Interview with John from Johnny Matcha
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Ryan Ahn (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha podcast. My name is Ryan. This is my cohost, Zongjun.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (00:04)
Hello, hello.
Ryan Ahn (00:05)
And we're the co -founders of Sanko Matcha Products.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (00:08)
Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey in matcha share startup stories and interview experts. And today we are happy to have John from Johnny matcha.
John O’Connor (00:19)
Well thank you guys so much for having me. This is, you know, I know we met at Penn State, Ryan, and it was just an instant connection. So I'm super, super happy and glad to be able to talk with you guys here. And I will say, your Chawan is incredible. I use it every day,
Ryan Ahn (00:39)
Thank you. We're very appreciative
So just jumping straight in, could you give the listeners a little background on how you created Johnny Matcha and your tea -origin story and your know the source philosophy?
John O’Connor (00:53)
Yeah, for sure. So I think like, as with most things, I kind of stumbled into it. At the time, this is late 2013, going into 2014. So I was about to be married, right, in January 2014. And I started, I had chronic sinusitis. I wasn't healthy, right? I definitely wasn't a healthy person.
My brother and I, we were moved out, living in an apartment. So we're drinking soda, we're drinking all this inflammatory stuff, eating trash. Literally, we'd get dinner from the dollar store. You know what I'm saying? We didn't know what we were doing, but we were just destroying our bodies. So I had chronic sinusitis and my ENT wanted me to get surgery, right? Like sinus surgery because I had
sinusitis and all four of my sinus cavities and I had a constant headache, couldn't taste or smell for over a year. This is pre -COVID, right? Like, so when, fast forward, and when I did have COVID though, I was kinda used to it, right? When I couldn't taste or smell, I was like, I've been here before, I can do this. going back to the story, yeah, like I couldn't taste or smell like,
I had a constant headache. I remember I'd wake up with a headache pretty much every single day, you know, and ENT wanted to do surgery, I'm not a big surgery guy. So, and I had a friend who had that surgery and he was like, it helps, but you know, they just take out, but they don't really get to the source of the problem, yada yada. So I was like, all right, like I'm going to try some kind of holistic things.
And I had a buddy who goes, drink green tea. And he lists this long list of why I should drink green tea, you know, for health and,
So what do I do? I start going to Walmart and buying green tea. I'll buy green tea, you know? I've never been a tea person, never been a coffee person at this time. And I start drinking this supermarket tea and I don't like it. It's terrible. It's like, first off, I thought it would be green. It was like gross yellow, you know? And yeah, dude, it was terrible. I mean, it's supermarket tea.
But you know, I didn't know what I was doing. So I started drinking that and all I feel is like the caffeine a little bit, but also my gut was just not having it, right? Cause it's just really bad tea. So I went from there to, to then being like, well, maybe I need to get tea from like a tea shop, you know? And I'm doing more research this whole time. I'm researching a ton. Okay. Well, this actually help is tea good for this is tea good for that.
So I go to a tea shop and I tell the employee there, so hey, do you guys have green tea? And of course she lifts off an insane amount of options, right? Which I was like, holy smokes. She goes, well, what do you want it for? And I said, well, I want it for health. She goes, I gotta drink matcha. And this is like early 2014, right? So this is like right when matcha started kind of, I think 2008 is when matcha started really growing globally.
Ryan Ahn (03:53)
Yeah.
Okay.
John O’Connor (04:11)
But like in the States, nobody had heard of matcha at 2014, like very few people, very new. So I was like, okay, cool, I'll buy that. I thought it was crazy expensive. You know, like, holy smokes, this stuff must be amazing. So I buy matcha, right? And of course it's like, if I knew how to do any kind of tasting notes back then or what I was saying, I mean, it would be,
You know, on the bitterness astringency sweetness on the little star scale, it would be full blown bitter, full blown astringent. Like I was just doing shots of it, dude, just to get it down,
Ryan Ahn (04:45)
Yeah.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (04:48)
Ha ha ha!
Ryan Ahn (04:50)
Hehehehe
Yeah.
John O’Connor (04:51)
you know?
And that's what I thought matcha was. And that's essentially what I think everybody stateside thinks matcha is, right? They think it's all one taste. It's one thing. but I
I stuck with matcha. I did notice a little bit like more of a difference. Then as I'm doing more research, right? Cause I'm, I'm full, I'm all in on trying to see if this thing can help. So I'm looking up matcha. I'm looking up what is it? Where does it come from? Where's good matcha? You know, so I go like, okay, where do I want to get my matcha from? Cause I'm trying to find out the sourcing details. Cause I'm also a little bit of a,
What's it called? A nervous Nelly, right? Or a little bit paranoid when it comes to stuff that I put in my body, you know, which ends up helping out, I guess, being a business owner, because I just, I think I have a good product, right? I know the source. But I end up doing all this research and I'm like, okay, cool. I need to look in Japan. Great. Is this matcha even from Japan? It was, but.
Ryan Ahn (05:50)
to know the source.
John O’Connor (06:03)
You know, I'm like, okay, cool. Well, where in Japan's like the best matcha? Okay, Uji, great. I need to find, and of course the matcha I was buying, you couldn't find anything. It was this made up grade, you know, Imperial grade, whatever. I mean, the Imperial family apparently drinks this. It must be great. What does that mean, Imperial grade? But that's like all the information that you have, right? So I'm like, okay, well.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (06:17)
You
Ryan Ahn (06:22)
Okay.
John O’Connor (06:30)
I need to go to Uji. So I end up buying matcha, having just retail, having it shipped to me from Uji, from a tea shop in Uji. And of course, at first I bought like the most affordable, which I don't remember the cultivar blend at the time, but still, worlds different than what I'd been tasting here, right? States, I was like, my gosh. Now granted, it was probably milled.
within a month of me ordering, I'm just assuming, right? Maybe even less than that. So it was my first time ever having recently milled matcha, because this stuff in the tea shop in the States had to have been, what do you think? A year?
But regardless, like fresh, like good, you could actually make out different flavors in this matcha. You know, there's that little bit of a bitterness that fluttered in and then like dissipated and then you just got all, it was a, nice sweet, like a nice bitterness, right? Like a beneficial bitterness, you know, it rounded out.
this is what I've been reading about, you know? now I'm just trying to figure out how I feel now, you know? So I started drinking a couple of machas a day for like three months, right? And that's what, now granted, I did start changing my diet. I'll never tell people, matcha 100%.
is what took away my sinusitis. Matcha 100%, I'm not that marketing guy. I'm not gonna say here's my before and here's my after. I'm selling this one product so I'm only gonna promote that, right? I upped my water, I started taking supplements, you know, like I started attacking it. But matcha for me was that first domino, you know, to where I actually felt really good. You know, from the L -theanine, from the caffeine, I started to figure out why I was feeling so good.
with matcha and that gave me like the mental clarity and the endurance to be able to actually make my life healthier. You know, so I do credit pretty much the majority of my health journey to matcha because that's one, it's just so good for you. You know, and I remember the day actually after three months, I remember the day I woke up and I didn't have a headache and I was like,
No freaking way. Like, wow, I forgot what life was like, you know?
Ryan Ahn (08:53)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (08:57)
So, so that's like kind of what got me, yeah, what got me into Matcha
Zongjun (Sam) Li (08:59)
Terrible.
John O’Connor (09:02)
But now luckily after that, I started working in major league baseball, which at the time was like a dream job.
And that's like a really tight knit clubhouse. It's me, I think it's like a total of eight clubbies that take care of all the players, all the coaches, all the training staff. So at that time, I'm just drinking matcha all the time.
with the Blue Jays, you know, drinking matcha. And of course people were like, what the heck are you drinking? And I would talk about it, yada yada, give my spiel, tell the whole story like I just told y 'all. And then that ended up turning into a job with the Tampa Bay Rays during the regular season, because they were local.
Yeah, so then I worked there for six years, but I was pretty much the matcha dealer
I'm drinking matcha this whole time. I'm this poster child, poster boy. I'm this billboard for matcha, right? And I'm always talking about it.
And you know, people aren't really biting. Some players are trying it. I remember one guy chugged a matcha, 10 seconds later said, I don't feel anything. I was like, well, dude, it's not like a drug, like not like that, you know? Yeah, so it all really came to a climax, I would say in my last season. So I was selling players matcha, selling.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (10:15)
You
John O’Connor (10:26)
They were asking me to buy them matcha and I was having it shipped in from Japan. And it was just all retail. I wasn't making money. They were tipping me. But in 2018, 2018 season, I was doing that for a couple of players. And then the 2019
Ryan Ahn (10:38)
Yes.
John O’Connor (10:40)
season, we had a player as our catcher. He ends up hitting three home runs, right? Against the New York Yankees.
Last one puts us ahead in the ninth inning. And the players, baseball players are so superstitious that, I mean, you just need a little bit of.
something changing and a guy going off and hitting three home runs for everybody to be crazy about one thing, and that was matcha. So then we had to overnight matcha after that game to New York, right? Now all these players are drinking it. I will never tell anybody, if you drink matcha, you're gonna hit home runs. Never. Now, do I think...
Ryan Ahn (11:17)
Okay.
John O’Connor (11:21)
that there's something there, of course. L -theanine, you get, like, right? Yeah, like, yeah. You can lock it in, you're in the alpha brainwave state, maybe, right? That zen.
Ryan Ahn (11:24)
of course. It's caffeinated, the L -theanine, like
Zongjun (Sam) Li (11:24)
⁓
Ryan Ahn (11:32)
professional baseball is like the last place I would think a group of early adopters would be in the United States.
John O’Connor (11:39)
Right? But they're so superstitious.
being in baseball, being in high stress situations, like replacing coffee with something that actually doesn't just spike cortisol levels and it mitigates your cortisol levels, you know? Of course that's gonna help.
After that, it was just nonce. It was crazy. I was the matcha dealer. And I remember I didn't think of it as wanting to do business, wanting to sell matcha. I thought that was like taboo. I thought it was weird. Cause I loved just organically sharing my journey. So it never even crossed my mind to like start a business.
But one of our players, he goes, hey, is this like your company?
I was like, no way, dude, like I wouldn't do that. I just love it. You know? And he goes, well, and this is like the thing that for me,
hit home where he goes, well, John, maybe it should be. He goes, maybe the business that you were always searching for is the one that you needed to create. I was like, well, you know, like create the business for my younger self. Like I was searching, I was on a journey for years to find real matcha. So what were you searching for? I was searching for a company that had
transparency or searching for a company that had high quality products. I was searching for a company that didn't just have marketing, you know, that went nowhere. That was just fluff marketing, you know, I was searching for all that. And then of course I found it in like an authentic tea shop in Uji, but he's like, you were hoping that you'd find one in the States. Yeah, I was, maybe you need to create it.
Now it was just the journey of trying to figure out, okay, I've tried Tsuji -san's matcha, I've tried, you know, from kettle. And I was like, and I've tried like all this other good Japanese matcha. How the heck do I actually build relationships with these people?
So that's what took the years and years of hard, like, work, hard, deep work to where it's just money going out and nothing coming back and emails going out and my gosh, man. I spent two years trying to reach out to Tsuji -san.
Ryan Ahn (13:57)
Yeah, we know how that feels.
John O’Connor (14:06)
And I get it, like he was capped at that time too, but I wasn't able to work with him because these authentic farmers, and this is something that I've found out, just working with Japanese tea farmers, it's like you have to show them and prove to them that you don't wanna just make money off their name, that you don't wanna become your brand to become famous off of their name.
right like holy smokes so you just have to prove
Zongjun (Sam) Li (14:39)
The farmers
have very much, I would say, similar mentality to you. They're not really money -driven people.
John O’Connor (14:48)
No, not at
all. Yeah. And, and that's what with like Tsuji -san when I was at his farm and we were talking about that. cause I said, you could sell out all of your tea in Japan. Like why, yeah, he has a tea shop, right? Like a tea house. Like, and he even said, he was like, yeah, we could sell out here, you know, every year, sell all of our matcha. and, and I was like,
Like what makes you be willing to like sell to me? And he said, well, we want to get authentic matcha out to the world. You know, we want people to experience real matcha because we see how matcha is like this worldwide phenomenon right now. but people don't know real matcha. So it's like really dives into the know the source philosophy, right? We want people to know what real matcha is, you know, in
Uji
farmers are like, I would say they're so talented that like, for instance, with the different like single cultivars popping up, I mean, it's hard to find a really solid single cultivar.
I mean, how many farms do you think can put out like top level single cultivars? I'd make 10? That I can think of. Maybe,
Ryan Ahn (16:08)
do they taste like two one dimensional if it's wrong and they like need to be in a blend? Okay.
John O’Connor (16:12)
And it's so easy to mess up. Yeah. Yeah. Cause if you're
not blending it, you can't say like, we're going to blend some yabukita into this to round this out here. Or we're going to take some Samadori, which is a Samadori yabukita are like huge blending cultivars, right? Like, well this pairs with it. You can't like, if you mess up in your harvest, that's just going to show.
You know, and there's nothing you can do. So like, and of course you guys know there's so many different ways that matcha can be messed
and then obviously in the processing, steaming, de -stemming, de -veining, everything, there's, things can just be messed up. And if it gets messed up a little bit with matcha, it like, it's a domino effect. It really shows.
So, but yeah, I'm just super honored that he's like, like willing to work with me.
Ryan Ahn (16:59)
the very -
Zongjun (Sam) Li (17:03)
John, when was your first time being in Japan, like talking to the farmers in person? And have you done that multiple times in the past few years?
John O’Connor (17:13)
So my first real time that I could say like I was able to go because COVID kind of shut everything down. And then there was like the, we had to get like the business visa was not this past harvest, but the harvest prior. So that was my first time. Thankfully I built a lot of relationships like strong relationships, you know, throughout the course of
Four years I'd been talking with Tsuji by that time. Well, technically like, no, I'd been sending messages for him for four years, but a little over two years I'd been talking to Tsuji. So we had a good relationship there. So I had a good.
base relationship with a decent amount of people. To when we got there, it felt like I'd been there before. But so that was last year. And we were able to like, we got invited to this Imperial tea house that was not open to outsiders for like, I think they said for 800 years and they opened it up like the year prior, the Abbess.
thought said like people need this, you know, there was a Buddha that hadn't been shown, like had never been shown. It was always behind these doors, right? That the Abbas opened up, it's super controversial. But she invited us there for like a tea house or like a tea ceremony. And, and we asked if we could take pictures or film and she said no.
And then the next day she said, or actually during that tea ceremony or after they were asking like questions like, And I share my heart, right? It's like not at all for financial gain. It's not for publicity. It's not to try to...
jump onto a trend. You know, it's strictly because I have felt something so incredible from this product and from real Japanese tea, right? From authentic matcha. And I've seen how it's marketed and like it hurts me to my core, right?
That's when I almost feel like I'm moral, like my sense of my moral duty is to tell like the people that are like me 10 years ago, right? To be able to guide them to be no, no, no, here you go. Like boom, and it's transparent, you know?
Zongjun (Sam) Li (19:26)
Thank you.
Ta -da!
John O’Connor (19:38)
To kind of connect people with the source. I'm gonna go back to the tea ceremony, because there was the coolest moment, freaking, give me goosebumps. I'm back there and I'm telling my story. And our tea master says to me, he goes,
Zongjun (Sam) Li (19:39)
That's awesome.
John O’Connor (19:53)
I've been waiting for somebody like you to come along. And I went, my gosh, dude. It was a movie moment. It was like a Jedi, like, Padawan moment, like the chosen one. That's what it felt like. I was like, whoa. I'm not calling myself the chosen one. I have so much to learn, right? Like, I know I'm still cutting my teeth here.
Ryan Ahn (19:58)
That's
cool.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (20:03)
Yeah.
That is you.
Ryan Ahn (20:07)
Hehehehe
John O’Connor (20:17)
But, but dude, it was so cool. And then, and then he said, let me talk to the Abbess again, talk to the Abbess. They invited us back the next day and allowed us to film the whole thing, allowed us to take pictures. Of course we couldn't, dude, it was wild. We couldn't obviously take pictures or film in certain areas. Cause there were like pieces of art that were holy, right? And like their shrine and stuff. Like we couldn't capture any of that. So we had to be really,
Ryan Ahn (20:27)
Wow.
John O’Connor (20:44)
specific with how we shot, but I was just incredible. And of course, like they bring the chawan to me. And since I was considered the guest of honor because I was my company, they bring the chawan, right? And afterwards they explained to me the story behind why they chawan. I haven't heard this in other tea ceremonies. Like I've been to a decent amount and this is the only time this has happened.
where they explained to me that they chose the Chawan, like this Chawan has a story, and they chose it for me based off what they were feeling for me. They said it's fresh air coming over the mountains, right? Like a breath of fresh air, I guess would be the translation. Or I don't know, but it had this whole story. And I literally was crying.
Like the whole thing was just so incredible. So, and we're trying to go back. We're trying to be, have like a presence in Japan. My goal is to be every three to four months would be perfect. Cause we're trying to film this documentary where we documented all this. We had our Chasen makers tell us their story, their full story, you know.
530 years this family's been making chausens and they have just the most incredible stories. So we were able to film that in their home. We had a private tea ceremony with them in their house. Like, dude, the whole stuff, it was like, that's why I'm so grateful for, I guess, not being able to go sooner.
You know, for COVID being able to like lock everything down to where I had to build relationships, because when I got there, it was like meeting friends and they knew my heart, you know, there wasn't like a weird feeling out phase. So it was just, it was so, it was incredible. And even more so, am I passionate now, you know, after experiencing and living life with these people and hearing their stories.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (22:40)
Hmm.
John O’Connor (22:54)
I've met up with baseball, like Japanese players that know who Tsuji is, that knew him. They knew him. Yeah. One of our players with the Blue Jays, Yusei Kikuchi, I'm talking to him and I was telling him my story and he goes, Tsuji? Now here's the thing, in Japan, you guys probably know this, like if you say Tsuji Matcha, like there is, there's a big brand, you know, that's not.
Ryan Ahn (22:58)
Really? ⁓ whoa.
⁓ wow.
John O’Connor (23:22)
connected to Tsuji, but it's like a big brand. Tsujiri I think is the brand name. But, and you Google Tsuji -san Matcha in Japan, like it's hard to find our Tsuji, right? So, but in the States, if you Google them, like you find them like that because we have kettle, we have like all these other brands that promote Tsuji. But literally, you say Kikuchi, I'm talking, telling my story goes, wait, him?
He pulled up a picture on his phone. I went, yeah, that's him. Yeah. So he knew him. He's like, wow. He's, he's very famous. And I went, I know.
Ryan Ahn (23:53)
Wild.
Like when you talk about like matcha hitting the mainstream Americana, like that's it. Like that's really cool. Like what the secondary and tertiary impacts of that will be like just like among the fan base, like you're touched like millions of people and like, at least in terms of awareness, like that, awesome.
John O’Connor (24:18)
Yeah, hopefully.
That's the plan.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (24:21)
I'm just very curious about your insight, experience in Japan talking to the farmers.
So we are about to go to Japan too and we are very curious about how has your interaction been with them? Do you feel welcomed? Do you need to prove something that they start to willing to talk to you? Do you feel a sense of barrier between them and you in the beginning? How was your experience when you were in Japan?
John O’Connor (24:55)
With Tsuji, I didn't feel like a barrier just because I'd built that relationship, but I did talk with other tea farmers and 100 % there was a sense of proving yourself, right? I think it's my cinematographer on his cell phone captured a video of me talking to a farmer in Uji. I know it was at like his little tea shop.
I think it was like his house slash tea shop. And we were told to go there by somebody else that we met. They're like, you should meet up with this farmer. We're like, okay, great. They're like, yeah, he's right over here. So we went to a shop. Of course, like I bought matcha first. Like I didn't want to just like, so I bought some of his matcha because he was selling it there. But yeah, as I was talking to him, it had to have been a 30, 40 minute conversation.
And it was very much, it was the same thing. Why are you here? A lot of people come here trying to do this. Like what's your intentions?
I guess I'm reassuring to where he was very much like, he was literally saying to me, like, I think you should find something else to do. I think, you know, like in the beginning he's like, yeah, I don't know. Like, I think you should rethink your, what you're, you know, trying to do. But, you know, and I was very respectful and I kept being like, yeah, I understand. You know, like my heart is.
Ryan Ahn (26:08)
very dramatic.
John O’Connor (26:22)
genuinely to show people authentic matcha and like, I want to tell you like the farmer stories. Like I don't want me to be, I don't know, like I'm not doing this for my gain you know? So it was just very much like trying to be as humble as possible and to tell them. And I think the Japanese have, and the Japanese farmers have a really good feel of like your, like your energy, right?
I think they pick up, yeah, I think they pick up kind of like, all right, what's this person's motives, right? And that's the feeling out phase. So there definitely is a feeling out phase. And I remember I said to my team afterwards, I was like, hey, you guys can see why it took me two years through email, you know? Like after, like I said, it was probably 30 or 40 minutes of talking. Finally, we got to like a level ground and he goes,
He says, okay, I can see your heart's in the right place. Like good luck, you know, like, like you have my blessing kind of thing, you know? I was like, wow, that's great. So we took a picture with him and of him and everything. So, but yeah, dude, there's definitely like this feeling out phase to where it's trying to make sure that you're in this for the right reasons. Cause I'd say 99 .9 % of people that do business are like,
I'm not saying they aren't in it for the right reasons, but there's like a cloud of kind of selfishness maybe, or like personal gain towards like, I gotta get this brand, this is gonna be the best, this is gonna be this and that, you know? And we forget that, look, I'm nothing. I'm not the one growing, I'm not the one that had five, six, seven, 10 generations of family that spent every day trying to make tea amazing, you know what I'm saying?
I like, that's not me. I can't pretend to be like, I even feel weird calling myself Johnny Matcha, right? Like, wow, you know, I'm titling myself Johnny Matcha. And there's these farmers that are incredible people that have spent generations of their family dedicated to matcha. Like, you know, so I don't know, the irony is funny, but at the same time,
John O’Connor (28:46)
I don't ever want somebody to see Johnny Mach and just see me. I want them to, I want to actually point them straight to like the farm. Cause their stories are so incredible. So that actually is what rounded out the know the source philosophy was we were literally sitting in a cafe in Japan, just talking, right? My team and I, and we're like, Holy smokes. This is after I think our third interview. We're like, my gosh. Like people have to know these stories.
If they knew these farmers stories and these Chasen maker stories and whole, if they knew the stories of matcha in general, they'd go out of their way to not get the commercially farmed, you know, just a hundred percent Yabukita like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know. They'd go out of their way to get something that has like sustenance and soul, you know? And especially when we talk to
Ryan Ahn (29:40)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (29:43)
Tsuji son, Koki, when we were talking to him and I said, hey, when matcha became super popular, what did that do for you guys? And he was like, well, commercial farming pops up and they get all the money. And now farm, generational farms are like every year they're going down. Like farmers are having to abandon their farms. And so we're losing these generational farms.
like year after year. So and it's slowly becoming more and more commercialized because it's just strictly a supply and demand thing, you know? So and it's so sad. Like when I hear these stories, I need people to connect with that. You know, there's nothing I can do, but all I can do is be that mediary. I don't know if I use that word right, but the intermediate, right? Like I can tie you,
Zongjun (Sam) Li (30:34)
medium.
John O’Connor (30:35)
Yeah, I can just bring you guys to see this story and then it's going to kind of end the price difference and like high quality matcha and like low quality matcha per serving. It's kind of minimal. If we really break it down with what you're spending at, like a large chain to buy one drink, you could be having three drink, like three servings of generational matcha. And the cool part is you're not just
supporting that local business, you're supporting the farmers, you know? Like, how cool is that? You're literally supporting generational farming to keep going. Like, what a bigger mission, right? So that was the whole know the source thing. We're like, how do we get people to like see what we've seen or experience? Like, man, if we could just get them to know the source, and we went, that's it, know the source, you know?
Ryan Ahn (31:18)
Yeah
Zongjun (Sam) Li (31:19)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (31:33)
And then it takes all the pressure off me. I don't have to market myself. I don't have to market my brand and be like, hey, here's all the health benefits of matcha, to try to convince people, right? If I can just get people to, cause here's the thing, I'm not a scientist. I can't evaluate these studies, right? I can tell my story, you know, it's anecdotal. I can't say, I'm not gonna say,
Ryan Ahn (31:42)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (31:59)
Every time if you have sinusitis do this, you know, but I can tell my story, right? Yeah.
Ryan Ahn (32:02)
Yeah.
That's the best part about transparent
labeling is you let consumers decide for themselves. Like, you know, it's how I get business cut. Yeah.
John O’Connor (32:10)
Exactly, you give them all the tools.
Yep. And then they can figure it out.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (32:15)
Yes, give them some advice.
John O’Connor (32:17)
so that's, and it's hard to do business like that. It's, I've seen like, it's just really hard. but it's so rewarding, you know, because then, like I said, it takes all the weight off me to where if I'm just genuine and transparent and I just say, boom, Tsuji -san, he's the master, right? If I can connect you and then you can do your research on him,
So, and then taste the product. Boom. Wow, wow, this really is good.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (32:44)
bring the perspective to state sides, like for your customers, What do you see the decision making process or the difference between individual consumers versus commercial customers?
What exactly are they looking for? I guess differently or are they looking for actually the same thing?
John O’Connor (33:09)
Yeah, definitely different. Consumer, I think is, to me it's more difficult to sell to the consumer because they care a lot about vibe, right? And they care a lot about branding and they care a lot about the things that don't make the product the product. They wanna look, they want a story to tell like on their Instagram story, right?
Zongjun (Sam) Li (33:17)
Mm.
John O’Connor (33:34)
Nothing wrong with that. It's just harder. It's harder, like we were just talking about off camera about how, you know, all those fine details that go into making a B2C or a D2C product. You have to think about everything, you know? When it comes to business, they just care about the product, you know? Just give us a good product. Like for instance, my price went up last year that I was
like my import fees kind of went up, like my overall price went up. So my pricing changed, but I didn't want to put that on my clients, right, my business clients. So what I did instead of using packaging that cost $1 .60 for the bags that I was putting it in, what I ended up doing was at, I think it cost,
50 yen more to be able to get the matcha packaged in just a white resealable bag. And what I started doing is just putting a label on there, like a 30 cent label. And I told my clients, I said, hey, if it's okay, can I start packaging my product like this because my pricing went up but I don't wanna change your pricing. And they said, my gosh, for sure, that's awesome. And not only do they like that, they're like,
Wow, you were thinking of us? Cool. You had the opportunity to tell us your pricing changed and then still make more money on us. Like I could have said, my price changed. So I'm going to have to raise your price. And I could have theoretically raised it even more than I had to and make more money. Right. But I didn't like, so the B2B people, they don't care as much about vibe, right. But now what I'm seeing to get that sale,
which I don't even like saying get that sale because everything's been organic. All of my clients have like they've just heard about Johnny Matcha. They've come to me.
So usually if I get like a recommendation and they contact me, I don't like to send samples out I always like to do face to face. I like to do tastings, right?
then I I swear to you the average of response that I get is they drink right they go
what have we been selling? Because I go, this is matcha? What the heck have we been selling? You know? That's like almost always. So then, you know, we get the pricing and they go, it's almost always like the same price, a little bit more or a little bit less, you know, And then now they're hooked. Because they go, my gosh, I can get this and I can get access to like you, like just.
Ryan Ahn (35:52)
Good.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (35:52)
the
Ryan Ahn (36:08)
whoa. Yeah.
John O’Connor (36:16)
asking you questions or recipes, yeah sure, you know, they go, man for sure. So what I would say B2B clients are looking for is just take some, take a weight off, right? Because adding matcha to them is overwhelming because they're like, I don't know how to make it. I don't know what's the best way to store it. Like all this stuff that clouds up their brain, they're like, I don't have time for that, you know? So all it is is just being like a resource. You know how easy it is to just answer
questions about matcha when you know like a lot. It's just like, what's our best way to do this? here you go. my gosh, great. So what I'll tell them is I say, hey, we can set up a video training, you know, just take weight off of them. It's easy. It's an easy burden on me because I'm so used to it. I know matcha well. I know I owned a coffee company and a tea company, you know, before Johnny matcha that, I'm sorry. I've totally forgot that part in my, in my journey.
I did that as like a entrepreneur right before Johnny Matcha as I was working on my sourcing. I was like, all right, I can do coffee. I need to do business. So let me do business and learn coffee. You know, cause one, I know B2B like selling to coffee shops. That's the, I think the quickest route to the nation experiencing true Matcha, right? Cause you get one coffee. Yeah.
Ryan Ahn (37:41)
That's who most events are.
John O’Connor (37:44)
So yeah, exactly. So you get one coffee account, right? One coffee shop. Now all of a sudden you can influence all of their clients, all their matcha clients, you know, and help them build. That's what's fun is you help them grow their matcha business. But yeah, what I see is like taking off a weight from them and saying, dude, I got it. Don't worry. We'll supply this. And then how I like to do B2B is,
I tell them that we figure out each other's flow. So I'll have some matcha in stock, but then we figure out our flow. And then now I'm just ordering monthly. I'm just adding their account to my order process. So they're always getting freshly milled matcha.
and they love it because they're getting the best product they can. Like I ordered it, it just got milled and it's just been shipped three days shipping from Japan. And it's all air. I only do air. I never do boat. And to be honest, my farmers wouldn't even do boat because like John, the temperatures, like there's, you're.
Ryan Ahn (38:42)
Yeah.
You're going to ruin our product.
John O’Connor (38:51)
gonna ruin it, yeah. You may as well just like buy five grades down, you know, if you're gonna do boat.
Ryan Ahn (38:58)
like, just like what you were doing at Major League Baseball, just at scale. It's like, yeah.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (38:58)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (39:02)
At scale, yeah, exactly.
So that's what's fun about this. I'm waiting for the big brand matcha companies to start playing that business game and to come not, because I've taken some accounts from the big brands and I'm just waiting for like.
the dirty games to start happening. I'm hoping it doesn't. I'm hoping I'm too nice of a guy for it, but I don't think that's how it works.
But, but yeah.
Ryan Ahn (39:33)
actually seems
to be little infighting I've noticed in the match industry. It's at least everyone I've interacted with so far. I'd say 95 % of people are just focused on growing the market versus like trying to take other people's slice of the pie.
John O’Connor (39:37)
I hope.
Yeah, exactly. So, but yeah, like I think for B2B, that's what they care about the most, right? Is just being able to take a weight off of them and being able to tell them how to make matcha appropriately. Like for instance, with a coffee shop, depending on the vibes,
I'm not gonna say you need to use a chasen and a chawan every time. I don't actually want them to use a chasen, you know, if they're just a coffee shop that's trying to go for speed. Because they're gonna be, they're not gonna use proper form, they're not gonna soak it right, they're gonna be fracturing the whisk, which is gonna give bamboo like pieces in the drink, which is a physical contaminant, which then can get them in trouble. It's way too much hassle. Most of the time I say we shake,
you know, that's easy. Or I don't love the electric whisk like you guys did your thing, right? It's just it varies, right? The product varies.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (40:43)
Yeah.
Ryan Ahn (40:45)
Okay.
John O’Connor (40:45)
I said, my goal is for you to sell the best possible product and be able to serve the best possible product, right? Really good matcha and make sure it comes out really good. So if you're not like a slow yeah.
Ryan Ahn (40:56)
That last mile is important. It's hard that last mile.
It's like where most magic gets like goes from like okay to like, wow, this drink sucks.
John O’Connor (41:06)
Yeah, even if you have a good matcha and it's clumpy and you get a matcha clump, it's not the best feeling. So, so yeah, like I try to do a lot with training I would always say, you're a tea shop, let's do chawan and chasen, you know? Like that's what we gotta do.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (41:12)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (41:23)
Let's, let's train you. It's so easy to make matcha with a chawan and a chasan even easier now with your guys chawan. So that's what I, what I, whatever I try to do, it's always like whatever the client wants, but let's elevate it. Let's use really good matcha.
You know, and really good for their, for what their use case is. If we're doing a sweetened matcha, let's do the best possible sweetened matcha we can. You know?
Ryan Ahn (41:52)
of these coffee shops, do they want choices around like, more than one type of matcha offering? Like one that's with milk, one with water, or is it still single product for the most part?
John O’Connor (42:02)
the iBlend that I gave you, that's what I sell to coffee shops, right? Because I think it's a very versatile matcha. It works really well if you're gonna have six ounces, right, of water. It's a 85 % Yabukita, 15 % Samadouri, right? So.
It works really well as like a matcha Americano. You can still drink it as an usucha. And then if you wanted to, but then it works really well as a latte, right? Cause the 85 % Yabukita helps to kind of cut through that dairy, you know? So I try to go for the best baseball terms, five tool player. Something that can play all the different positions really well, right? And...
All right, this can be a solid latte. This can be a solid, just like straight up iced tea, matcha Americano, you know? And we can make this with like lower, if somebody wants a matcha chino, you know, you can do that solid, right? So let's do that. And then we can build, you already have the product, you know? So let's build out, may as well just put on matcha Americano on your menu.
And people go, yeah, I just want a straight unsweetened matcha. That's actually gained a ton of popularity in the coffee shops that I sell to. You know, because it's like you already have the product. May as well do it.
But if we're doing the single cultivar, that's when I want people to like, I want it to be Chasen Chuawan. I want it to be the whole experience, right? That's why, yeah, I would say.
Let's not do lattes with single cultivar. we built the matcha company or the matcha community, right? We have people drinking straight matcha. Let's give them like the really good stuff, you know? So now, and we're in talks now, or it's like, okay, cool. Like maybe do like a one -off special event to see how it goes. I even suggested putting up like a little pop -up tea, a slow bar in like their shops and then I'll come and like guest barista, you know, towards like, hey, yeah. And then we just do like samplings of my like certain different cultivars and stuff. So then you can almost pay for like a flight of matchas. So I think I love it. 100%.
Ryan Ahn (44:20)
Yeah. These slow bar concepts are cool. And they seem like a good opportunity for like retail sales too. Cause it's like the whole,
like it's like education. It's a cool tasting experience for someone. And you could like replicate that at home. Like if you're, you know, supplies you need. So I'm thinking interesting. Cause like I've heard a lot of these cafes more and more of the revenue is match up. Like I've heard some crazy statistics. It's like 30, 40, 50%.
John O’Connor (44:37)
yeah, for sure.
Yep. Yep.
Ryan Ahn (44:49)
And it's a bit of a shame that like their specialty is coffee and not, you know, what, what, like, it feels like it's got to shift the other way where this, the specialty has got to catch up to the sales.
John O’Connor (45:00)
But what I'm interested to see is where's the cap with specialty matcha? Because with specialty coffee, you can have
Ryan Ahn (45:07)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (45:09)
a plethora of coffee shops, right? Selling very good coffee, you know? There are so many different countries that produce top quality coffee. There's one that produces top quality matcha. And then there's even fewer within that farms that produce top quality, like, when are we gonna see this cap out, you know?
Cause we do see the specialty matcha companies popping up, right? Which is incredible. How many can we sustain? You know? Cause we're all working with the same farmers. You know what I'm saying? Like we're all working with the same people. So I'm so interested to see how that shapes out, you know? So I do think that there's gonna be like a certain amount of
Zongjun (Sam) Li (45:42)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (45:56)
matcha companies, like authentic specialty matcha companies. Like I think we're gonna cap that within the next couple years. You know, to where it's like, here's the specialty guys, and then here's like everybody else. Like, and not even like a ranking like everybody's below us, but like, I just think that that's just how it's gonna cap, you know? It's gonna be the commercial farming matcha, you know, for your...
chains and then specialty. Like I get blown away every time that I talk to my farmers and I gain an account and like, hey, can we, can we take this on? Like, yeah, we can do that. Thank goodness. You know, like this year was the first year that I had to tell like what I was projecting for the whole year so that they can buy like from my coalition so they can buy like, or tell their farmers that they work with.
So they can be like, okay, we're using this for Johnny Matcha. So then let's just store up this much for Johnny Matcha, you know? So.
Yeah, I'm so interested to see where that lands.
Ryan Ahn (47:04)
Yeah, when will demand
outpace the supply? We're wondering about that too.
John O’Connor (47:10)
Yeah.
Yeah. Cause there's not many, like, like I said, we're all working with the same people. You know, but what's cool about Tsuji is Tsuji -san is he's like building up like former dilapidated farms. He's like building back up. Right? So he is trying to, I guess, fight back against these farms closing by
Zongjun (Sam) Li (47:18)
Yeah.
John O’Connor (47:39)
training these local farmers in the way that he uses, like his award -winning techniques. And I remember I was like, my team and I were like, so that's interesting. Like you don't hold on to your secrets, you know, of how you make such good tea. And he goes, no, he goes, I want, like, this isn't for me to keep, you know, I need other people to know how to, like what I do so that they can also make a better product. You know, it's definitely, it's, very team oriented how it feels. So he's in the process of like building back up these dilapidated farms, right? And we know it takes like five years to actually be able to harvest from a farm when you're start. So yeah, that's cool. I love that journey. And I wanna document that journey as much as possible.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (48:31)
do you see a lot of younger generation Japanese farmers getting into the business? Like what's the age dynamic going on in Japan?
John O’Connor (48:43)
For at least the people that I work with, they're like my age, right? Like the heirs to the farm. Yeah, dude, they're like 30s, right? really cool to see the father, and you know, the father -son duo is like everywhere in Japan, right? like when we went to the mill manufacturer, father and son. You know, and the son was once again like my age.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (48:45)
Yeah. -huh. Okay, okay, interesting.
Ryan Ahn (48:50)
Yeah.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (48:53)
huh, huh.
John O’Connor (49:09)
And it seemed like all the younger people, like late 20s, maybe mid 20s to like early 30s, they all kind of know each other too, right? So it's like their fathers all knew each other. They all know each other.
And these are the people that I'm connected with. So it seems like they're like really passionate and they're like, they're gonna keep authentic matcha alive. But I also know like the younger generation in Japan, when it comes to matcha, they think, and this is what Koki, Tsuji's son said to me, where he goes, also Tsuji's san, but how he said to me is like, look,
Zongjun (Sam) Li (49:50)
Hahaha.
John O’Connor (49:51)
The young generation in Japan think anything outside of Japan is better, right? But it's funny, like the people outside of Japan, we look at Japan in high quality, you know, single cultivar tea, and we're like, this is amazing. But the younger generation wants to be more westernized, right? And we see this like in the cities, even in like in Kyoto, how it's like matcha everything, right? There's tons of matcha shops.
But if you ask the person working there, and these aren't connected to farms, they're just matcha shops. If you ask the person working there, what cultivar is this? They're probably not gonna know.
I feel like, of the younger generation and Uji that I was connected with to where they're trying to bring matcha to the next point, right? That's trying to evolve and grow it and make tea better, right? And to take on their family legacy. And then there's also the young generation that's like,
It's not doesn't want anything to do with matcha, but they're way more into the commercial matcha. You know, like you've probably seen on my, so I did like a Johnny matcha sweets review, cause there's so much matcha sweets, right? Like it's almost like that's a bigger thing.
That's something that I'm interested to see how it plays out right like because the younger generation in Japan and like the cities is Seeming to be more wanting to be more Western, you know and then and like the tea cities right there wanting to stick to their roots, but also still
not go Western, but like, how do we, what's the middle ground here? How do we, how do we, how do we do this going forward and still like honor our heritage? Just dude, do you know how terrible that would be if we lost the importance, the heritage, the generations of people, like their stories? that'd be the worst, you know? Like, yeah, that's not worth it to me. And I think Westerners, we have experienced that.
to where it's just like life kind of, and how we do things is just product and indulge and indulge. Now we want more of the slow down. We want more history and tradition, you know? So I think that's probably what's pulling us more towards the single cultivar, the generational farmers, right? Like at least for me, like that tugs on my heartstrings. I'm like, I'm craving this because we don't get this in the West.
Ryan Ahn (52:34)
Yeah, we're missing it. Yeah.
John O’Connor (52:34)
You know? Yeah,
and then vice versa in Japan, I think the younger generation is doing the opposite where they've had so much history. Like this is what, you know, and there are the younger generations wanting to be more west. So it's like this, nothing's new under the sun. It's like the cyclical motion.
Zongjun (Sam) Li (52:45)
Yeah.
Ryan Ahn (52:47)
Mm.
Well, thanks for listening. I think that's all we have time for today. And thank you, John, for coming on the show. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend, consider giving us five stars, and we'll see you on the next one.
John O’Connor (53:04)
Thank you guys so much. Honestly, this was incredible. We gotta do it again. In person!
Zongjun (Sam) Li (53:09)
Thank you.
