getting serious
15:48
about tea at Penn State University and there was
15:51
something called the Tea Institute at Penn State.
15:53
And at the time, we were the only organization in the United
15:56
States that hosted both a Moto Sankai and Arisenke schools of
16:01
China. So you had to pick a school for
16:04
formal lessons, but anyone could attend the public events and the
16:09
lectures and, you know, a couple times a semester.
16:12
And we would both sit in on these lectures from both the
16:15
motorcycle and, and, as well as their public demonstrations,
16:19
which gave us a pretty unique perspective on how both schools
16:23
kind of approached things, their similarities and their
16:26
differences, which has given us a foundation to be critical.
16:30
Especially having also a Chinese tea background takes a very
16:34
different approach to a lot of these things.
16:36
Yeah, I mean, this is the specialty Matcha podcast and
16:40
based on our own curiosity and our background, we, what we care
16:44
about the most naturally is tea, right yourself and tea ceremony
16:50
on its own, it's really a wonderful, I would say a vessel,
16:54
a vehicle to carry a lot of these Japanese culture and
16:57
element and make it the relevant to the modern context.
17:01
And you know, people in the modern days to relate back to a
17:05
very old tradition. But it's really not a place for
17:09
you to learn anything about tea. And and it's also a place
17:14
that's, I would say dragging more people to appreciate just
17:18
tea itself in the broader context.
17:20
It's implementing a lot of these baggage and burden for you to or
17:25
for anyone to almost trying to inflate, inflict a sense of
17:29
guilt to just enjoy tea or matcha on its own without any,
17:34
you know, other cultural education or context.
17:38
You know, it's almost difficult to treat matcha just as a
17:42
beverage. Yeah.
17:44
And the other thing about it is just it's a very conservative
17:48
traditional art form inside a country that is really not that
17:53
advanced among first world nations in what we'll call
17:57
liberal values. And by I'm not talking about
17:59
liberal versus conservative, like I mean like basic things
18:03
like gender equality and general opportunity depending on, you
18:08
know, no matter what your class or background is.
18:11
For example, I mean among G7 nation, Japan ranks the worst.
18:15
It is still, if you listen to Japanese scholars or economists,
18:18
it is just like pathetic how poor they are on gender
18:23
equality. I think 50% of enterprises in
18:27
Japan don't have a single woman executive.
18:30
And there's, I mean, this is very well documented in other
18:33
works is a book that deep dives into this called Japan and the
18:37
Shackles of Its Past. I might have gotten the title, I
18:41
might have missed one word there.
18:42
But it's it's approximately this that talks about basically a
18:46
revolt of women who basically just bow out of the system
18:49
because it's not even worth trying to fight.
18:52
Very similar problem in Korea and Korean culture too.
18:55
It's, well, it's more of a societal structural problem
19:00
that, you know, Japanese tea ceremony just happens to be a
19:04
pretty wonderful condensation or lens towards all of these, you
19:09
know, aspects. On the words of Doctor Rebecca
19:12
Corbett that we had on, she was like, yeah, you know, Japan is a
19:16
very conservative country in this way, and you probably
19:19
wouldn't look to Shana you as the fertile soil for a
19:23
revolution or more change across these aspects that are the more
19:28
dark side of Japanese culture. But you know, over the course of
19:32
time, as we kind of reflect on how a lot of these contemporary
19:38
matcha cafes and matcha consumption is evolving, I think
19:42
I think in a few episodes we talk about there's actually a
19:46
lot of things that, you know, modern matcha cafe owners or
19:49
brand owners can learn from China.
19:51
And we think that there there are a lot of wisdoms in it that
19:55
we can distill. The problem is, is that people
19:58
only have a surface level understanding of Chana Yu and
20:00
that's what gets communicated in most Chana Yu education.
20:04
You only learn from the forms. Not the Spirit.
20:07
Not the spirit. I think the Spirit is what's the
20:10
most valuable. And to do and to learn the
20:12
spirit, you really just have to take the lessons and suffer and
20:17
suffer. I mean like physical discomfort
20:19
of sitting and saying that it's a very nonlinear path.
20:22
If you're used to Western style education of being able to ask
20:26
questions and things being explained very explicitly and in
20:30
plain terms, this is not where you go.
20:33
It's very Eastern type of education, Zen learning,
20:38
learning through experiences. That's a whole, there's a whole
20:40
philosophy actually behind this level of education.
20:43
It's fascinating to read about, but it is a slow process in
20:46
which you are more of a passive observer than an active learner.
20:51
And, you know, you really go through, I mean, the first thing
20:53
that you learn, at least in my memory of studying a lot of
20:56
Sankei, is something called Wadi Gekko.
20:59
And I had to beg students at Penn State just like, please
21:02
just suffer through this. You're going to be folding wet
21:05
napkins and dry napkins for a little while, but I promise it's
21:09
worth it. You will eventually whisk
21:11
matcha. The sweets are really good.
21:13
Nothing is as rewarding as like, you know, going through all of
21:17
this to enjoy your 3 sips of tea and your wagashi.
21:20
You know, but even from Body Gecko, I think there's a lot of
21:23
things that you you can learn from it.
21:25
Totally. The total intentionality of the
21:28
caring of items, of objects, of, you know, experience of the
21:34
guests, like the setting up the whole kind of vibe for someone
21:38
to like pay attention to things that they take it as granted.
21:43
Like there are a lot of these interesting, like philosophy
21:46
that's so baked into the tea ceremony that's I don't think
21:50
never taught. You really have to experience
21:53
and kind of discover these intentionality yourself along
21:56
the way. Yeah, all of these moves and
21:58
some are explicitly taught, like for example, you, the host,
22:02
never turns their back to their guests with one exception, and
22:06
that's when you're removing the wastewater bowl when you were
22:09
like essentially removing the trash from the room.
22:11
Yeah, you're using your body to hiding the.
22:13
Trash basically like very and then there's a bunch of other
22:16
things like, you know, in some cases you need to do moves where
22:19
you go under the not over the bowl and like in some cases you
22:22
can ask some questions I mean, let's be real and I remember
22:26
someone asking why do you have to go under and like we were in
22:29
our T-shirt Well, it turns out that if you're in a kimono has
22:32
that gigantic flap coming off of your arm the.
22:34
Sleeve you. Literally cannot go over the
22:37
bowl. And so a lot of these semi
22:38
arbitrary rules are actually very well grounded, very
22:42
practical things. But just the level of care and
22:44
respect about preheating. Even like little things like
22:48
when you take water, scoop water out of the comma when you're
22:51
actually making the tea, you are supposed to leave water in the
22:56
scoop as if you are giving an intentional perfect amount of
23:02
water that you're putting into the tea bowl to whisk your
23:06
matcha. And then you return the rest of
23:08
the hot water to the kettle. It's not like you're just
23:11
dumping everything in. It's you want to purposely over
23:14
scoop so that you can leave some in your scoop and return it to
23:19
the comma to demonstrate to your guest the level of care and
23:25
precision that you're putting into that particular bowl.
23:28
Like all of the like this, all sorts of and this spirit is
23:32
wonderful and showing that level of care and intentionality.
23:35
And there's just so many different examples.
23:38
And like, you know, they talk about it like I remember reading
23:40
some material for the Kyoto Tourism Board and the way that
23:44
tea ceremony is incorporated into the sort of the tourism
23:50
centers, educational centers in Kyoto.
23:52
And they said, like, no one actually wants to learn tea
23:55
ceremony. There's a rigid hierarchy.
23:58
It's very physically uncomfortable to actually attend
24:02
a real tea ceremony. You know, in the 1800s during
24:05
the major restoration, they did invent a ceremony that can be
24:08
done on a table. And so you do see some versions
24:10
of that. But for what people think of is
24:12
quote UN quote, authentic is something that would be in ATV
24:15
show or in a movie on it's a time, a map, right?
24:18
It it's 1/2 hour ordeal. That and to actually experience
24:23
one would probably require, I don't know, 20 hours of
24:27
education to actually play your part in learning the moves,
24:30
learning the formality, learning the language, learning the
24:33
etiquette. Like it's not something you can
24:36
actually participate in until you've been educated.
24:39
So they give everyone this watered down experience where
24:42
you're learning to sit, says you're learning about the Chasa
24:46
and Ichigo, ETH. It's just the most super level
24:49
stuff, superficial level stuff that is not actually the spirit
24:53
of the ceremony that can be learned elsewhere.
24:55
Again, we are criticizing China, you and the way it's presented
24:59
the majority of the world. And we are also criticizing a
25:01
lot of modern follower practitioner nowadays that only
25:06
learn the form, not the spirit of the ceremony.
25:09
You know, like using, you know, 30 toss and whisking your your
25:14
your macha in front of the guests is really not a way to
25:18
show authenticity. You better just use a thought.
25:20
Absolutely. And I think one of the the most
25:23
articulate people who talks about this in the community is
25:27
David from Tizumi watching his YouTube content.
25:31
It really, I love it. And his whole philosophy behind
25:35
this. I really recommend if no one's
25:36
listened to his content, I don't think there's someone who is as
25:39
articulate that's speaking in English, that's thinking about
25:43
how tea ceremony can be applied to contemporary culture and that
25:49
intersection of chana you spirit in contemporary culture.
25:53
I'd love to have him back on the podcast to talk more about that.
25:56
And his tea ceremony school. Yeah.
25:59
A very rebellious 1. Based in Hiroshima.
26:02
I forget the name of the school. Our friend Paul too, from tea
26:05
nurseries, also part of that school.
26:07
Actually, it kind of makes me every time I hear them talk
26:10
about it, I'm like, oh, I can't. I can't.
26:12
What would they accept the former Amato Sanke students
26:15
like? It sounds much more liberal and
26:17
progressive. Yeah.
26:18
Yeah. Then these more common large
26:21
schools. Not to hate on any particular
26:23
school. I think what Amato Sanke or
26:25
Asenke have done is incredible for if you really zoom out for
26:28
protecting child know you and promoting the idea of matcha.
26:32
I don't know if we'd have this matcha boom if people were
26:34
interested in Japanese culture and the carriers of Japanese
26:38
culture where in the 70s and 80s you had all these rich
26:41
businessmen travel abroad and typically where their wives
26:44
would go with them. And part of the the good wives
26:48
and wives mothers policy meant they were educated in China Yu
26:50
and they set up their own local branches.
26:53
I and I think that's how a lot of foreign branches got formed,
26:56
the foundations of their early Japanese practitioner base of
27:00
Japanese expats living abroad, which then, you know, piece by
27:03
piece led to the macho explosion that we have today.
27:06
So I don't know, isn't June, are we too critical on on Japanese
27:09
tea and tea ceremony? I mean, it is very sexist.
27:13
Yeah, yeah. It's it's, I think it's just
27:16
like all the other situation, situation that we are seeing the
27:18
tea world. It's complicated.
27:20
Yeah. And, and, and it's frustrating
27:25
in a way that we keep hitting all these walls that just cannot
27:29
be overcome. And eventually we kind of accept
27:32
it as a status quo. The silver lining of the this so
27:35
shiny that you cannot disregard. It's a benefit to to the modern
27:39
days and to also to what we care about.
27:43
Yeah. So yeah, it's complicated,
27:45
right? No, it's it's complicated.
27:49
And you know, the temptation to just blend all Japanese tea
27:53
culture into one thing, one idea of authenticity and looking at
27:57
these histories is my criticism of a lot of these modern matcha
28:01
companies is they kind of take this unified approach, this all
28:05
inclusive, this grab bag approach to bucketing all of
28:10
Japanese tea culture into one thing.
28:12
And it always involves a site in advice.
28:16
It involves Senori Q, It involves all the tea ceremony
28:18
schools, maybe like Kiyoshi and then like modern day Uji Matcha
28:23
and its legacy, right? Like it's this presented as one
28:27
unified narrative for for tea and tea history and tea culture.
28:32
And the reality is far more messy and complicated,
28:35
especially when many parts of the culture are very imperfect.
28:38
And, you know, at its worst, I feel like Chana Yu, in the
28:42
dominance of the Chana Yu narrative authority, is that it
28:47
just plasters over some very ugly parts of the culture.
28:51
Like if you listen to people who have studied Arisenke for
28:55
decades and there's some podcasts out there where you
28:58
know, you'll have a woman tea practitioner that's been
29:01
studying it for 20 years that is treated less well than a man
29:06
that's been studying for two years.
29:08
And they get shoved to the front.
29:10
Then all the women get shoved to the back and there's all these
29:13
implicit and explicit. But the part that bothers me is
29:18
if you think about sexist and misogynistic and old world
29:22
institutions, and if you think about it in terms of their
29:26
survival rate, which are the 1st to get dismantled, it's the most
29:32
egregious examples. If you look throughout history,
29:36
the most blatant versions of sexism in our modern society
29:41
will get stamped out first and where you have enough or large
29:44
enough group of people revolting and then women have the right to
29:48
vote, for example. More it's, you know, heavily
29:50
explicit. You see the systematic
29:53
dismantling of racist and sexist institutions.
29:56
And then if you think of where the longest living versions of
30:01
sexist institutions can survive are the most seemingly innocent
30:07
places and chana Yu and tea ceremony and all of these
30:11
institutions, there are the most innocent versions, the most
30:17
implicit, the most subtle, the most delicate versions of sexism
30:22
that are less clear. It's not obvious until you, you
30:25
know, step foot into a Japanese tea ceremony that's being run by
30:30
a very traditional practitioner and the way that they're
30:33
ordering and arranging the guests.
30:35
Or you hear about stories of midorikai, which is a residency
30:39
program for RSNK practitioners where foreigners come and study
30:43
at the Kyoto headquarters for a year.
30:45
You have to really dig deep to find these little pockets of
30:48
what I'll call socially acceptable institutions where
30:52
this sexism still lives. That's a very interesting
30:55
observation, Ryan. And frequently I found all these
30:59
institutions that have all these kind of baked in hierarchies are
31:05
the institutions that are claiming to serve for a greater
31:09
good, religions, academia, institutions.
31:13
And you frequently end up encountering these very old
31:16
world legacy, you know, racism or sexism and and and these
31:23
places you really can see a similarity between them and the
31:27
ceremony schools. The Wade held dogma got
31:31
indoctrined. It's just like, you know, some
31:33
of these scripts that you would read about in other religions
31:38
that that that's really similar to how the discourse are formed
31:42
in Channel U, like all of these myth, these legends, these
31:47
famous names, this wonderful accomplishment or incontinent,
31:52
incontinent of these big names in the history.
31:55
And, and how that kind of crystallized into this wonderful
31:59
culture that we should treat it as a single truth and we should
32:04
protect it and we should follow it.
32:06
And we are doing so to, you know, kind of protecting a
32:10
greater good or protecting the community, so to speak.
32:14
Yeah. I mean, there's so much about
32:16
China you that is fantastic and amazing.
32:19
It's like you, we could go on for hours about the merits of
32:24
the Iyamoto system. And if you look at it through
32:26
the lens of a institution, it's it's the way it's been able to
32:30
preserve itself and mold over time between Edo to Meiji to
32:34
present day. Like, there's some very
32:36
interesting lessons to be learned about the concept of the
32:40
survival of an institution into modernity.
32:43
It's how the Catholic Church survived the thousands of years.
32:47
It's being adaptive and being really actually quite savvy.
32:51
I mean, then you can put on the business lenses for China Yu and
32:55
people don't like to think this. And some great T scholars like
32:58
the author of making Tea making Japan and and Doctor Rebecca
33:01
Corbett have talked about the concept of these tea ceremony
33:05
schools as businesses. They are businesses.
33:08
They need revenue. They, you know, they have
33:11
profits and I'd love to look at the Pi know some of them very
33:15
interesting. But you know, they are also
33:17
businesses as well as institutions as well as bearers
33:21
and holders of culture. I shall donate 110th of your
33:25
income. Your Catholic school education
33:28
is paying off. This one is well indoctrinated,
33:32
but it. Is like the teachers are kind of
33:34
like the priests, the Yamoto's are like the archbishop's or,
33:39
you know, the, the Pope, you know, like that there are a lot
33:43
of similarities between, you know, the practices of the tea
33:46
ceremony schools and how modern religions are formed.
33:49
The other interesting thing is I think China you tends to attract
33:53
a practitioner base that is a little more of a quiet type, one
33:58
less likely to ruffle feathers. And I think it tends to eject
34:03
people that don't like these systematic, authoritative
34:07
systems because there's a lot of decision making that goes on
34:10
behind the scenes that is entirely blind to the member,
34:15
the student, the practitioner. And if you decided to ruffle a
34:18
lot of feathers like it, imagine doing the same thing in a large
34:22
company. Like, you're just not going to
34:23
get very far and you probably aren't going to know that you're
34:27
not going to get very far because you're not present or
34:30
Privy to those conversations that are happening in the back.
34:33
If you, you know, write a big expose about systematic sexism
34:39
in Midori Kai in the OR a Sinky residency program, Yeah,
34:43
probably not getting your chame or your your tea name license to
34:47
teach. So like, there's not.
34:48
The place to talk about that? No, so like it there's again,
34:54
from a systematic institutional preservation perspective, if
34:57
you're able to attract a lot of docile, non more submissive
35:04
group of practitioners, it makes change agents very hard.
35:08
And you know, talking to we have only met one tea practitioner
35:14
that studies in the sun sank. And I'll keep this a little
35:17
vague. That seems to be very
35:18
rebellious. You know, we asked them like,
35:21
how do you get away with this basically, and they said I just
35:25
play my gaijin card. So you know there is some
35:28
ability to peek through the system and to to.
35:31
To the person is not Japanese, right?
35:34
Yeah, non Japanese, that's true. So.
35:36
It's a very hard to break in from inside of the system.
35:40
It's so intertwined with their own identity.
35:43
Almost, yeah. And so untouchable for so many
35:46
reasons, such a fascinating topic, but it's one that, you
35:50
know, to be honest, we're not 100% sure that we get right and
35:53
we're not 100% sure if we're being too critical or not.
35:57
We're expressing our personal beliefs with the context that we
36:00
have and we hope on this long form format are able to express
36:03
them and justify them instead of just slandering.
36:07
I I think the critique of slandering is a little too harsh
36:10
when we are justifying where positions are coming from and it
36:16
is not what we care about. The preservation of chanoyu is
36:20
actually very low on my list of things.
36:23
I care much more about the farmers.
36:25
I care much more about innovation.
36:27
I care much more about the people consuming the tea.
36:31
I care much more about it living and thriving as a specialty
36:35
product on my stock rank of priorities, it is actually
36:39
fairly low. I'm not Japanese.
36:41
I have no vested interest in maintaining.
36:44
You can never be a emoto. I could never be an emoto, No
36:47
one could be because it's birthright almost or through
36:50
marriage. I have no vested interest to
36:53
care essentially, compared to some of these other things.
36:57
You know, it's something that I've studied enough that I think
36:59
I can thoroughly criticize it, but also there's a lot that I
37:02
don't know. And I'm certainly very open to
37:05
my mind being changed in the future from people that have
37:08
context that I'm missing. But it ultimately comes down to
37:11
what you care about. And exploring these tensions is
37:13
what we love doing on the podcast, But I think these are
37:16
the top 2. Like the over industrialization
37:19
argument is one thing that we're not sure if we have right.
37:23
Our opinions have been a little more flexible as we explore this
37:26
tension between tradition and innovation.
37:29
And same thing with actually tradition innovation within the
37:33
consumption meaning China Yu versus sort of the modern cafe
37:37
consumer which is driving the whole much industry.
37:41
Yes, indeed. And I think that we just
37:44
naturally care about, so to speak, we can only care about
37:48
things that we have capabilities or agencies to explore, to learn
37:54
more. And I think our opinion about,
37:58
you know, the modern production, more modern days production of
38:01
Japanese tea really, really fundamentally changed after we
38:05
tried to produce it on ourselves.
38:07
Yes, which comes down to our little experiment that we've
38:10
done in a place called Human in China.
38:13
So we promised to talk about this on a previous podcast, but
38:16
we are actually we can call ourselves selves Matcha farmers,
38:19
tension farmers, makers, makers and matcha Millers too.
38:25
Not good, but yeah, not yet. So we had the opportunity to
38:31
experiment with some shaded cultivation in China, in a place
38:34
called Qimen in Anhui. It's an area famous primarily
38:38
for black tea. It's famously the base.
38:41
The original base of Earl Grey actually comes from Qimen Hong
38:45
Ta or Qimen Black Tea, and it has a very old romanization.
38:49
In Chinese it's actually Kimo. And Kimo and the Wade Guild
38:53
romanization. So it's usually a symbol of
38:56
something that exists for a long time.
38:59
So yeah, it's it's a fascinating place.
39:02
And we just happen to have some connection of a few local
39:05
farmers out there that we had the opportunity to Commission
39:09
for a very little experiment. Deep in a little tiny valley
39:15
near some wild growing bamboo forests we had, I don't know,
39:20
it's a tiny plot. It ended up producing about 5
39:23
KGS of tensha. So probably what 25 to 30 KGS of
39:29
wet leaf were were picked and we had with the same bamboo that
39:36
came from the bamboo forest next door are wonderful farmer
39:41
collaborator built hand built raised Tana shelf from the
39:46
bamboo and it was shaded. Kanesha.
39:48
Kanesha shaded for about 3 weeks and it was all seed propagated
39:53
tea. Primarily used for for black tea
39:56
so it's very high catechin content.
39:59
Probably why it didn't taste very good and organic.
40:02
And it was shaded for three weeks and it was all handpicked.
40:07
And then we processed it in his backyard.
40:12
On the big wok that's filled with boiling water and wood and
40:17
wood. It was a wood fired wok.
40:20
What we put some water and essentially A gigantic steaming
40:24
basket on top. So actually is much more similar
40:27
probably to the way that tension was processed before any
40:31
industrialization. Very hand processed.
40:34
We did a bunch of experiments to figure what the right steaming
40:37
time and duration was, which is a little painful, is very much
40:41
the art of steaming it because even the amount of steam was
40:44
controlled by how much would be put in it.
40:47
So even like having a constant heat source produce a constant
40:50
amount of steam, and like if the steam was running low, we had to
40:53
steam a little longer to make sure there was no reddening.
40:55
There's a lot of skill involved and even the level of steaming
41:00
was a very difficult art to kind of get right, which I think we
41:03
got better is the afternoon progress.
41:05
But I think what's really what was really constraining us was
41:08
the equipment. So one piece of equipment that
41:12
really, really drag us down is the roaster.
41:16
So the roaster that they used to roast black tea or honcha in
41:21
cheamen is just not powerful enough to roast tension.
41:26
Like a for a real proper tension oven temperature.
41:29
Yeah, yeah. The temperature and also to get
41:32
the remaining of the water out quickly.
41:35
So a lot of the tension, some of the experimental batch quote, UN
41:41
quote in the beginning kind of just end up getting a second
41:45
steam because it didn't vent out the steam or the water quickly
41:51
enough. And it degraded the color pretty
41:53
significantly. Our tension looks very.
41:57
Yellow. Green, yellow taste, taste the
41:59
way you would expect to, but you're going to the motions and
42:02
doing this ourselves, even with the picking like because we were
42:05
essentially using a Zyry field, you know, it was a little
42:08
difficult to coordinate things. We we were there for a
42:11
relatively short window. So we couldn't like go in every
42:15
day like you hear about people having to do with Zyry.
42:19
So some were definitely a little past peak and you could tell
42:22
because the young leaves were a little bit more too mature and
42:26
some of the leaves were were less mature.
42:28
And this is just comes from the natural genetic diversity level
42:32
of difference in the Leafs were crazy to me seeing that in his
42:37
eye right feel that was ready to be picked.
42:39
The glossiness, the Sheen, the shine, the shape.
42:42
Even the shape. Yeah, the shape.
42:44
How serrated the edges of the leaves were?
42:46
The shape of the leaves in the 3D like some are more curled and
42:51
some are more flat than others. The color, some more green or
42:55
more lighter color, the number of buds, all sorts of thing.
42:59
It was crazy the level of genetic diversity for the real
43:03
X-ray field has, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for how
43:06
difficult it must have been before cultivars.
43:09
Like really, every single tree was very different.
43:12
Or the teachers must not have been.
43:15
Very good. So supposedly part of the the
43:17
Chashi's of the blunders job back in the day was to identify
43:20
what needed to be picked when. And that must have tricky.
43:24
Yeah. Like, you really have to have a
43:25
new level of intimacy with your garden on a per plant basis.
43:29
The cultivars, there's a lot of farmers right now during harvest
43:32
season will show, OK, this half is Goku, this half is Oku Midori
43:36
or something. And you can see how they're
43:38
ready at different times. Imagine that being like a
43:41
pointillism painting. But there there's a pretty
43:43
interesting kind of farming practice that I saw it in Yunnan
43:47
because all of the teas in Yunnan are wild teas in the tea
43:50
forest. They would tight this little
43:52
string with different colors to different tea in the forest to
43:57
signify what teas are naturally early flushes to to kind of help
44:02
to guide the tea pickers to pick tea.
44:04
So you know, today is the yellow day, today is the blue day.
44:07
A pretty interesting farming practices that you see.
44:10
There's like all these variations that people to
44:12
overcome natural difficulties. But yeah, it was quite an
44:17
experience. So we hired 5 tea pickers.
44:20
It took 5 tea pickers all day to pick all the material.
44:24
And we participated in the first round.
44:26
But then we need to go back processing.
44:28
And that was interesting to seeing how the local labor was
44:32
organized and the scale of all of our our tea processing Co
44:36
workers for the day. And they picked up on like the
44:39
picking method pretty fast. Yeah, yeah, they were pros.
44:42
They were so much better than our ability, so watching them
44:46
work and even interact with each other really just so chill.
44:50
There's the chit chatting and, you know, picking and laughing
44:54
and making fun of us for our bad skill and slow speed.
45:00
Yeah, that was quite fun. So and also seeing bugs too.
45:05
Very important is such a pound. At least the last time we went
45:08
and picking we didn't see a single, but I think we saw one
45:11
ladybug slowly dying, taking its last breath for pesticides that
45:18
just fell over on its back. Yeah, I'm joking, I'm joking,
45:21
but maybe not. But there are lots of bugs in
45:25
this garden, which honestly I can understand why some
45:28
pesticides are being used because some of the tea leaves
45:31
were definitely partially eaten with a very rich amino acid
45:35
content from the shading. Yeah, the only.
45:39
Appreciate that. The only kind of anti insect
45:44
measures that they took was to put on this little like panels
45:49
that they kind of emit the kind of hormone that will attract
45:52
bugs and then it's a sticky panel.
45:54
Yeah, it's like those sticky flytraps.
45:56
Yeah, but that was definitely not enough for that thyroid plot
46:01
that we. These sticky traps are pretty
46:04
clever. They glow, so they sit all day
46:07
in the sun, absorb sunlight, and then they fluoresce at night,
46:11
which attracts a lot of the night insects too.
46:14
Pretty clever method actually. I wonder how effective it
46:18
actually is. But probably not enough based on
46:21
the damage of some of the tea leaves.
46:23
So we definitely understood the new appreciation for pesticides
46:26
too. Not that we're pro pesticide,
46:28
but wow, we really understand why it can be necessary for
46:32
shaded cultivation. These very amino acid umami rich
46:37
leaves that probably taste quite delicious to the bugs.
46:40
So they are steaming. Processing yoga.
46:43
That was hard. Oh my goodness.
46:45
There's a new appreciation for the de stemming and deveining
46:48
process and lots of learning. We ended up using an old rice
46:53
Husker. So it's a mass based wind
46:55
separator. Totally manual.
46:57
Yeah, we were. Yeah, You had to hand turn it
47:00
with a crank. I mean it's literally 100 year
47:04
old, hundreds of year old technology.
47:06
You can see old versions of this both in China and Japan.
47:10
You go to the Kambayashi museum, they have a very similar wind
47:13
braced hand cranked separate. We were mechanically using the
47:17
same thing. Ujimaja farmers were used as
47:20
that in the day for the de stemming and deveining.
47:24
Wow, leads to a lot of waste material.
47:28
It was very, I mean, no wonder like back in the days you had to
47:31
do some hand sorting of tension with chopsticks.
47:33
It gets part of the job done. But when we were milling that
47:36
material, it required a lot of hand sorting.
47:39
And then we learned all sorts of just like little interesting
47:42
micro lessons, like just how dry tension is.
47:45
Like if you put your hand in a bag of tension or scooping it
47:49
around or trying to pick out stems or foreign material, your
47:52
hand will get super dry very quickly.
47:56
Just how? Quickly it got re moisturized.
47:59
It's it's like a sponge. It Forbes water so quickly?
48:04
Yeah, especially in the weather of Chimen, it's quite difficult.
48:08
Altogether, it was a very interesting experiment that we
48:11
could have never actually done in Japan, especially at that
48:13
cost amongst the five tea pickers, all the tea processing
48:17
equipment, the cost of putting that kanleisha up and the cost
48:20
of the tea that was underneath it for that one harvest season.
48:24
And they housed and fed us and it was $500.00 for the whole
48:29
week, including the material. Just the cost and like how
48:33
welcome we felt and we really were able to try to do whatever
48:37
we wanted. Well, definitely got a French
48:40
friendship quote from, from, from uncle.
48:44
But yeah, it's, I think it's also just the kind of
48:49
interesting project for them to kind of experiment too, because
48:54
this is clearly something that they have never seen before.
48:57
And Uncle at the tea farmer that we work with was just like very
49:01
naturally curious about, you know, all of these practices.
49:05
Yeah, and asked. He asked tons of great like
49:07
follow up questions and he went in not from the position.
49:11
I mean, he's had decades of tea processing knowledge, but he
49:14
really came in with a very open mind and asking us questions
49:19
from my first principals. Yeah.
49:21
And he's just. So talented, like we kind of
49:23
explained how the whole Tana structure needs to be and show
49:26
him like maybe three photos and he end up building this Tana
49:30
structure that like got admired by some, you know, Japanese
49:34
farmers we talked to in Japan. And show them pictures.
49:37
Where is this Tana? This is very nicely built.
49:40
It's amazing what can happen when cultures are mixed, can
49:44
truly learn from one another. And so we actually see China as
49:47
being quite fertile soil for, I don't know, a mocha renaissance
49:52
or even for, you know, Japanese cultivars with Japanese
49:55
processing methodologies for what could be considered Malta
49:58
or matcha like product. So you leaves us very exciting.
50:02
And then that's another thing that I think we might, may or
50:05
may not get wrong is this whole matcha debate and defining what
50:10
even is matcha and exploring that tension and the levels of
50:15
disagreement we see in the industry about what actually
50:18
should be defined as this thing and country of origin as the ISO
50:23
definition. There's various trademarks
50:25
involving different like Fuji matcha or Nishio matcha.
50:29
And the way that all these things get defined, it's just
50:31
such an interesting story. And I hope we don't like beat
50:35
the Horse too hard on like all of this stuff because it's
50:39
literally like kind of how we've been mining ideas for over 100
50:43
different episodes. And that just goes to show just
50:45
how interesting. Have you asked like, what are we
50:48
doing? Why are we interested in tea?
50:51
Why are we interested in matcha? It's all of this tension is
50:55
where the real culture lies. The culture isn't this beautiful
50:59
ceremony of tea ceremony. It's in this messiness, this
51:04
humanness. So interesting.
51:06
In the people. So there, there will be no
51:09
culture if there's no people. Yes.
51:12
It's really the anthropological aspect of tea is so fascinating.
51:17
Yeah. And now and and and and and and.
51:19
It's the part that that we can be so relatable because we are
51:23
humans too. Yeah, absolutely.
51:26
And I'm trying to understand what other people are projecting
51:29
onto this thing, how they've incorporated into their lives.
51:32
It's such an interesting story to try to be a student of.
51:37
Yeah, to learn more about. It's, it's fascinating.
51:41
It's a it's essentially a culture that the two very unique
51:45
differently species Co built. It's Camellia senensis and Homo
51:50
sapia. Absolutely, absolutely.
51:53
And even amongst the tea community, one of the things
51:55
that has really enriched our experience as we do this is
51:59
having curiosity and wanting to learn more about other types of
52:04
tea. So after 100 episodes, we were
52:07
doing some reflecting about, I don't know what, what makes us
52:11
qualified to have a unique perspective, to even want to
52:15
become matcha educators or to concentrate this knowledge in a
52:19
podcast? What makes us qualified?
52:21
What makes our voice unique? And there's something that the
52:24
David from Tazumi said on our episode that we recorded with
52:27
him that really resonated with me.
52:29
And I think about it all the time is the tea ceremony
52:32
practitioners could enrich their experience so much more if they
52:37
took interest in the agriculture and the way that tea gets
52:41
produced and what the farmers are doing and the cultivars,
52:45
which really lives outside of the scope of learning Chanu Yu.
52:49
And he also said, but you know, all the people who are just
52:53
interested in tea and then matcha, if they took a little
52:56
more interest in a little more curiosity and learning about
52:59
Chanu Yu, they could enrich their experience so much.
53:03
And this isn't just true within, you know, matcha Japanese tea
53:06
ceremony. It's true across all types of
53:09
tea. And some of the most interesting
53:11
open minded people that we've learned from in the Japanese tea
53:14
world take interest in other types of right, like in Baisa
53:19
Nakamura, like they really understand about oolong tea.
53:24
If you go to Thailand and a lot of the Thai tea practitioners,
53:28
which is and matcha practitioners, which is sort of
53:30
like the concentration to some of the most advanced
53:33
contemporary matcha culture. They take great interest in
53:37
Haiwanese high mountain Oolong and Uishan Oolong a Yancha
53:41
clifty. They take great interest in poor
53:44
people, know other cultivars like it's so much more
53:47
interesting. You already have a knowledge
53:49
about, let's say like different Taiwanese high mountain de
53:52
cultivars, Jin Chuan, Chin Chin Suji Chun, sway you, all of
53:57
these different cultivars, and you're like, wow, cool.
54:00
Gin Shuang is being grown for Tanja production and Chiang Rai
54:04
and north of Thailand. Talk about a mix of cultures.
54:07
Yeah, That would just be lost on you if you weren't aware of the
54:11
way that the Taiwanese were breeding tea in the 1980s,
54:15
trying to come up with new flavors and invented the Chin
54:18
Chin cultivar or the Chin Chuan cultivar.
54:21
I mean, having tasted many different examples from Alishan
54:25
or Shannon Chi or low elevation examples and the expression of
54:29
that cultivar, there's so much that we can learn and explore
54:33
across the entire tea world. It's way too much.
54:36
It's so energizing in a way that you just know there's so many
54:40
unknowns to be explored. You have the context and like in
54:45
some ways capability to participate in this mixing.
54:48
I think that's something that has been getting me going to
54:51
explore more and try more and stay curious and stayed
54:55
passionate about this course that you and I have been both
54:59
undertaking for more than a decade.
55:02
Yeah. For now, trying to learn about
55:03
other types of tea. You know, we were considering
55:07
thinking about the French word uvras, the American
55:13
pronunciation, which means body of work.
55:15
I've been thinking about that for a while, and I was floating
55:18
it by Sam a few times. Whether or not we should end the
55:21
Specialty Matcha podcast after 100 episodes, Have we already
55:25
said enough? Is this enough?
55:28
When do we call it quits? Is this the moment where, you
55:31
know, we've, we've, we've said what we wanted to say, we've
55:34
explored, we wanted to explore and that we don't want to drag
55:38
this on like, you know, Toy Story 7 or like, you know, all
55:44
of these franchises? Just another episode of Doctor
55:47
Strange or Doctor Who. So we have given some serious
55:51
consideration and we've decided that we are going to keep it
55:55
going. There's enough new culture
55:58
creation, but I think that is left to be explored.
56:01
And we would be ending it right on the eve of our matcha mill
56:05
coming into the universe where we're hoping we'll have some
56:08
impact. And then we're going to have a
56:10
bias because we're going to be much closer to people using it.
56:14
And, you know, our perception of, you know, people getting
56:19
involved in the craft of making matcha is going to be very
56:21
biased based on the people we're interacting with.
56:24
But it is something that we wanted to document, so this is
56:29
not the end and we are going to continue.
56:31
There will be a season 5. And we're probably going to
56:34
start looping in more tea parallels a little more
56:38
aggressively than we have in the past, particularly because
56:42
that's where our interest lies and that's what keeps us
56:45
intellectually curious and personally motivated is a much
56:50
larger picture than just trying to preserve Japanese or even
56:54
just matcha focused. We're going to keep calling it
56:57
the specialty Be Matcha podcast, but you know, we think that
57:00
there's so much enrichment that can be done and, well, you can
57:04
really broaden the scope into broader tea culture.
57:06
Absolutely. I mean like we are essentially
57:09
evolving with the contemporary matcha movement.
57:12
There will be other teas being milled into powder form and
57:16
there will be people enjoying these new forms of, you know,
57:19
whether or now you call them macho or mortar or powder,
57:22
whatever tea or even some new names in the future that we just
57:26
don't know. They're all essentially coming
57:28
from this very plan that we have been enjoying for thousands of
57:32
years across all different cultures.
57:34
It has been always a very internationalized product since
57:39
the very beginning and it will remained as a bridge to connect
57:44
all cultures into the future. There is so much to that we have
57:49
left to learn to the other reason why we're not stopping
57:52
it. Almost selfishly, I would love
57:54
to know the origins of all these tea competitions in Japan.
57:58
I would love to know how shaded cultivation actually spread in
58:03
early Japanese tea history. I would love to know people in
58:07
Korea talk about people making Song Dynasty, Mocha Korea.
58:11
Where did that tradition go? And now you even see this Korean
58:14
Malta ceremony. Like that's super interesting.
58:17
How did that like survive? Did it not survive?
58:20
Is it an artifact of the Japanese occupation in Korea?
58:23
There's just so many questions about genetic diversity and Zai
58:28
Rai, all of these new research centers and what they're
58:31
researching, why they're researching it, where they're
58:34
getting their money from. Like it's like following the
58:37
money, following the culture, trying to understand the
58:39
history, piece together all this stuff.
58:41
I feel like we're also barely scratching the surface.
58:44
It's so many like curiosity gaps that I still have that you are
58:49
going to be a little more work to dig into because I feel like
58:53
the the lowest hanging fruit was picked from the 1st 100
58:56
episodes. So it's going to be a lot more
58:57
homework for us. And we're also starting a secret
59:00
project, which we will announce soon that may or may not lead to
59:04
another podcast. This will forever be our our
59:06
baby, our first podcast. But we also want to explore
59:09
other types of tea. And actually just by the nature
59:12
of what we're doing, trying to, you know, meet matcha producers
59:16
everywhere, meet tea people everywhere.
59:18
We encounter a lot of very interesting people and
59:21
interesting types of that we just can't talk about here.
59:24
Yeah. And over the past, you know,
59:26
decades we just have accumulated all these contacts in different
59:31
regions and areas that we feel like there is a missing bridge
59:35
that connects all of these contacts and people all
59:38
together. And maybe like we can explore
59:42
the opportunity to become the bridge at some point, or if
59:46
that's too ambitious, we we want to see the opportunity of some
59:50
of these cultures are learning can be commingled in a context
59:54
that will just going to produce delicious or interesting product
59:59
that people can enjoy it not just words, but also, you know,
1:00:03
taste. 100% And this cultural mixing that can happen and all
1:00:08
of the unthinkable opportunity that happens with this type of
1:00:13
cultural exchange and dialogue and we can all enrich our
1:00:17
experience so much if we learn from each other.
1:00:20
Exactly. I think that's something that's
1:00:23
really unique about the is that it's not just words that you can
1:00:26
read from a book or videos that you can watch from a screen.
1:00:30
It's actual thing that you can ingest into your body and you
1:00:34
can experience it with other sense of your biological
1:00:40
capability. Like you can feel so much more
1:00:43
beyond just reading or watching something.
1:00:46
And I think that's so interesting about tea or almost
1:00:49
addictive about tea is that you'd like it really has the
1:00:52
capability of teleporting you to somewhere else.
1:00:55
And I think that's why it's such a interesting and influential
1:01:00
foundation of a lot of these cultures and a lot of these
1:01:04
culture cultural exchanges. And it's a way of tapping into
1:01:09
something larger than yourself, the history, a legacy, a shared
1:01:12
experience. And you never stop being a
1:01:16
student because there's just so much to learn in these really
1:01:20
interesting pockets of knowledge and experience and the human
1:01:25
experience. Really, it's a fantastic
1:01:28
beverage. And it's so, you know, we're
1:01:30
very excited as because it feels like the early innings of this
1:01:34
early spread of tea and tea culture internationally
1:01:37
speaking. So those are things that we
1:01:39
selfishly want to learn more about and to make some
1:01:43
connections across the industry and to really enrich our own
1:01:47
experience learning from all of this.
1:01:50
I think this curiosity is what really most motivating us
1:01:54
forward in doing a lot of things like right, this podcast, this
1:01:59
machine, all of these experiment drinking more tea.
1:02:02
And all the people that we've met along the way, we've met so
1:02:05
many like minded people and it's we're excited to have them on as
1:02:08
guests perspectives and see what this we can get tea and tea
1:02:13
culture to look like moving forward.
1:02:16
So we're very excited and we get, we get a lot wrong over
1:02:20
time and maybe some of our opinions don't age well.
1:02:23
And we would love to turn this into a dialogue too.
1:02:26
We'd love to know how do you feel about the progression of
1:02:28
tea culture? How is your experience in tea
1:02:31
been enriched by learning about other tea cultures?
1:02:34
What is your matcha journey look like?
1:02:37
And we'd love to to, to hear, love to hear from all of our
1:02:40
listeners. Yeah, or your tea journey.
1:02:42
Or your tea journey. Yeah, we'd love to have you on.
1:02:45
So anyway, thank you so much for your listenership.
1:02:47
Anyway, thanks everyone for 100 episodes.
1:02:50
We never thought we would get here.
1:02:53
And we're very excited to launch Season 5.
1:02:56
And we will be starting with our series on Uji, which I feel like
1:03:01
is the grand accumulation of 100 episodes of curiosity and
1:03:05
research. And we're very proud of the
1:03:07
series. The first episode is going to be
1:03:09
very unique. It's actually going to be a
1:03:11
monologue of the long form research article.
1:03:14
It's going to be read audiobook style.
1:03:17
And then we're going to have a couple follow up episodes that
1:03:19
are going to be editorial style where we're going to pick a
1:03:23
subsection or a topic of it and go deep dive even further
1:03:28
together between Sam and I. And we're going to try to source
1:03:31
some other opinions as well. I'm sending this article around
1:03:34
to some friends and bring in some diverse perspective at
1:03:38
really understanding the modern origins of what we all consider
1:03:43
matcha, which has its roots in Uji of the true origin story of
1:03:47
modern shaded cultivation. Matcha of what we've all known
1:03:52
to grow and love. Which is such an interesting
1:03:54
story that we're very excited to unpack with everyone.
1:03:57
Absolutely looking forward to it, Ryan.
1:04:00
Yeah, it'll be great. We're so stay tuned for Season
1:04:03
5. Thank you so much.
1:04:05
If you've made it this far and you haven't subscribed, please
1:04:08
do subscribe. Yeah, the numbers really help
1:04:11
for discovery that helped this podcast keep running.
1:04:16
And thank you so much. Take care.
1:04:18
See you in the next season. Bye.