Interview with Tom from Chaseki
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Ryan And Zongjun (00:00)
Hello. And welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan. This is my co -host Zongjun Hello, hello. And we're the co -founders of Sanko Matcha Products. Yeah, so we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey in matcha share, startup stories and interview experts. And today we're happy to have Tom from Chaseki Welcome, Tom.
Tom Greese (00:00)
life.
Thank you for having me.
Ryan And Zongjun (00:21)
Thanks so much for joining. So I guess, kicking off, could you tell everyone a little bit more about Chaseki and your mission?
Tom Greese (00:22)
My pleasure.
Yeah, sure. So, Chaseki, we founded, my wife and I, we founded Chaseki in the summer of 2018, officially launched our first shop in November of 2018, based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. And the backstory is basically, I have a very strong root in tourism and hospitality. I used to work in Thailand as general manager of several four and five star hotels.
I realized that no matter which position I actually have, I'm still just an employee and I really cannot do the things that I would like to do, like I cannot fulfill the visions that I have. So I decided to resign and do my own thing. That was around May, June of 2018. A good friend of mine is the YouTuber Mark Wiens. had the idea that I could maybe do a blog or
Yeah, yeah, yeah. know Mark for over 10 years now. yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the best man at our wedding. he was the one who actually ignited the spark of doing something around tea. I do personally love coffee and tea. And when I moved to Thailand, I realized that there was...
Ryan And Zongjun (01:29)
watch a lot of Mark's videos. He's cool
Really? ⁓ cool.
wow.
Tom Greese (01:54)
a lack of matcha and good coffee unless you live in Chiang Mai. I was based in the south of Thailand at the time close to Phuket and I had to drive almost 100 kilometers just to get a decent coffee. Matcha was not available at all. So Mark had the idea to maybe write a blog or do a YouTube video or like a channel around matcha and tea.
Ryan And Zongjun (02:09)
Wow.
What is his
content? I'm not as familiar with it. Yeah, Floodblock. ⁓ okay. I think you've shown me some of these.
Tom Greese (02:23)
Mark is a food blogger. So.
so he had this idea to do something around tea and that gave me the spark or the idea to actually go into that field. Obviously the competition here in Chiang Mai with coffee is quite high. And I just realized living in Thailand, I had to order my matcha from Japan. It was quite a hassle.
because the import duty here in Thailand is relatively high. It's 60 % on top what you already paid. And at the time there were just a few shops in Bangkok that offered a decent quality matcha, which was 7 suns. I think at the time they already had Peace Oriental and Double Dog, I think that's how it's called.
Ryan And Zongjun (02:55)
⁓ wow.
Tom Greese (03:12)
it was not really satisfying, so I started ordering my stuff from Ian, which was also a guest on your podcast not too long ago. And after ordering a few times, he offered me a wholesale discount or basically an account as a wholesale agent. And so I started ordering stuff from him. And yeah, that was around summer when my wife and I decided to do something around with tea. That was basically how Chaseki
Ryan And Zongjun (03:18)
Yeah.
Tom Greese (03:40)
started and then we went to Japan to source all the products. Ian really helped us a lot during that time because he had all the connections that we didn't have. so, yeah, on site in Japan, we decided to source the products from Shogyokuen Tea Farm, which has a very long history. And in terms of flavor, it was what I personally enjoyed the most. And yeah, so and the rest is history. We opened mid of November.
Shortly after, everybody knows COVID happened. We just signed a contract for our second branch in Chiang Mai two weeks before the first lockdown. And it was quite challenging because nobody knew what's going to happen, how long the whole thing lasts. Then we opened, we were overrun by people, we had to hire more more staff. And then we had the second lockdown and overnight it felt like somebody turned off the revenue stream.
Ryan And Zongjun (04:20)
No, no.
Tom Greese (04:40)
And yeah, so but nonetheless, we managed to survive basically through teaching. So during the pandemic, obviously a lot of people couldn't travel. People were not allowed to go into another province without paper documents or proper documentations. And just before the second lockdown, we started teaching workshops here in Chiang Mai and people were interested in this. this is basically we just opened at the right time.
Ryan And Zongjun (04:40)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Tom Greese (05:09)
There was this movement that started, people were more more interested in matcha and not just the green tea powder that you'll find at Starbucks, but like decent quality matcha. And it was this mystery about this product. Everybody talked about it. Everybody said it's like super healthy, but nobody really knew anything about it. So over the time I gained knowledge.
And that was our main focus to provide as much knowledge as possible to newbies to open the gate into the world of matcha, if you want to call it like that. And during the pandemic, everybody stopped teaching. We were the only ones and we did it online. And yeah, so that was our way into the matcha market here in Thailand, basically.
Ryan And Zongjun (05:51)
Wow.
Was it mostly like local Thai consumers or lot of expats too? What was sort of the balance of people who were really interested in the workshops?
Tom Greese (06:10)
In the beginning, the first round of workshops that we did was mainly foreigner. The very, very first workshop we did in 2019. And that was mainly foreigner. At the time, obviously, there was no pandemic and everything was normal. And that was also one thing. Like when we opened Chaseki, our main focus was mainly on expats living in Chiang Mai and tourists.
And when we transitioned into the low season, I quickly realized that this is not a sustainable business model and that we would have to focus on the domestic market. And so we switched our marketing completely from foreigner to 100 % Thai. And we just saw any foreigner that would walk into our shop or took our courses as the cherry on top of the icing, if you want to call it that.
Ryan And Zongjun (06:47)
Mm
Okay.
Tom Greese (07:04)
you start a business, obviously there are a lot of obstacles that you're not aware of when you start the business. And these were some of them. But it's a learning curve, right? It's a learning process and you need to adapt. I think that's part of life in no matter what situation you're in. can use that for your business, but also for your personal life. So you will face obstacles and it depends on you.
Ryan And Zongjun (07:12)
We're learning that.
Tom Greese (07:30)
challenge them and if you overcome them or not. So, right.
Ryan And Zongjun (07:34)
Yeah, absolutely.
So Tom, when you first started to focus to the domestic Thai market, what did you find are the things that will attract Thai consumers into matcha? And how have you seen these interests change in the past few years?
Tom Greese (07:52)
In beginning, there wasn't really a market yet. It was a lot of educational part from our side. what we did was basically we welcomed everyone to our tea house. People sat down. We just shared tea with them. At the time, we were also selling Chinese teas, a lot of Pu'erhs, especially raw Pu'erhs. So we were doing like tea sessions and we're drinking a lot of Gu -shu, Pu -erh. And
Ryan And Zongjun (08:12)
Thank you.
Tom Greese (08:21)
and attracts people. It's kind of interesting because when you open that kind of business you attract a certain type of people into your business and you repel others.
Ryan And Zongjun (08:28)
Mm -hmm. Mm.
Yeah. Natural filter.
Tom Greese (08:32)
Yeah, it's a natural
filter. And also with the pricing that we had for the domestic market, especially here in Chiang Mai, it's a different economy than in Bangkok. And our prices were relatively high. So that was a natural selection already. And those who came in usually had questions. like, what is this? Where do you got your products from? And what we did from day one was basically story selling. We told the people that were interested in our products,
Ryan And Zongjun (08:41)
Mm -hmm.
Tom Greese (09:01)
about the tea farm, the tea master himself, how long they have been existing and who they supplied to in the past because Shogun has a very strong history. supplied to Emperor family and the samurai elite in Japan. And they have been around for almost 200 years now and Kobayashi -san is running the business in each generation. So, and this was something that was attracting people to us. So it was not just like, you want to buy the matcha?
It was like, OK, this is like a part of the Japanese culture. It's a part of the history and it's healthy and has all these benefits. And over the time, we were learning from our customers what they actually want. So we had to actively listening to them. What were the questions that keep on repeating? And so we had a portfolio basically of information that people have been asking in the past, which we were providing from then.
to every customer. over the time you just grow business six years ago is not the business that we have today because also the customer has developed. They have more questions. In the beginning, nobody asked about cultivars that much. Now more more people are just going for the cultivar.
Ryan And Zongjun (10:09)
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
Tom Greese (10:17)
They want to have single color, single origins. And so it's a developing market basically,
Ryan And Zongjun (10:23)
When did that shift start happening with the single origin, single cultivar, like awareness? Because for me, was really recent. I didn't even realize there were cultivars until 2022. I should have, I'm really into tea, love pu'erh I love other products, but it just never occurred to me at all. But I think it's because like,
Tom Greese (10:29)
That happened.
Ryan And Zongjun (10:44)
The first place I ever bought matcha was like Harney and Sons and Ippodo. And like it's not on the label. I never thought about it. It's always an obscure name for land that they didn't tell you anything.
Tom Greese (10:56)
Right, right.
first time that we really got confronted with a customer that was asking for the cultivar was sometime mid or late 2019. And that's when I started to ask our suppliers about cultivars, which was relatively new to them, I would say, because they were kind of shy.
Ryan And Zongjun (11:10)
wow.
Tom Greese (11:22)
They didn't really want to provide that. Ian at the time as well, he was like, who cares about cultivars? It's just a matcha that they're going to get. he's like, yeah, but that's what people are asking now. They want to know what kind of cultivars they've been using. that understanding or with that demand in the market, we started to deeper into that and more aware of cultivars and
the cultivar is actually doing. And there are a lot of differences, for example, in Asahi, it tastes completely different to an Uji -Hikari, and Okomidori is completely different than Saemidori or Saimidori. we started to have our own preferences, that's what we started to communicate. And around that time,
we started to have the online workshops, that was our main focus at the time. We wanted to provide a large option or a large variety of different cultivars that people could try in the workshop. was how we structured the workshop from the beginning basically, on the cultivars. So you get to try the Yabukita, the Okomidori, Saemidori Saimidori, Gokko.
Hikari and also difference in how they grow the tea basically. You can have a Samidori which is shaded with just canopy and then you can have a Samidori which is shaded the traditional way with bamboo and you can taste the difference. So that was our focus our workshops.
Ryan And Zongjun (12:47)
Hmm.
I
wish we were aware of this. We would have definitely been consumers.
Tom Greese (12:55)
Yeah, yeah, but
Yeah, but
Ryan And Zongjun (13:02)
What was the reaction when you went to go ask for single cultivars? Was that an easy ask? Were they reluctant? Like it's...
Tom Greese (13:10)
It was, it was not easy.
It was more like repelling. It was like, why you want to know that? And, ⁓ I had to ask several times to actually get the list of cultivars that they're using in the matches that we've been selling. So it was, we had to be very persistent and keep on asking, which is typical in, think with, if you do business in Japan, it is not necessarily like, yeah, come in and I'll just show you everything. It is very protective.
Ryan And Zongjun (13:29)
Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Greese (13:40)
And
especially if you're new in this industry, people, need to gain the trust,
Ryan And Zongjun (13:46)
do they share like the percentage of different cultivars that went into a tea or it's still a secret that they will not share?
Tom Greese (13:54)
Well,
thing is, with our main supplier at the time, with Shogyokuen they have only two... have only two matchas that are blended with two different cultivars and all the other matchas out of their portfolio are all single cultivars.
Ryan And Zongjun (14:09)
okay. Interesting.
Tom Greese (14:11)
So for
example, the imamukashi, which is the lowest end of the ceremonial great matcha, is a single cultivar, yabukita. Then the next higher grade is the izumi no shiro, which is an okomidori cultivar. Then you have a blend, is the iwai no shiro, which is a okomidori and a yabukita, but they don't share the percentage of what they use.
Ryan And Zongjun (14:29)
Mm
Tom Greese (14:39)
Kobayashi -san, actually explained it to us and he said matcha is like wine. If you have a good wine that you, for example, you go to the supermarket and you buy a wine from Ernest Gallo from California and you like that. And if you go to the, and you want to buy another bottle of that, you expect the wine to taste the same way.
Ryan And Zongjun (14:58)
Mm
Tom Greese (14:59)
don't want to have different flavor profile next time when you buy that bottle. And they do the same thing with their tencha because tea is a natural product, it is impacted by the environment, by soil, by the weather, basically. And one harvest can taste fantastic and the other one next year might lack in terms of depth and flavor.
Ryan And Zongjun (15:03)
Right.
Tom Greese (15:23)
And what the tea Master is doing, they use Tencha from previous years and blend the same cultivars. For example, you have a Yabukita from 2023 and a Yabukita from 2022 and Yabukita from 2021, which they store or it's basically frozen. And they take it out to blend the Yabukita single cultivar with different Yabukitas.
Ryan And Zongjun (15:30)
Hmm.
Tom Greese (15:51)
from different years and also from different plantations in Uji, for example. And by blending the tencha he has the vision of how it should taste like, and he just blends everything together until it matches the taste profile that they want.
Ryan And Zongjun (15:56)
Okay.
I actually didn't realize that some of the poetic name products were single cultivar. I always assumed that they were blends of cultivars, but they're really just blends of vintages, agents.
Tom Greese (16:16)
think it
depends on the tea farm or the tea garden. is one of the few that actually use single cultivars in most cases.
Ryan And Zongjun (16:25)
so is the intention behind the same name blend different between two producers? is it a flavor or is it just a poetic name that can have two completely different intentions depending on the producer? Does the name mean anything between producers, I guess?
Tom Greese (16:41)
I think the name itself doesn't mean anything between the producer. I think it just has a historical name that comes from ancient times or previous times. But honestly, I do not know. And this is something that they probably would not really share with me anyways. It's just the way they've been doing it. Right.
Ryan And Zongjun (16:57)
Okay, interesting. is very confusing.
Tom Greese (17:02)
It is.
It is still after being in business like six years now, it is still sometimes very confusing. The entire tea industry in Japan. very protective, don't really want to share too much and they also don't really necessarily want to sell to you if they don't know you. That's in many cases you have to go through an agent if you start off.
Ryan And Zongjun (17:14)
Yeah.
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Tom Greese (17:28)
Or you're
lucky and you find a tea farmer or tea master that is a younger generation and more open -minded to do business abroad
Ryan And Zongjun (17:36)
how do you find Thai people like their preference towards different cultivar? Because in Japan, people are super into these umami bomb, hyper umami tea from Uji. It definitely gets sold at a premium price.
Does that preference translate into the time market too? Or do people prefer some other flavor profile?
Tom Greese (17:59)
a big difference between the US and European markets to what we've been experiencing here in Thailand. think outside Japan, I believe that Thailand has the biggest markets and is probably even above Japan in terms of matcha consumption and being completely crazy in a good way about matcha. And the questions that we get from our customers depends usually on
Ryan And Zongjun (18:17)
Mmm.
Tom Greese (18:26)
they are in their personal journey. Like if somebody starts off, usually tend to go with a cheap option. just want to experience a decent matcha.
A lot of people don't really.
necessarily like the nori seaweed flavor or the saltiness in the matcha, which is typical rather in lower grade matchas. And the higher the quality gets, the more nuttiness and creaminess and floral and fruity notes that you get.
Ryan And Zongjun (18:44)
Thank you.
Tom Greese (18:58)
And we call it you climb up the mountain and once you reach the top of the mountain you cannot go back. once you start, yeah, yeah, once you start to drink the higher qualities matcha it's very difficult to go back to the lower grades, right? The lower grades you usually use for like a...
Ryan And Zongjun (19:04)
It's a consumer ladder.
Tom Greese (19:19)
crossover drink with coconut water or something with fruit where you definitely do want to have a little bit more stringency or bitter notes to balance the sweetness. And if you prefer your matcha pure as a clear matcha, like an Americano, iced Americano option of the matcha, or as an usucha or koicha, you definitely go with the higher qualities.
Once you experience that, you don't want to go back.
Ryan And Zongjun (19:51)
No, understandably. I believe that you also supply to a lot of different coffee people. How does the specialty coffee scene in Thailand approach matcha? Because in the States and in Europe, it feels at worst, it's an inconvenient thing that they have to do because people demand it. And at best, they're using a whisk,
they're preparing it, everything to order. But in Thailand, it seems like a whole other level at the specialty coffee places, at least that I've seen. It's much, much more sophisticated.
Tom Greese (20:27)
Yeah, it is. I think that it has to do with the coffee culture in Thailand. mean, Thailand has become maybe powerhouse is too much, but Thailand definitely has its spot on the map now in terms of good quality coffee that has been grown here in Thailand. And they gained a lot of knowledge about roasting over the past 20, 25 years.
over the time they have identified the trend that a lot of people are actually looking for alternatives to coffee. And so a lot of the specialty coffee shops, they adapt and they add more more matcha to their menus. And many of these owners or business owners of these coffee shops, they actually come to us or send their staff to us. We just had three employees from a
very, very big specialty coffee house in Bangkok. And they took the course with us because obviously they already have matcha in their portfolio, but they just want to improve their game and provide more quality to their customer base. And so it is definitely something that the owners of specialty coffee shops are looking into and they are aware that there is a demand for this.
It's not necessarily like a matcha specialty shop like us that we really have the focus on the cultivars and different tea regions. But the specialty coffee shops, definitely amp up their game and provide more higher quality matchas now as they did in the past.
Ryan And Zongjun (22:06)
And the specialty coffee scene seems to have exploded. We started doing a lot of work in Bangkok in 2019. And I remember our first trip there, we really were searching for a good cafe to work out of, ⁓ with great coffee program. Very few. Yeah. It seemed like there was very few. Like there was like one decent one in central world we found, and there were a couple others scattered around, but now it feels like every corner.
Tom Greese (22:21)
Mm
Ryan And Zongjun (22:32)
It's like China, it's like every corner of this specialty coffee. And now they're serving tons of matcha too, which is like great place to bring people into the category.
Tom Greese (22:36)
Yeah.
mean, this is not an approved information, but this is just my personal reference. Throughout the pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs that have been working in the hospitality industry. lot of people are looking for alternatives to do their own thing. They just want to open their business, their own business. They want to be independent.
they are looking for an alternative to turn their hobbies into a business, basically.
a lot of jobs are related or connected to the tourism sector. And after the pandemic was over, a lot of hotels have been complaining and still now today are complaining of lack of staff.
people are not interested to work in the hospitality sector anymore because it's actually hard work and you'd not really get paid much. lot of them the younger generations, they have something saved up or they got money from their parents, which they invest into their own business. A lot of mom and pop shops basically, launched their own business through delivery apps like Grab or Foodpanda
more people are crazy about matcha and specialty coffee. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's mushrooming everywhere. It's not just tea houses, but...
But coffee, specialty coffee as well. Yeah. And a hundred percent like 2019, there were not many shops around. Now Bangkok is flooded with specialty coffee.
Ryan And Zongjun (24:03)
Interesting.
The startup culture in Thailand seems to be very grassroots. Yeah, it does. Very cool.
Tom Greese (24:17)
Yeah,
a mindset for many people, know, being independent, not relying on the government, not relying on a paycheck, but to do your own thing and follow your passion.
Ryan And Zongjun (24:28)
Yeah, it's amazing that the infrastructure there is there because like I imagine like 10 years ago, you didn't have all these services where someone from Grab could come pick up your order and like you can basically set up infinite number of ghost kitchens and like the capital requirements have really changed with the incredible, almost unthinkable infrastructure that exists within Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia, but like in the States or when you're in Europe, like
just don't understand the level of infrastructure and the quality of the services that are embedded by technology. Just like yesterday night, we ordered some fruit and I think it was $5 and it was delivered in 20 minutes straight to our door. It was incredible. It just doesn't exist anywhere in Europe or in North America.
Tom Greese (25:19)
Right. That is definitely something that I've experienced myself after I moved to Thailand in 2017. was quite stunned by the advanced technology that they have here. I mean, still, after all, Thailand is considered as like a borderline country. It's like, it's not first world, it's not third world, it's somewhere in between. But in many cases, Thailand is far more advanced than the countries in the West.
Ryan And Zongjun (25:40)
Thank you.
incredible, very unique type of ecosystem that is, think, allowing specialty matcha to flourish. It's like really cool seeing something so grassroots
what's your plan for the future of Chaseki? Is there any expansion plan? What's the current thinking right now?
Tom Greese (26:04)
opened a branch of Chaseki two years ago in Bangkok in Ari. That was a joint venture program that we did back then with a partner of ours. Unfortunately, things did not really work out the way that we planned.
concept that we have with Chaseki is a matcha slow bar. Basically people come sit down, they want to have the experience with our matcha barista.
then usually people sit down and they enjoy their matcha, they spend time here, read their books or do some work on the laptop. In Bangkok, in Ari, it is a completely different base because white collar workers, they...
go to work in the mornings and on the way to their office, they grab something go. during that one hour, they need to get lunch. They need to eat and they want to have maybe another pick me up drink with caffeine. And a lot of people chose matcha. since everything has to be prepared fresh in front of the customer, it didn't really match their needs.
we decided to and we closed down the shop. But we learned our lesson. after we closed the shop in Bangkok, we opened a new branch under the umbrella of Chaseki here in Chiang Mai, which is called Nagare. In Nagare, it's like a matcha speed bar at a lower price tag, different clientele that we target. And this works perfectly fine. And it's very easy to scale.
just opened our second Nagare three weeks ago here in Chiang Mai. And the plans for Thailand will be basically we will return to Bangkok with Chaseki, but also with Nagare. Nagare will be kind of like the Starbucks option, and for grab and go
Ryan And Zongjun (27:34)
wow.
Tom Greese (27:47)
we also have plans to get into the US market. So we started to supply students of ours that live in the United States now. are actually working on a project with friends of ours to bring Chaseki to the United States. likely, first state will be very likely Texas. And then we will see from there on.
Ryan And Zongjun (28:08)
Texas seems like it's booming. Yeah, it is. Already has a very interesting food scene from what I've heard.
Tom Greese (28:11)
It -
yeah, yeah. And I think it's quite, yeah, we would definitely go with Texas. Right.
Ryan And Zongjun (28:24)
Cool. Looking forward to this. Hopefully you guys come to Things Eastern.
Tom Greese (28:26)
Yeah. Yeah, we are looking forward to
and another project that I'm working on, it's still in the making. is related the question that you asked before about the vision that we have with Chaseki. So we are always planning to improve and to grow as a company.
have a relatively strong marketing background and I have a lot of mentors that I've been learning from over the past six years. And basically all of them are saying like, you can grow to a certain point, but then you stagnate and you cannot really grow until you start to contribute.
is such an incredible product and we want to make matcha more accessible to more people take this away kind of like, know, it's difficult to get good matcha. So are planning to build a movement around matcha and Japanese tea more and more people on board, a platform for education. what we're doing now in Thailand,
do it internationally, have these workshops where we teach everything that we know, over -deliver and go all in and not holding back anything. And I think that's one of the reasons why the tea culture in Japan is slowly fading away because they're holding too much for themselves and it seems like they're afraid to share. And it's also the codex that they have, the honor part. If I would sell to you because I already sell to someone in your region, therefore I cannot sell to you.
which is in my opinion bunkers because you want to run a business and you want to make, you know, there is demand, people want to have your products. Why not share your products with the world and make it more accessible? So this is what we are working on in the background at the moment and there will be more stuff coming soon.
Ryan And Zongjun (29:55)
Yeah. Yeah. Very strange.
Sign us up, we're so aligned. It's just such an incredible product, it's such a shame that there are all these barriers.
Tom Greese (30:20)
That
was the reason why I reached out to you. I found your podcast with Ian by coincidence on Spotify one morning. I was there and usually all the podcasts that I saw in the past about matcha were not related to matcha at all. It just had the name in the name of the podcast, but then it was about personal development, lifestyle stuff, my diary and...
Ryan And Zongjun (30:29)
-huh.
⁓ yeah. It's a lifestyle podcast, yeah.
Hahaha
Tom Greese (30:49)
So first I was skeptical and I was like, wait, this is with Ian? cool, this is legit. And that's why I reached out to you and then I saw your website, saw the Chawan that you're working on and the desktop matcha mill, which I definitely want to have for our shop. So yeah, we are actually looking for people that are more open -minded in, yeah, try to make matcha more accessible to everyone.
without the traditional approach. I think if you start to love matcha, you automatically become more interested in the traditional part. And I think that's the way that it should take. You have to learn the tradition to be able to drink matcha. Yeah.
Ryan And Zongjun (31:25)
Yeah.
Yeah, not the other way around.
And especially the traditional first approach, it's really hard to become passionate about it because there's like, don't learn, like I studied tea ceremony for three years, four years, and I didn't learn anything about tea. Like I didn't learn anything about matcha. Like it's really almost not related to the product that is matcha, which is, yeah, we're totally aligned. Yeah, tea is not really.
Tom Greese (31:45)
Right. Right.
Yeah, I...
Yeah, I've... Right, it's an element. And I mean, if... I don't know, if I would be Japanese and I want more people to be interested in the culture and to protect this culture that is slowly fading away now, I would be interested in to find new ways to reach people, you know, instead of keeping everything for myself.
Ryan And Zongjun (31:58)
It's just an element of chanoyu
Yeah.
Tom Greese (32:23)
And the average tea drinker in Japan is like 60 plus. Most people do not drink matcha anymore. They just drink bottled tea. And the young generation, they're only interested in coffee, especially coffee and soda pops and stuff like that. And the tea industry in Japan, they're actually blaming the consumers. Like your fault. It's your fault that you don't drink matcha anymore. And you have to drink it in a certain way, or you have to drink your tea in a certain way instead of being like, you know, let's take a step back.
Ryan And Zongjun (32:26)
That's crazy.
We'll see.
Yeah.
Tom Greese (32:51)
see what is going on and adapt to the new environment and to the new situation. And I experienced that firsthand during the pandemic, I was helping a friend of mine, during the time I started to learn a little bit about tea ceremony with him. I really liked the idea, the approach, and offered him to help him to take his ceremony online.
because we already had kind of the experience from our own workshops. So I helped him to build a funnel, basically selling his online course. he, as a team master, faced a lot of problems as well, because it is a very traditional approach. And when he started to make advertisement for this new thing on his social medias, a lot of people turned away from him.
never said that you're going to learn the entire tea ceremony in six weeks. It's, opened the door for you to see what is possible, to give it a try for a small amount of money. And maybe this sparks,
the interest in to learn more and then you can actually decide which direction you want to take
Because some people might be more interested in the Enshū the warrior style, you know, some people want to do the omotesenke Right.
Ryan And Zongjun (34:02)
That's a good point. Yeah, because
it is so different and the philosophical underpinnings are so different. Because you don't, you literally don't know what you're signing up for and there's no way to know. And then you're stuck. Yeah.
Tom Greese (34:19)
Exactly. And this is basically
my personal vision for the future. It probably will not happen overnight, but this is the mid to long term really to build a platform, a community, safe house basically for everyone that wants to learn more about matcha, wants to learn more about the tradition. But first you need to get familiar with the product itself, how it works, what you actually prefer and what you like. And then you might take the path down
some kind of a tea school and really go into the traditional approach of the tea ceremony. And also, you know, maybe you're going to take the course as a Nihoncha tea master, which is also difficult nowadays. You need to speak Japanese to be able to learn that. There is no other option. Right. And so if you're not capable of speaking Japanese, this is a door that is already closed for you.
Ryan And Zongjun (35:01)
yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Greese (35:16)
And I think if there would be a new approach on these things to make it more accessible for everyone that is interested in this, everybody would profit, in my opinion. Prices would go up for tea, people would buy more products and everyone would benefit from it. The tea farmers that are still around. And it might be more interesting for the younger generation to get into this area, into this field.
Ryan And Zongjun (35:16)
Mm
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
making a tape large.
Yeah, and profit in so many different ways, not just economically, but culturally, the cultural exchange that can happen just opens people's minds, this type of key practice when you bring it into life. Right now, everyone should just focus on trying to make the pipe larger so that everyone can get a larger slice.
Tom Greese (35:48)
Absolutely.
Right. Right.
Right. And even that sometimes is difficult. Like I can tell you stories like some of the suppliers that we have now or the tea farms that we have in our portfolio. It took us a very, very long time to actually get that listed. was almost impossible in the beginning. They're like, no, we're not going to sell to you. We already have two people in Thailand, one in Bangkok, one in another region, and you have to go through them. We're not going to sell.
Ryan And Zongjun (36:07)
Yeah.
Tom Greese (36:33)
But, but, why?
Ryan And Zongjun (36:37)
wow. the choices that you had in Chiang Mai, that refrigerated case, was the largest retail presence of diversity of matcha that I've ever seen in one place. Like, I mean, it is prolific what you guys offer and the choices. was crazy to me. I've never seen so many choices that were clearly and obviously fresh, single origin, traditional and innovative.
Like it really was the whole gambit of things to taste and look at and buy. That was really cool to see.
Tom Greese (37:11)
Yeah,
yeah. So yeah, at the moment we have 55 different types of matcha and we are going to list a new shipment is on the way with a new tea farm. And so that will be another, I think, 10 additional types of matchas that we will have in our portfolio. And it's ever growing. in my, we got strongly impacted by the philosophy of Ian because
Ryan And Zongjun (37:16)
Well,
Wow.
Tom Greese (37:38)
His idea of Yunomi was to actually work with small and medium -sized tea farms to help them to sell their products. And I really like that approach. Why should I work with a big company that is already making a lot of money through bottled teas or to okay, kind of quality matcha? If I can go to the ones that have a long tradition and a long history and the story behind it and a lot of knowledge and culture.
So that's what we've been focusing on. And yeah, we ever grow like depending on the demand that we have. We started with three types of matcha in the beginning from Shogi Yoken and that was in 2018 and now we have 55 and steadily growing.
Ryan And Zongjun (38:26)
So guess like one last thing before we wrap up. You're starting a podcast. Wanna talk a little bit about it, give everyone a bit of a preview or? Spoiler. Yeah.
Tom Greese (38:37)
Right.
Well, yeah, the podcast that is in the planning will be launched very soon, very likely within the next two weeks. And it's interesting because you guys have kind of like the same concept as what we are going to do. So it will be a portfolio of different approaches. We will have guests on our podcast, people like you guys, then Ian will be on our podcast. Obviously, TS will be there.
We would like to have more tea farmers from Japan to give them a voice through our podcast. And yeah, so it might be difficult with the tea farmers itself, but in the past we did live events with tea masters and we have a live translation like an interpreter. So that is an option that we are thinking about, basically, yeah, talking about cultivars, talking about different types of matcha regions, different
Ryan And Zongjun (39:11)
that'd be awesome.
Tom Greese (39:36)
approaches how to make matcha, not just the classical Usucha or Koicha, but also being open for crossover drinks with fruit juices and all the kind of stuff. will be basically the main topic of our podcast. a broader variety of Tea, regions, culture, tea masters and to...
Ryan And Zongjun (39:56)
Awesome.
Tom Greese (40:01)
Give them a voice basically.
Ryan And Zongjun (40:04)
That's awesome. It'll be so nice to have a lot more interviews that are accessible. It's like the only other one is Ricardo's, I think, that I found that I'm like back listening and there's like so many valuable nuggets in there that it's the more better.
Tom Greese (40:11)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think so too. And think if you provide more, if you take that curtain mystery around matcha and the tea culture in Japan away and make it more modern, I think this would be something that a lot of people are interested in. And again, personally, I'm overwhelmed by the fact that there are almost no YouTube channels or podcasts around this topic.
Ryan And Zongjun (40:31)
Thank
yeah. There's
Tom Greese (40:52)
Right? It's it's
Ryan And Zongjun (40:52)
like no James Hoffman, Yeah. The coffee guy. It's like no equivalent in matcha. It's really surprising.
Tom Greese (40:55)
Mm. Right.
I mean, just like I know Ian's Facebook group, another tea group here in Thailand from Pop.
that's going to be another thing which happens within the next week, I think. We already have the group, which is our group is called Matcha Club Thailand, but we already have now, we founded a new group which is called Matcha Club International. And we will invite a lot of our members into the Matcha Club International.
Ryan And Zongjun (41:21)
cool.
Tom Greese (41:26)
So this will be a platform for everybody that might be interested in learning more about matcha, matcha cultivars. It's a free space where you can exchange knowledge, your photos. We have all kinds of events where we give away stuff for the photo of the month. yeah, so this will be hopefully also a way to get more people into our universe.
Ryan And Zongjun (41:48)
If people want to find your podcast, what should they search? Or we can link it too in the notes.
Tom Greese (41:54)
Yeah, because it doesn't exist yet and can provide the information to you once it's live. Right. I can send you all the information also to the Facebook group and all that. Right. You need to keep me updated on the...
Ryan And Zongjun (42:00)
We'll link it in the show notes as soon as we have the link.
Okay, cool. Wonderful.
Tom Greese (42:10)
desktop mill, no? And the chawan we definitely want to sell that here in Thailand.
Ryan And Zongjun (42:17)
cool! Awesome! Well we will, we will.
Tom Greese (42:20)
I tried it, was amazing. It was so easy to form the Usucha with that Chawan, it was very interesting. To say the least, I personally like it.
Ryan And Zongjun (42:28)
⁓ thank you. Yeah. I
have a hard time going back. I was just trying a normal bowl the other day and it's like, wow. This zigzag is driving me crazy. I've been just doing it the one way for too long.
Tom Greese (42:44)
Yeah. But
I think like, especially when, people start with matcha, I think they want to take the traditional approach with nice Raku and all that. But I think, especially when it comes to specialty matcha places and you prepare a lot of matcha throughout the day, that's the thing that you need. It's it, you get the thing done in half of the time and it's so easy. And the experience that the consumer has is much better. If you have a nice thick
Ryan And Zongjun (43:06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Greese (43:12)
like a foam on top of your matcha, that's definitely something.
Ryan And Zongjun (43:14)
Ha, yeah.
Thank you for your endorsement. Appreciate it.
Tom Greese (43:21)
I already told Ryan, I was like, dude, I need to get some of them. We definitely want to sell and we have the platform.
Ryan And Zongjun (43:27)
Be awesome.
All right, I think that's all we have time for. Thank you so much, Tom, for joining. And if you like this podcast, please consider giving it five stars or sharing it with a friend and a thumbs up. And we'll see you on the next one. Thanks so much for listening. See you soon.
Tom Greese (43:36)
And a thumbs up, right? Yep.
Thank you for
having me. It was a great pleasure.
Ryan And Zongjun (43:45)
Thanks.
