Latest / Specialty Matcha Podcast / Interview with Tea for Me Please, Nicole

Transcript

Interview with Tea for Me Please, Nicole · Specialty Matcha Podcast

• 0:00
  All right, hello and welcome to the Specialty Module podcast.
• 0:03
  My name is Ryan and my Coho Zhongjun is in China right now
• 0:07
  and it's a pretty early morning recording here or late ish
• 0:10
  morning recording in the States. So he wasn't able to join, but
• 0:13
  I'm happy to have Nicole from T for me, please.
• 0:16
  So thank you for joining. Thanks for having.
• 0:18
  Me. So before we jump in, could you
• 0:20
  share a little bit about T for me, please?
• 0:23
  And your background? I, I remember that your blog was
• 0:26
  like one of the first ever when I was just getting into tea.
• 0:29
  I think it was like 11 years ago now.
• 0:32
  Like you were like one of the few tea bloggers back then in
• 0:35
  English. And there's like, that was a
• 0:36
  really small world. So I've been aware of what
• 0:39
  you've been doing for for a very long time.
• 0:41
  Definitely. Yeah.
• 0:42
  My blog just turned 16 earlier this month, so I've been at it
• 0:47
  quite a while. But I started out just drinking
• 0:50
  regular grocery store tea bags with milk and sugar.
• 0:52
  And then when I went away to college, you know, my classmates
• 0:55
  were drinking coffee, and I didn't like coffee at the time,
• 0:58
  so I started exploring different teas.
• 1:00
  As you know, just to, you know, get through all nighters writing
• 1:04
  papers. And I got really lucky because
• 1:07
  around that time I found a website that was looking for
• 1:09
  staff tea reviewers. And so basically they would send
• 1:11
  me big bags of tea samples from all over the world and I would
• 1:15
  just write about them. So, you know, I was dormant at
• 1:17
  the time. Free Stuff is great when you're
• 1:19
  in college, and it was really just a super great early
• 1:23
  introduction to tea where for a lot of people it's a much more
• 1:26
  gradual exploration where I just had like everything but the
• 1:30
  kitchen sink thrown at me, you know, to write about.
• 1:33
  But it basically started my blog initially to back up the reviews
• 1:36
  I was writing for them. Eventually that site shut down,
• 1:40
  but by that time my blog had kind of taken on a life of its
• 1:43
  own. Yeah, it's such a great resource
• 1:47
  and all the interviews that you've done over the years, it's
• 1:49
  a great compilation of knowledge.
• 1:51
  And so I kept finding myself back there, especially in my
• 1:53
  early tea journey, because I find it's, you write very
• 1:56
  excessively, like it's, I think it's, you know, whether or not
• 1:59
  you know a lot about tea or you're just getting into it.
• 2:02
  It's very easy just to, you know, pick up, you know, will I
• 2:05
  like this tea or how can I build my preferences or like, what is
• 2:09
  matcha like? Those are important resources to
• 2:11
  have. So you've been in the game a
• 2:12
  really long time and you've seen probably a lot of evolution.
• 2:17
  So like, to my knowledge, looking backwards at how the
• 2:22
  matcha trend happened in the US, the general narrative that I've
• 2:26
  heard online and I've lived through kind of the early ish
• 2:30
  parts of it. And when I was a tea person was
• 2:32
  at around 2013, 14 and 15 is when things really started to
• 2:37
  blow up. And then before that there was
• 2:39
  matcha, but it wasn't as popular.
• 2:41
  How is that evolution, particularly in the US market,
• 2:45
  evolved from your perspective? Yeah, it's definitely.
• 2:50
  I would say when I first started my blog, matcha was something we
• 2:53
  heard about, but it wasn't something you would just find at
• 2:56
  your normal tea store. Finding a Chasa and was like
• 2:59
  impossible, you know, you if you went to Whole Foods, you might
• 3:03
  be able to find some matcha. The quality was not necessarily
• 3:08
  where I would think where it's accessible to get now.
• 3:12
  Definitely. It's definitely become just
• 3:15
  something that's we've gotten a lot more interest, I find
• 3:19
  especially, you know, looking back at my most popular blog
• 3:22
  post for the longest time was my review of Lipton Yellow Label.
• 3:26
  OK, really. But within the last five years,
• 3:30
  all of my most popular posts are to do with matcha.
• 3:33
  So like matcha without a whisk, just different things about
• 3:36
  matcha that you know, That's basically what Google is sending
• 3:39
  me the most traffic, which I think definitely shows the
• 3:42
  increased interest. And at what point do you think
• 3:45
  general matcha awareness happened?
• 3:48
  Like where? Where is that in the timeline?
• 3:50
  Yeah, I think maybe kind of maybe around 2012 or so.
• 3:55
  I think honestly, my first time having matcha was at Starbucks.
• 3:59
  And I think for a lot of people that was their introduction to
• 4:01
  matcha. You know it.
• 4:04
  Now, most coffee shops do offer matcha latte, but it definitely
• 4:07
  wasn't the norm back then. But I definitely think, you
• 4:12
  know, that was kind of the start of it is just, you know,
• 4:14
  introducing people to that taste.
• 4:15
  Even if it did have a lot of sugar added, it's definitely
• 4:18
  like a different taste than I would say most Americans are
• 4:21
  used to and. What point did you get the sense
• 4:25
  that, like, you know, the specialty coffee scene really
• 4:28
  started adopting it onto their menu?
• 4:30
  Because like in my consumer journey, I remembered around
• 4:33
  2017, maybe 2018 is when it really was like, oh, wow.
• 4:38
  And I, I was taking, you know, I, I like Chana Yu teachers for
• 4:42
  traditional Japanese tea ceremony.
• 4:43
  And I remember that was a novelty to them.
• 4:46
  They were like, oh, wow. And you go to New York, go to
• 4:48
  these coffee places, they have matcha.
• 4:50
  Like it was an, almost an unbelievable thought when the,
• 4:52
  it was getting some of their reactions.
• 4:54
  But when did you start like really noticing it in around the
• 4:57
  New York area? Yeah, I would say probably
• 5:00
  around 2018 or so, we definitely had like a boom of matcha cafes
• 5:06
  that, you know, just strictly did matcha, which, you know,
• 5:10
  we're super popular. New York goes to these phases
• 5:12
  where it could be cupcakes, it could be anything, but just from
• 5:15
  froyo, like you just get a ton of places opening up about one
• 5:19
  particular thing. And we did have a little bit of
• 5:21
  a matcha boom around that, that I think it really be part of
• 5:26
  lifestyle for people where it hadn't really been.
• 5:29
  That's that's a good way of putting it definitely feels
• 5:31
  lifestyle, especially a lot of those earlier brands that were
• 5:34
  were in New York. So something that we're very
• 5:36
  curious about in this podcast and like in my own like
• 5:39
  educational matcha journey is around product positioning for
• 5:43
  matcha and the way people can describe it with different
• 5:46
  levels of transparency or do more lifestyle branding versus
• 5:50
  more like hype beast branding or more like deep in the weeds
• 5:55
  cultivar branding. Like at what point did you see
• 5:58
  matcha brands start branching away from like ceremonial grade
• 6:03
  and culinary grade as the only type of product classification
• 6:08
  into like single origin Oku Midori for example?
• 6:12
  Only about five years ago or so. It definitely wasn't something
• 6:16
  that was known, you know, like a Japanese tea vendor, like maybe,
• 6:21
  you know, me had always had, you know, different cultivars, you
• 6:24
  know, But Yabukita's like the most widespread cultivar in
• 6:28
  Japan. So even that like almost every
• 6:30
  matcha that was accessible was Yabukita.
• 6:34
  You know, it definitely, I think it's, it's only recently that,
• 6:37
  you know, I think the market is a lot more interested in
• 6:41
  learning more about matcha and the different types of matcha.
• 6:44
  You know, matcha used to be just like a monolith, like it was one
• 6:47
  thing. And now it's like there's,
• 6:51
  there's so much more connoisseurship to it, which is
• 6:53
  interesting. I found recently just that the
• 6:56
  popularity of of macho, especially on TikTok, is really,
• 6:59
  really fascinating to me because there's all these people
• 7:03
  suddenly talking about different cultivars and brands that I'm
• 7:07
  like, how did you find out about?
• 7:09
  This at what point do you think that's going to start trickling
• 7:12
  down to like cafe or retail experiences?
• 7:16
  Because you have a handful of people like you have Kettle and
• 7:18
  a couple others, but like it feels like it's a slow trickle
• 7:22
  to see like a cafe offering a the same level of transparency
• 7:26
  as they would a coffee, for example.
• 7:28
  Yeah, I think it definitely is just a slow transition towards
• 7:32
  that. I think just as the market
• 7:34
  demands change, you know, coffee that's definitely been there for
• 7:41
  a while where, you know, they'll tell you where it came from and,
• 7:44
  and what Friday bean it is and where it was, how it was roasted
• 7:48
  and all these different like micro information that, you
• 7:51
  know, say 2530 years ago, really you you would just get a cup of
• 7:56
  coffee. You didn't know anything about
• 7:58
  it. So I think it's going to take a
• 7:59
  while still for it to really trickle down to that level.
• 8:03
  But I do think that's going to happen eventually.
• 8:05
  Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that in the coffee scene, it
• 8:09
  seemed to trickle the other way where those like the Blue
• 8:12
  Bottle, Intelligentsia, Stumptown experiences happened
• 8:15
  first at Cafe and retail, which drove like consumer direct
• 8:20
  consumer interest. What's really interesting here,
• 8:23
  and maybe it's social media, I don't know, maybe it's the
• 8:25
  current environment that we're in.
• 8:27
  It's really seems to be going the other way where I think
• 8:30
  there is all this consumer demand for matcha that are
• 8:32
  developing relationships with companies and getting educated
• 8:35
  online and then demanding that from their cafes.
• 8:37
  So like, but coffee was really a push on to the consumer from the
• 8:40
  businesses, I feel. And the matcha really feels like
• 8:42
  a pool where they're like, we want matcha, we want coffee
• 8:45
  alternatives. It's it'll be interesting to see
• 8:48
  like the comparison and how that evolves over the years.
• 8:52
  I think, you know, there's the standard of cafe matcha is
• 8:56
  definitely changing where, you know, you can get away with
• 8:58
  serving like a kind of terrible matcha for a long time, but
• 9:02
  that's not really, you know, possible anymore.
• 9:04
  I think the consumers are more knowledgeable about it that, you
• 9:08
  know, there's a coffee place by my job that stores their matcha
• 9:14
  in this glass jar where the whole outside of the jar is like
• 9:18
  Gray from oxidation. But I definitely like eavesdrop.
• 9:22
  And when I'm there, I hear people being like, the matcha
• 9:24
  shouldn't be that color. Yeah.
• 9:27
  Well, what's what I find optimistic is looking around at
• 9:31
  these cafes that serve much of this quality and just how many
• 9:35
  people love it. Like imagine what they would
• 9:37
  like if they tasted like the good stuff could make me very
• 9:41
  optimistic. So pivoting topics a little bit.
• 9:43
  So a new trend that we've seen I'd say in the last one to two
• 9:46
  years is influencer matcha, where we have all these matcha
• 9:50
  reviewers on the Internet that have decided to either white
• 9:53
  label or do direct sourcing their own brands.
• 9:56
  So what? What's your take on influencer
• 9:59
  or reviewer matcha? Yeah, it's, it's definitely an
• 10:03
  interesting trend. I it's fascinating because they
• 10:07
  all, you know, talk about using very high quality ceremonial
• 10:11
  grade, but often they're making lattes, which kind of defeats
• 10:14
  the purpose of using a very, very high quality match in a
• 10:17
  way. It's, it's definitely very
• 10:19
  interesting. I think there's kind of a gap of
• 10:23
  knowledge where, you know, I reviewed T2, so I get like just
• 10:28
  giving you our opinion, but especially for something like
• 10:32
  matcha, if that's all you're doing and you're basically
• 10:35
  people are turning to your videos for education, I think
• 10:39
  it's definitely important to really understand high quality
• 10:42
  matcha versus, you know, what they may have in their head as
• 10:49
  just a consumer. You know, it's, it's, it's a
• 10:53
  catch 22. Yeah.
• 10:55
  And I, you know, I worry about bias.
• 10:58
  I think there's a lot of people who are very good actors.
• 11:01
  But there's, like, the way I see it, there's like implicit and
• 11:05
  explicit bias. Like they could say explicitly,
• 11:08
  like mine is the best and, you know, or bash on others.
• 11:13
  But, you know, most people wouldn't do this because
• 11:15
  everyone called them up for it. But you could do it really
• 11:17
  implicitly. Like I can't imagine any
• 11:20
  influencer who owns a matcha brand ever saying they tasted a
• 11:24
  new sample and they like it more and it's at a better price than
• 11:29
  what they're selling. I think they would never say
• 11:30
  that. So it's a it's a Gray area.
• 11:34
  I think more out moral standing if you're like a tea reviewer,
• 11:38
  like, I don't know, like we're just starting to bring products
• 11:41
  to market. You know, we have a whisking
• 11:42
  bowl and we'll have other stuff, but it's so hard bringing stuff
• 11:45
  to market and it's almost a little bit unfair to any of
• 11:48
  these brands who do their sourcing and are trying to sell
• 11:51
  stuff. It's like so hard to do that and
• 11:54
  to sit in that seat when you have a huge audience both
• 11:57
  selling and reviewing. It's a it's an ethical dilemma,
• 12:02
  I think. Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:04
  And and reviewing the other brands when you also own a brand
• 12:07
  is also kind of AI think a moral Gray area in a way too.
• 12:11
  Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see
• 12:13
  how how that evolves. I don't think there's anything
• 12:15
  anyone can do to change it. But it's, you know, there are a
• 12:19
  lot of small businesses out there, but I hope don't get too
• 12:22
  affected. Absolutely.
• 12:24
  So something actually we've talked about a little bit in the
• 12:26
  past, but we have a lot of people on this podcast that own
• 12:30
  matcha brands or tea companies or somehow involved in the
• 12:33
  industry. But could you give everyone a
• 12:35
  good framework because you are an influencer, you're a writer,
• 12:38
  you're an educator, and you're a reviewer.
• 12:40
  What is the best way for industry people to interact with
• 12:45
  tea influencers and reviewers and educators?
• 12:48
  I find just being like human, you know, one of my favorite
• 12:51
  things is that just, you know, when somebody takes the time to
• 12:56
  just talk to me as a person, you know that, you know, like one of
• 13:01
  my favorite examples is Lauren from Mizuba Tea, you know, but
• 13:06
  right before she kind of launched, you know, I was at
• 13:09
  World Tea Expo and I get this DM on Instagram and it was like, I
• 13:12
  didn't even really recognize the username.
• 13:14
  She was like, Oh my God, I have to meet you, meet me over here.
• 13:17
  And I was like, OK, you know, I, I have this weird thing where I
• 13:22
  meet people from the Internet for tea a lot.
• 13:25
  And my husband's always like, you're going to get kidnapped.
• 13:29
  But she just, you know, really as soon as she knew I was at the
• 13:34
  tea Expo, she made it a point to like, reach out and have me meet
• 13:38
  up with her and really just to talk.
• 13:40
  She didn't give me samples. She didn't do anything other
• 13:44
  than just like, I want to meet you, you know?
• 13:46
  And we really developed a really great friendship from that.
• 13:50
  And I find that that's my favorite thing about tea is that
• 13:54
  it really does connect me with so many people all over the
• 13:57
  world. You know, I have so many friends
• 14:00
  who are T vendors now, but I think it's really the ones that
• 14:04
  really take the time to make connections are the ones that
• 14:08
  really stick in my mind. OK.
• 14:10
  Well, that makes sense. So when it comes to T education,
• 14:13
  there are completely independent sites like yours and then
• 14:17
  there's a lot of vendor driven education where ultimately,
• 14:23
  right, it's some form of content marketing where they're trying
• 14:25
  to sell you something. And even, you know, as us as a
• 14:28
  macho equipment company, we engage in that too.
• 14:30
  It's a great way to get SEO, it's a great way to put out
• 14:33
  opinions. But where have you seen the best
• 14:36
  of tea education mixed with commercial interest and where
• 14:41
  have you seen the worst like snake oil sales type?
• 14:44
  And where would you draw the line between OK and not OK?
• 14:48
  Yeah, that it is tough. I definitely there are some
• 14:52
  great vendor sites out there that, you know, if you have a
• 14:55
  question about tea and you just Google it, you know, there's
• 14:58
  some really great resources out there that I'll even use as, you
• 15:01
  know, sources when I write my blog posts.
• 15:03
  I definitely think the line for me comes down to health benefits
• 15:07
  because I feel like that's kind of the one topic that, you know,
• 15:11
  people love to make whatever their teeth are selling sound
• 15:16
  like the healthiest thing in the world that's gonna cure every
• 15:19
  I'll, you know, which definitely I think is, is not great for
• 15:24
  consumers. You know, I, I don't drink tea
• 15:27
  because of the health benefits and there are definitely people
• 15:30
  who do, but I think, you know, you have to balance that and,
• 15:34
  you know, make sure you're not toeing the line into, you know,
• 15:38
  you know, crossing the FDA or something like that where you
• 15:41
  know, there really are right regulations.
• 15:43
  And there are tea companies that do get fined for over hyping
• 15:48
  health benefits because they're not something that can be
• 15:51
  promoted in a certain ways. And I think it's important to
• 15:55
  for companies to be mindful of that, but also consumers that,
• 15:58
  you know, if a company is telling you that tea is going to
• 16:01
  cure something, that's definitely kind of a red flag
• 16:05
  for me. Oh, I totally agree.
• 16:07
  And seeing some of that over the years, it's really, hey, you
• 16:11
  hate to see it. It's very painful cause a lot of
• 16:14
  people just don't know any better.
• 16:16
  Yeah. Absolutely, especially the
• 16:18
  weight loss things 'cause you really you're praying on
• 16:21
  people's insecurities. And I always say I drink so much
• 16:25
  tea. I would disappear if it made you
• 16:27
  lose weight. I still have to exercise like
• 16:30
  everyone else. My tea is definitely not a cure
• 16:32
  all. I've noticed that too when it
• 16:34
  comes to like consumer tea education, journey and pathways,
• 16:38
  people like develop a passion for tea or develop a passion for
• 16:41
  matcha. I found that like great retail
• 16:44
  experiences can really transform someone's perspective.
• 16:48
  And when I was in high school, I just loved going to the
• 16:52
  Philadelphia Tivana and how they would waft the tea in your face.
• 16:56
  And it's this big sensory experience and you could taste
• 16:59
  all these different things, pure or unblended.
• 17:02
  So like over the years, what have you discovered makes a
• 17:06
  really great consumer retail experience?
• 17:08
  Absolutely. I, I worked at Teavana and that
• 17:11
  definitely, you know, was a really great experience that I
• 17:15
  think is missing it from the marketplace somewhat that, you
• 17:18
  know, to really help people like touch and see and smell the tea,
• 17:24
  you know, in, in a way like that, that is super approach,
• 17:27
  approachable think definitely. I think matcha is something that
• 17:31
  I think part of the popularity is that it is almost like a show
• 17:37
  when somebody's making matcha for you.
• 17:38
  You know, watching somebody make matcha is even if it's in a cafe
• 17:43
  setting, it's really a very different experience versus
• 17:47
  something else. I think it's kind of comparable
• 17:49
  to like pour over coffee being so popular.
• 17:52
  I think it's kind of a similar like, you know, just more slow
• 17:55
  and meditative thing that I think that is part of why I
• 17:59
  think matcha has become so popular.
• 18:01
  There's a chain of matcha cafes in this in New York called
• 18:05
  Matcha Full. And every time I'm there, it's
• 18:07
  really cool to see people's reactions and they kind of just
• 18:11
  like zone out watching them whisk, you know?
• 18:15
  I think it is really important to create those experiences for
• 18:17
  people because it's it's something memorable and it helps
• 18:20
  them connect more with tea. Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:24
  And like even watching people look at a Chasa and realize,
• 18:27
  well, this is made out of one piece of bamboo.
• 18:30
  And just so you see the the dots connect.
• 18:33
  Absolutely. So on any consumer journey,
• 18:36
  especially for like matcha or tea, like people will fall off,
• 18:39
  right? For example, like for Japanese
• 18:41
  tea ceremony, I would say I'm someone who fell off the band.
• 18:44
  I like it, I appreciated it. I studied it for two or three
• 18:47
  years, but I learned enough to realize, you know, this is not
• 18:50
  the path that I want to take. But same could be for like macho
• 18:53
  or tea journey or any tea journey.
• 18:56
  So at what point do you over the years, have you noticed that
• 19:00
  people fall off the bandwagons? Like where are these?
• 19:03
  Like I'll call them opportunities for tea companies
• 19:06
  or tea educators to try to nudge people back into becoming a tea
• 19:11
  person versus saying it's too much effort, I don't want to do
• 19:14
  it, or some other reason why it's not part of their daily
• 19:17
  life. Yeah, that's a tough one.
• 19:20
  I think when the industry has been trying to figure out for a
• 19:22
  while, I think part of it is accessibility.
• 19:27
  You know, even now, you know, there's lots of things available
• 19:31
  online, but I can't walk into most stores in my area and find
• 19:36
  a good quality tea. So if you're somebody who
• 19:39
  doesn't have, you know, the commitment to go and find
• 19:43
  different teas and continue to buy them online, have them
• 19:46
  shipped to your house, you know, accessibility is definitely an
• 19:49
  issue. I think that's that's one that I
• 19:52
  think is, is probably the biggest.
• 19:55
  You know, I know, you know, we mentioned Ivana earlier, you
• 19:58
  know, it just was easy for people to, you know, when they
• 20:01
  were at the mall to just pop in. And buy some tea, you know, and
• 20:05
  I think that that definitely makes it difficult for
• 20:08
  consumers. I think also just making it easy
• 20:11
  for them, you know, there's, there's so many tools for making
• 20:15
  tea out there and gadgets and gizmos and different things.
• 20:20
  But I think sometimes just making it really simple for
• 20:23
  people is the best way to make sure they're going to continue
• 20:27
  to drink tea and make it part of their lifestyle if it has to
• 20:30
  become a whole thing. But like, I'm someone who I do
• 20:33
  enjoy Gonk fu tea. Do I do it every day?
• 20:36
  No. Who has time for coffee?
• 20:38
  You know it Definitely. I think unless tea is firmly a
• 20:43
  part of your lifestyle, it is really difficult to maintain
• 20:45
  that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 20:48
  Although I think as a tea community, sometimes the
• 20:51
  atmosphere online feels less inclusive when it comes to
• 20:55
  accessibility. And people say, oh, I should not
• 20:57
  use these automated tools. But if it's the difference
• 21:00
  between someone doing it every day, it's, it's a weird space
• 21:03
  because one like, I guess like the like really hardcore tea
• 21:07
  people want people to move down a traditional path or a common
• 21:11
  source ship path and like really talk down on some of these
• 21:15
  automated tools or there's more watered down techniques.
• 21:19
  It's a it's a weird thing because I think they want more
• 21:22
  tea people, tea people, but not everyone's destined for that.
• 21:26
  Absolutely. I have a video I made of like a
• 21:29
  review and how to use the the Breville automated tea maker,
• 21:33
  which has been that thing's been around for like 15 years, but
• 21:36
  it's just a really simple, easy way to make tea.
• 21:39
  Like at least once a month I get a comment on that video being
• 21:42
  like, who needs this? It's not hard to make tea, you
• 21:45
  know, it just I'm like, it's if it's not for you, that's fine.
• 21:49
  But there's definitely people who aren't going to drink tea
• 21:52
  unless they can have something automated like that, that I
• 21:56
  think there's definitely space for that.
• 21:59
  You know, especially as tea people, we tend to go almost
• 22:01
  have like tunnel vision of, you know, the only tea we experience
• 22:05
  is the tea we like and people who like the TV, like, you know,
• 22:09
  if you're on the, the tea discord and you're, you know,
• 22:13
  doing lots of Kung Fu and you're on Instagram and you're sharing
• 22:17
  your tea, that's the only tea you're experiencing.
• 22:20
  But the rest of the world is doing tea in so many other
• 22:23
  different ways that I think it's, it's good to like keep
• 22:27
  perspective of that to keep you from having your, your tea point
• 22:31
  of view be too narrow. Yeah, that makes sense.
• 22:34
  Where would you say some of the best online spaces are to be a
• 22:37
  part of a tea community? Yeah, the tea discord is
• 22:41
  definitely like a really nice one.
• 22:43
  I think there's a ton of different people there and they
• 22:46
  talk about a lot of different things.
• 22:49
  I know Reddit gets a bad rap, but I think the tea subreddit is
• 22:52
  also can be a really nice community.
• 22:55
  You know, you always get your your one or two bad apples, but
• 22:59
  generally it's not too bad of a space I think.
• 23:02
  If not nice, it's entertaining. Exactly.
• 23:05
  Exactly. Yeah, it's, it's interesting as
• 23:09
  things evolve. You know, when I first started
• 23:13
  my blog, Twitter was like the place I actually started my
• 23:17
  Twitter account before I even started my blog.
• 23:19
  And so the name actually came from my Twitter account because
• 23:23
  I was just looking for people to talk about tea with.
• 23:25
  And through that I connected with people that I'm still
• 23:27
  friends with now, you know, digitally.
• 23:30
  Over time that changed. We had a really nice tea
• 23:32
  community on Google Plus when that was a.
• 23:34
  Thing, OK. I think Instagram is probably
• 23:38
  like the main place that tea is. I think if you, you know, follow
• 23:43
  a few people that post about tea and you post about tea often
• 23:47
  enough, you're going to find a community there.
• 23:50
  There's definitely some really, really nice people.
• 23:52
  You know, tea people generally tend to be really nice people in
• 23:55
  my experience. You know, so I think especially
• 23:58
  if you're somebody who doesn't have a tea community where you
• 24:01
  are, I think Instagram is a really good place to to post
• 24:04
  content and and see other people talk about tea too.
• 24:07
  Yeah, absolutely. I agree.
• 24:09
  I really like Instagram for tea, especially to see who's
• 24:12
  connected to everyone. That's always interesting.
• 24:14
  It's like, oh wow, that guy follows this person and like,
• 24:17
  wow, Like they must be, they must be like cool or good.
• 24:20
  Like you can discover the like a social web.
• 24:23
  Definitely. So you're near New York City and
• 24:26
  you've written a lot about the New York City scene.
• 24:29
  And so how have you seen that evolve for matcha over the past
• 24:32
  couple years? Because it's now it's like, it's
• 24:35
  exciting. It's like really cool that the
• 24:37
  options are, but how has that evolved over the years?
• 24:40
  And where are some tea houses or cafes that you could recommend
• 24:44
  people go to to get like different styles of cafe
• 24:48
  experiences for matcha? Yeah, it's definitely been
• 24:51
  really cool to see. I know when I first started
• 24:54
  there really weren't too many options for tea places, but now
• 24:58
  there definitely is. And super diverse, you know,
• 25:02
  definitely when it comes to matcha.
• 25:04
  I think Kettle is kind of like the kind of pinnacle of that in
• 25:08
  in the city. You know, even just I love going
• 25:12
  to their, their flagship store in Brooklyn because they have
• 25:15
  the the huge matcha grinder in the case going all the time and
• 25:19
  just seeing people who wander in seeing that, like it really
• 25:23
  blows their mind to see first of all, how long it takes to make
• 25:26
  matcha. Just watching that thing go, you
• 25:29
  know, but definitely like being able to sit down at the bar and
• 25:31
  talk to somebody about tea, you know, and even if it's like a
• 25:35
  matcha parfait, you know, but it it I think it's a really great
• 25:39
  way to introduce people to matcha in a way that's like not
• 25:43
  snobby, not unapproachable, but definitely, I think it still
• 25:47
  gives respect to the product of like where it comes from.
• 25:51
  I think that's important because there's definitely like some
• 25:54
  matcha places in the city that are a little bit more of like
• 25:58
  just aesthetic and there's really no connection at all to,
• 26:03
  you know, where matcha comes from.
• 26:06
  I think it's really important for, you know, places who sell
• 26:09
  matcha and serve it to, to honor Japan in that way.
• 26:14
  And so that's definitely, I think Kettle is really, really
• 26:18
  wonderful for that. I also really love Setsugeka.
• 26:21
  They're a wonderful matcha place.
• 26:24
  And you know, to be able to sit on a tatami Matt and drink
• 26:29
  matcha from Taiwan in the middle of New York City is is a really
• 26:34
  cool experience. Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:37
  I think they're the closest you can get to a tea ceremony.
• 26:40
  Absolutely. In New York, but while still
• 26:42
  being like not overly formed. I really like the intentionality
• 26:46
  there. Absolutely.
• 26:47
  They are like unapologetically slow and I really mean that as a
• 26:50
  compliment. Like they really they do not
• 26:53
  rush. Everyone gets treated the same
• 26:55
  way, same intention, everything like to have their moves very
• 27:00
  almost. What's the word meditative to
• 27:02
  watch them. Absolutely.
• 27:04
  Sometimes I'll see people almost give like a bad review of it and
• 27:08
  I'm like, that's the point. Yeah, it's painful.
• 27:12
  Not everything's for everyone, but it's a nice contrast.
• 27:16
  And I could see how the average New Yorker would walk in and be
• 27:18
  like, wow, I'm not waiting 20 minutes.
• 27:21
  But like, that's kind of the point.
• 27:23
  That's why it's. That's why it's there.
• 27:26
  Yeah, it's more of a destination.
• 27:28
  Yeah, definitely destination. Great location too.
• 27:32
  Cool. Well, you've also written a book
• 27:33
  that was recently published, I believe about a year ago.
• 27:36
  Yeah, yeah, right there. It came out in 2022, so it's a
• 27:41
  recipe book. Basically.
• 27:42
  My publisher wanted a book of tea recipe.
• 27:46
  It was kind of a bit of a battle to make it where it had the
• 27:50
  things I wanted to include as well as everything they wanted
• 27:53
  to include. But there's definitely like lots
• 27:56
  of macho recipes in there. I have like a way to make boba
• 28:00
  from scratch in your microwave. Cool.
• 28:03
  Yeah. Microwave.
• 28:04
  Nice. Love it.
• 28:06
  It's cool, actually. I wouldn't even imagine how.
• 28:09
  Yeah, so most recipes either used pre made boba, which I was
• 28:14
  like, it's impossible to make a recipe that way because every
• 28:17
  brand is different. Most of the ones I tried were
• 28:19
  terrible. And then most recipes made a
• 28:23
  huge batch and it doesn't stay good for very long.
• 28:26
  You really only have a couple hours to to consume it before
• 28:30
  it's really just turned to mush. And so, you know, I really
• 28:34
  struggled with that because it was like, how do you make this
• 28:36
  recipe for like a glass of boba and then you still have all this
• 28:40
  leftover. It just felt so wasteful.
• 28:42
  So I kind of kept scaling back and scaling back and scaling
• 28:46
  back to where it was just enough boba for like 2 drinks.
• 28:51
  And so I think it's really helpful for people to, you know,
• 28:54
  if they want to make boba at home, they don't want to spend
• 28:57
  $10 on a drink every day. It just makes it really more fun
• 29:01
  and accessible I think. So I was at the Toronto Tea
• 29:04
  Festival where you presented that.
• 29:06
  I guess it was about a year ago, or a little bit less, and you
• 29:09
  had a really interesting story about certain famous celebrities
• 29:12
  stealing a recipe from your book.
• 29:15
  Yeah, so I had a recipe for matcha whipped cream, which is
• 29:18
  in the book. It's also just on my blog.
• 29:20
  It was a recipe, which is what whipped cream is the easiest
• 29:23
  thing in the world to make at home.
• 29:24
  Really, the recipe is make whipped cream, throw some matcha
• 29:26
  in it. But Kourtney Kardashian's
• 29:28
  website basically took my recipe and posted it on their site and
• 29:33
  made a video like a reel on Instagram with it.
• 29:37
  Didn't credit me. Didn't you know in any way
• 29:40
  credit me for that? And so, you know, I had posted
• 29:44
  it on my Instagram and had lots of people go and comment to say
• 29:48
  like, hey, this is Nicole's recipe, you should give her
• 29:50
  credit. Eventually they did add credit,
• 29:53
  but when I asked to be compensated for them using my
• 29:57
  recipe, they just took the content down instead.
• 30:00
  Crazy. Yeah, I know.
• 30:02
  It's a bigger problem in the tea world where like people use
• 30:04
  people's photos or videos or recipes and it's a it's a little
• 30:09
  shocking that like a celebrity would do that too, especially
• 30:11
  someone that high profile. Yeah.
• 30:14
  I mean, I'm sure it was some intern that you know, but.
• 30:19
  Still. But yeah, crazy story.
• 30:22
  Cool. So, you know, over the years,
• 30:24
  both being an educator and I'm sure someone who's also like a
• 30:26
  student of tea, where have you gone to expand your knowledge on
• 30:32
  matcha? And like, where do you find that
• 30:34
  some of the sources are for like the bleeding edge of matcha
• 30:38
  knowledge is like more of it gets in English, more of it is
• 30:41
  findable. Like where?
• 30:43
  Where are some really good resources that you've discovered
• 30:45
  over the year apart from your blog, where you've also built on
• 30:49
  your knowledge foundations? Definitely, I would say books
• 30:52
  are are a huge resource for me. One of my favorites are there's
• 30:56
  a couple of books that were written by Oscar Breckel, which
• 30:58
  are in both Japanese and English, which is really cool.
• 31:02
  But really I, I feel like his books are about as close to the
• 31:05
  source as you can get in English.
• 31:07
  I think definitely for somebody who wants to learn more about
• 31:10
  Japanese tea, they're a great place to start.
• 31:12
  OK. I got one of them, I forget
• 31:15
  which one it was but I found it very helpful.
• 31:17
  His what do you call them? Like his infographics are really
• 31:22
  good, like he was showing lineages of cultivars.
• 31:25
  I don't know if anyone sells them in the states though.
• 31:27
  Maybe you can get them online? Yeah, for the most part I've
• 31:30
  just ordered them through Amazon.
• 31:32
  But yeah, they're, they're definitely a huge resource for
• 31:35
  me. OK, I'll have to order the rest
• 31:38
  because I only have one, but I think there's a couple Pick them
• 31:41
  up on Amazon and your book is available at Amazon as well.
• 31:44
  Yeah, it is. Awesome.
• 31:46
  Cool. So I guess there's one last one
• 31:50
  last question before we wrap up. How do you think the macho
• 31:54
  landscape is going to change in the next 5 to 10 years?
• 31:57
  How do you see it evolving from where we're at?
• 32:00
  Yeah, I think we're at an interesting time right now in
• 32:03
  many ways demand out seeds supply.
• 32:06
  And so I definitely see the Japanese tea industry kind of
• 32:10
  pivoting to that, you know, domestic consumption is down.
• 32:14
  And so I do think we're going to see a lot of people who were
• 32:17
  producing sencha or other teas for domestic consumption in
• 32:21
  Japan are going to be changing over to matcha just because
• 32:24
  there's there's customers out there.
• 32:27
  They may not be Japanese customers, but there's
• 32:29
  definitely demand for that product.
• 32:31
  And so I do think we're going to see a lot of that change over.
• 32:33
  No, it's, I think we're at a really kind of a, a difficult
• 32:38
  time with the Japanese tea industry, you know, because
• 32:40
  they're definitely having a problem with, you know, farmers
• 32:43
  aging, not as many young people are, you know, wanting to take
• 32:46
  over. But it definitely, I have not
• 32:49
  seen interest in matcha be so high as it is now over the last
• 32:53
  16 years of me being involved in tea.
• 32:56
  So I think it'll be really interesting to see how things go
• 32:59
  from here. Yeah.
• 33:01
  And it, yeah, it really feels like it's only going to grow.
• 33:05
  So, you know, hopefully that the the way the Japanese tea
• 33:08
  industry is structured, that not too much culture is lost.
• 33:12
  The more you know past a certain point, the more tea you export,
• 33:15
  the less tea you have domestically.
• 33:17
  Absolutely. So it's a it's an interesting,
• 33:20
  it's an interesting change. Do you think that the single
• 33:23
  origin single cultivar thing is here to stay or do you think
• 33:26
  that's just going to remain very, very special tea?
• 33:29
  Or do you think that's going to become more popular?
• 33:31
  I think it's potentially going to become more popular.
• 33:35
  I don't think it's necessarily going to be super mainstream,
• 33:39
  but I think for people who make matcha at home, I think that's
• 33:42
  definitely going to be something I think that grows, you know,
• 33:45
  over time. You know, one example is like
• 33:49
  who's in matcha? They make like a machine that
• 33:52
  makes, you know, grinds tension to matcha.
• 33:54
  And the number of people I see using that on TikTok, first of
• 33:58
  all, but they, they basically just released a whole collection
• 34:02
  of single cultivar tension, which it was like impossible to
• 34:05
  even get tension when I first started.
• 34:08
  So it's, it's really, I think that's interesting that, you
• 34:11
  know, you definitely have people at home that are like learning
• 34:14
  about different cultivars grinding their own tensha, which
• 34:18
  is really, I think a cool evolution.
• 34:22
  Yeah, that's wild. That would have been unthinkable
• 34:24
  when I started my T journey 10 years ago.
• 34:27
  Absolutely, yeah. It's a really cool change.
• 34:29
  Have you had any of the flavored matcha where it's the purposeful
• 34:34
  application of of flavors? I haven't.
• 34:37
  They are very popular though. Like I know David's Tea makes a
• 34:40
  ton of different flavors and they're really like super, super
• 34:44
  popular. I think it's a great way to make
• 34:46
  matcha a little bit more approachable for people you
• 34:49
  know, especially if they're just getting started.
• 34:52
  Somebody, you know, traditional usucha or koicha are
• 34:56
  intimidating when you're first getting started.
• 34:58
  Yeah, but like, banana marsh matcha lattes are not as scary.
• 35:02
  So I definitely think it's a good way to help people get
• 35:05
  their feet. Yeah, especially because even
• 35:07
  the vocab when you're first getting into tea, usucha, koicha
• 35:11
  and all these traditional companies with these very
• 35:13
  complicated names, like they're just, I can't even pronounce.
• 35:17
  Like even some of the big companies, I feel like I can't
• 35:19
  pronounce their name. Just like I'm an industry
• 35:22
  person. I'm slowly learning, but I
• 35:24
  really have a lot of trouble with it.
• 35:26
  So I can't imagine how like people who are just dipping
• 35:29
  their toe in the water trying to like pronounce a lot of these
• 35:32
  and then remember them. So it's AI think it's a big
• 35:35
  problem. And I think that's a nice change
• 35:38
  is that you have all these new vendors come in with names that
• 35:42
  people can remember or relate to in some way, whether or not it's
• 35:46
  the flavored tea or like, I don't know, Rocky Matcha or
• 35:49
  Johnny Matcha. Like they have really
• 35:50
  approachable names and very good brand identity to remember.
• 35:55
  I think like without that I I'm worried how much it can grow in
• 35:59
  the States. Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:02
  I do think it's, it's super interesting that a lot of, you
• 36:06
  know, Japanese brands have become so popular that they like
• 36:10
  can't even keep up. Yeah, that's wild.
• 36:13
  Yeah, I keep looking at Sawzanty's, like, update page.
• 36:17
  Somehow they've become like the main vendor of choice for a lot
• 36:20
  of this. And you know the number of
• 36:22
  brands that they're like, there's just no bacha until next
• 36:25
  June, which is crazy. It it's crazy, Yeah.
• 36:30
  No, it's the shortages are are real.
• 36:33
  It's interesting because I feel like no one in the like industry
• 36:37
  is talking about it or like I posted on my Facebook just, you
• 36:40
  know, for I've friends with a lot of T vendors on there.
• 36:43
  And so I was just like, and they're all like, I have matcha,
• 36:45
  what are you talking about? And it's like it's not that you
• 36:50
  can't get matcha, but there's definitely a lot of brands that
• 36:53
  are just impossible to get right now, which is is really an
• 36:57
  interesting development. Yeah, I think from an awareness
• 37:00
  perspective, maybe it was just very winner take all like people
• 37:04
  had heard of them, they found great value, they repeat
• 37:06
  purchase. So hopefully my hope is that it
• 37:09
  drives consumers into a state of exploration, try out your
• 37:12
  vendors and you know, gives other people more market share.
• 37:15
  Either that or prices are going to go up, but hopefully that
• 37:17
  doesn't happen. Yeah, hopefully not.
• 37:20
  Or both, I don't know. Yeah, much is expensive enough.
• 37:22
  Exactly, especially being such a perishable product.
• 37:26
  Yeah. Well, anyway, it's a great note
• 37:28
  to end on. So thank you so much for your
• 37:30
  time and for coming on. We really appreciate it.
• 37:33
  Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
• 37:35
  Thanks and if any of the listeners enjoyed this, please
• 37:37
  consider giving us five stars a follow Nicole at T for me please
• 37:41
  across various platforms. Check out her YouTube.
• 37:44
  Her husband T torture is very entertaining.
• 37:47
  Great series and especially like getting a reaction of someone
• 37:51
  who's not really AT person. Try something like matcha.
• 37:54
  It's if you really are a tea person, seeing that you kind of
• 37:58
  re remember wow, like not everyone likes tea.
• 38:01
  So it's a refreshing perspective.
• 38:04
  Yeah, he came to me to royalty, with me to Royalty Royalty Expo
• 38:09
  a few years ago. And he's so not a tea person.
• 38:12
  He was just there to carry my stuff, really.
• 38:14
  But, you know, he, we were at a booth and he like declined a
• 38:19
  sample and someone called him a tea hater.
• 38:22
  He was like, I'm not a tea hater.
• 38:24
  And then he just started chugging everything that was
• 38:26
  given to him, including matcha. And so that's kind of where the
• 38:30
  idea came from that, you know, we were like, why don't we just
• 38:32
  do that at home? And have you tried different
• 38:34
  things? Because his responses are always
• 38:36
  really funny. Yeah, very funny.
• 38:40
  Well, it's important to get everyone's preferences, whether
• 38:42
  they like or dislike something. And you know, I think that's the
• 38:45
  thing. There's just not enough people
• 38:46
  out there saying I don't like this in a really honest and open
• 38:49
  minded way. Absolutely.
• 38:52
  Well, anyway, thank you so much. And dear listener, we'll see you
• 38:55
  on the next one. Thanks.