Matcha Scene in Thailand

 

 

Ryan and Zongjun 
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. We launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey in match our shared startup stories and interview experts.

And Ryan and I have just left Bangkok for a wonderful trip under the tropical burning sun. Very humid too. August in Bangkok is apparently not the worst time to visit from what I've heard, it's tons of rain, but it was like you were swimming when the moment you stepped outside.

But we cannot wait to share with our wonderful adventure of the matcha scene in Thailand. Yeah. So both Zongjun and I have been in and out of Bangkok for years now. think our first business trip there was maybe five years ago. had a couple. 2018 must be. Or 2019, one or the other. And we used to do a lot of product development in Thailand and did a lot of consumer research in Thailand too.

about understanding what foods, flavors, categories Thai consumers like. But at the time, we never really noticed the matcha scene. And it feels like when we first started going, even specialty coffee wasn't much of a thing. Yeah, I know. There were like three or four good places that took some effort to get to. now, one, there's an explosion of specialty coffee. And there's also an explosion of specialty matcha.

which we wanted to talk about. And in a lot of ways, we think it's a more developed specialty matcha scene than perhaps anywhere in the world, including Japan, from what you can access, at least as a consumer. Yeah, the idea of kind of adopting and transferring a lot of the notions from specialty coffee into matcha, you don't really see that anywhere else other than Thailand.

Yeah, and I really think it's on the leading edge. I've been to a few places in Kuala Lumpur that are doing things that feel similar. I've heard in Singapore it's hit or miss. We know in mainland China here it's hit or miss. I was in Korea a few years ago. Also the case, then of course I've been to Tokyo and Kyoto, which there are specialty tea shops. A lot of them are for tourists or a very Chanoyu ceremony focus or some of the older

traditional blending houses for matcha. But like walking in to have someone explain to you, okay, this drink is Asahi cultivar award -winning, whatever. We specifically optimized this recipe for this drink, which is completely different than this house -made blend that we have, which is completely different than this other thing, which actually we recommend putting in a latte based on all of the sensory characteristics.

You just don't have those conversations anywhere else. least we haven't. Only really in Thailand. Yeah, that's right. Like, just for a lot of consumers, especially beginning consumers, beginner consumers, it really takes a learning journey for them to, you know, get to know what exactly they like or what exactly they want to explore. You don't necessarily have that kind of...

opportunity to learn all these informations in other places. know, a specialty coffee shop when matcha is on the menu, it's an option, you you order it as a matcha latte or a sparkling matcha. Matcha tonic. It doesn't really offer you that much information other than, you know, it's matcha. Maybe you'll get the location. Yeah, maybe you'll get the location. it's Uji or...

like Yame, Kagoshima, like that's it. But in Bangkok, know, like all of these manuals, they're set up in a way that it's almost like a user manual for you to, you can construct your own matcha drinks based on the cultivar, based on what kind of addition you would like to put in, if you like vegan milk or if you like pure milk.

as addition to your drink. You can have all these options and they will explain to you what these cultivars are and what kind of flavor profile are you looking for or are you expecting, which is very eye -opening. Yeah, and a lot of the vendors and people there are really focused on education. So I got to have three really great conversations with people involved in the matcha scene in Thailand.

One was with Jev, who's the founder of MTCH, which is one of the coolest bars, coolest matcha bars, contemporary matcha bars in Bangkok. was the first one that I discovered. So I find it deeply inspirational what he's doing. I also got a chance to meet Tom from Chaseki, who's based up in Chiang Mai and is a huge matcha supplier and cafe operator as well, really deep into specialty.

I think his retail shelf had more single origin, single cultivar and traditional blends that I've ever seen in one store. It was kind of amazing, the selection that they're importing there and how quickly they're moving through it. And then a more traditional tea house, which does all sorts of really cool cultural events where they bring in artists and do workshops and brew both in a contemporary way and traditional way.

called Koto Tea Space got to have a conversation with some of the baristas there as well as Pop, who is one of the owners there. And the level of education that they do not only to the consumers, but their staff was really surprising to me. Everyone is really well trained, anyone who interacts with the guest to explain what this is and why it's special.

and whether or not it's a matcha frappe using a more roasty, toasty, yame matcha blend that they have created. honestly, if you close your eyes and drink that, it almost tastes like drinking chocolate that's frozen. It has such an insane nutty and chocolatey profile, but it is just as careful and thoughtful as ordering a single cultivar, usucha

at any of these places. It's really, there's no compromise, but the ability for the staff to explain it to you, that intention is unlike I've ever seen anywhere else.

So they don't necessarily have a lot of baggage to do innovations. So I think that it's interesting to see how all of these cutting edge innovation are happening outside of Japan. And for whatever reason, it's concentrated in Bangkok.

And I was asking Jev, I don't know at what point we will release this podcast, but whether or not it was before or after, I asked Jev, the founder of MTCH, why is Bangkok on the cutting edge of matchup? And it's a difficult question for anyone to answer. One of the most enlightening things that he said about

the whole scene in general is the focus on repeat consumers. It's not this big show to have someone come in once and try something and spend tons of money. They actually have a specific persona of customer that they train their staff on that is quote, the repeat customer.

and part of their whole mantra motto is matcha for everyone and that has many different meanings but one of it is that you can walk in there knowing nothing about matcha and have a really amazing matcha cheesecake or a panna cotta

or one of these blended frappes, which you know what, as a purist, don't really want to like it. It is incredible. Yeah, it was really good. These blended drinks that are with milk are things that people, traditionalists, might think overshadow a lot of these notes and flavors that are found in delicate matcha. It's really not the case. And the level of formulation and optimization that's going on is insane.

Those are first rate, first class products. Yeah. mean, quite a consumer ladder they have right there. Yeah. You can have like something that's like brainlessly delicious. Brainlessly is perfect. And you can like, everybody can really enjoy it. And it kind of like act as a gateway drug to lure people into, you know, world of matcha. And as they climb their consumer ladder.

They have all these crazy options for you to go for a more premium option. Yeah, and it's slow. They have sections that are just latte. They have a section which they call light brew, which is basically an Americano. The ratio is about double usucha they were telling me. Then they have competition grade award -winning tea. All the way through like these crazy things that, you know, everyone hears about. Hanzu shaded, Asahi cultivar.

things that are hand -picked. So it really is matcha for everyone. And it's matcha for anyone at any one time because our preferences change. It's a perfect place to let your preferences grow and to move up and down the ladder. Cause you know, I find myself just enjoying things with milk or sorry, just enjoying things with water. And I find things with milk, but you're covering up notes often, subtlety and nuance.

Or if you add sugar, you're covering up subtlety and nuance or or you know God forbid you take it and mix it with ice and stick it in a blender. Whoa now you've really ruined a lot of subtlety and complexity But you know not all products are bound to be these things and there's all of this wonderful matcha That's not on the highest end that can be extremely well optimized for all of these different use cases where one plus one equals

It's not even three, it's more like three and a half. Just mindlessly delicious and unique. A lot of these different blends, they taste completely different. The flavor profile variance and the celebration of that and the flavors you can express on the MTCH menu, the tasting notes for the same blend are different than if you drink it as a light brew or only with water or with a milk or milk alternative.

really thoughtful way of doing sort of matcha for everyone approach. Yeah. You know, Jev told us that they spent a lot of time doing experiments in the formulation and ingredients and how much portion they add into the matcha,

When Jev was making me this usucha, he used a very interesting technique of cold brewing or whisking the matcha first and then add hot water into it. And, know, with different temperature of the water, the flavor extract differently, or apparently they extract different parts of the matcha to create a more wholesome and complex flavor profile.

And that is just like something that I've never seen before and they must have figured out themselves. There is quite sophisticated like extraction theory and like a lot of empirical science going on because Jev was telling me across the entire menu, the extraction method recipe is completely different. Some are completely cold whisks, some are cold whisked at first and then they add hot water. Some at different proportions.

portions of hot water completely depending on whatever the context it is that they're putting it in. And it does taste different. I've never seen this much extraction theory in the same way that you hear almost like espresso people talk about different doses, different time, the amount that's getting extracted,

it's really interesting what they're doing with variable temperature extraction.

I was just in Paris and got a iced sort of Americana style matcha and they pulled out from their refrigerator this water pitcher which was one third empty full of this matcha concentrate some of which I saw was at the bottom and poured me a glass of ice water and took out a cocktail jigger and poured one jigger of this concentrate which wasn't mixed very well and dumped it in my

⁓ that's just sad. It's just sad. We're talking about two completely different worlds. And that was one of the best matches I had in Paris. that was a good standard actually from an American vendor sourcing, what is pretty good matcha from, from Tsuji -san. Yeah. I guess like people's perception of or assessment of using matcha is just very different, you know, elsewhere.

Like, cause one other things that I noticed, you know, visiting MTCH is how the entire bar counter is so optimized for making matcha. Like they really have a perfect flow of, you know, dosing, whisking, you know, serving and cleaning the vessels, which you really do not see that anywhere else in the world, to be honest. Like even the best.

cafe that we have visited in other places with a matchup program. They would screw up at least one part of this entire flow. Usually the cleaning part, but also the other parts matter too. But it's just very fascinating how much effort they have spent.

in trying to create this seamlessly beautiful experience for every kind of consumers. Yeah. And actually, you find it up and down. So Tom was telling me that there are a couple of matcha cafe chains across Thailand that have dual concepts. Some are more slow bar style, extremely precise, single cultivar. Really every consideration is taken. But also apparently there's a lot more grab and go concepts.

popping up around Bangkok. I've been to a few of them. Most of them are serving latte like beverages, which is not my cup of tea. Sorry for the pun. And so, you know, I usually don't frequent them, but a lot of it's ready to made pre mixes. It's very indulgent, very heavy to my taste preferences. It's classified as melted ice cream level indulgence. I see.

I didn't get the chance to try those grab and go places. But for the places that I have been to, know, we have places like, you know, KSANA, MTCH, have places like, you know, Koto and you have been to this wonderful tea library like a tea house in Chenmai with Tom. So I want to ask you a question, Ryan. So moving forward, which business model

do you see would be the future of a contemporary matcha? Yeah. So with MTCH, that's sort of the top of the hill at the moment. It is not a high velocity cafe in the same way that we see places in New York

where they need to be doing tons of customers every hour. Otherwise, the economics of the business just don't make any sense. which is just not happening at a concept when you have such exacting standards.

One of our opportunities as a matcha equipment business is abstracting some of this complexity away from the preparer. So you can have incredibly exacting standards, but someone doesn't need to be measuring out exactly two grams of matcha and then sifting it and then doing all of these other tasks or making sure that the water temperature is perfect or this or that. There's a lot of problems to be solved in the same way that we see

in other complex preparation like espresso. So I don't know, last 10, 15 years in espresso making, there's been this explosion of new equipment to do everything from help you tamp.

So someone invented this tool, and you stick it in, and it tamps it down exactly 30 pounds of pressure every time. Now, of course, experienced barista is probably gonna get pretty close and maybe do it a little faster than this machine. But for really high volume cafes, you see that working very well for people when the consistency matters.

Same thing with the distribution tools, which is basically this needle -like device which helps spread around the coffee grounds. And that saves a lot of time. Traditionally, what you'll see baristas do is they tap the side of it, tap, tap, tap, tap. Maybe they tap a little hard once and some of the coffee falls out. So if you wanna have exacting standards in matcha,

there's similar problems to be solved where it's not just pure manual work with these relatively elementary tools with retrofitted coffee equipment. So I think there's an infrastructure gap at the moment to have such exacting standards to produce a lot of these drinks at scale in a way that can make sense for someone's business,

Yeah, bringing down the cost for consumer while maintaining the quality, think, is something that we can all strive towards. I think Thailand is so unique is because like with all these relatively lower cost of labor and real estate, you really can enjoy excellent quality matcha with a relatively lower price. And in New York,

probably close to $9 a cup of matcha latte plus tax and tip. That's just insane. People want to enjoy matcha with lower costs and have that as a default part of their life. If it's too expensive, it will not be sustainable. absolutely.

And actually even places like MTCH are expensive. For Thai people, it's extremely expensive. I think their cheapest beverage is around 120 baht, which is about $4. And then it goes up to about $10 for like Usachar from an award -winning producer, extremely special handpicked, which is still insanely cheap. If you think about, you're talking about

the best of the best of the best. You have expert people preparing it. It's fresh flown in from Japan and it's some of the best matcha in the world that you can get for $10 a bowl is like mind blowing. It's mind blowing. That's at least two times or three times more expensive elsewhere. If you have like a similar type of service.

So the fact that even the best of the best matcha is so affordable is kind of insane. If you want to climb to the top of the consumer ladder, almost any other thing, you're talking crazy prices. Tens of thousands of dollars. The other thing that I noticed is quite interesting is the notice of hojicha

yeah. That's very fascinating. I mean, I mean like I love hojicha and the way that they milled that into a powder form and then prepare it more like a matcha and serve it in a similar manner. Wow. Just mind blowing delicious. Yeah. It's my eyes have been opened to hojicha. So I at Penn State, they had a tea exhibition where they invited Johnny matcha and he

at the time was sent a sample of hojicha And it was the best hojicha powder I'd ever had. Silky smooth. It had like sort of these roasted taegwangyeon, roasted oolong notes, very sophisticated, complex and smooth. And

Really opened my eyes to the potentials for hojicha, but MTCH took it to another level while we were there. They had four or five different choices. Yeah, four different choices.

some of the products that we tasted were insane. And not only that they tasted different from one another. So I think I've tried two, we both tried two different light brews. One of which was whisked, I think with hot water and then put over ice, ice water, kind of like an Americano. And honestly, if you looked at this, it would look like an Americano. And then the other one was very bizarre. They put it in a blender

It came out looking this greenish gray, very unattractive, unappealing color and poured over ice. But the taste was incredible. Yeah, the texture. And the texture. was like so much air got incorporated that it started cascading. If you ever looked at like a Guinness or some of the nitro coffee, like the La Cologne draft latte, you notice that the bubbles rise, but they kind of recirculate too.

And the very similar effect is going on and the texture was so fine and so smooth and so creamy and there's no cream in it. It was just water and this hojicha powder. And even more wild, what we learned is that it wasn't even from roasted tencha. It was from roasted stems. Tencha stems. That's crazy. I think that's my first time drinking a stem powder. Me too. I think.

I don't think it was ishi usu it had to have been a ball mill or some other more industrial. But they said it was not an ishi usu ground tea, but it was still incredible. That was very eye -opening to see. And I had asked him, I don't remember if you were there, Zongjun if this was before you had arrived, but he's saying he wasn't sure if hojicha powder was gonna work at first. Everyone's into matcha, matcha's very trendy, that's what people like, people like.

healthy, like this bright green color. And there was this kind of idea that people wouldn't like Hojicha. But to my impression is that it's quite a successful program there. Interesting. So, Ryan, I guess I didn't have the chance to go to Chiang Mai with you. Based on your experience between Bangkok and Chiang Mai, do you see a different consumer cohort that gets drawn into the world of matcha?

in two places? And do you see difference or similarities more between these two cities? That's a great question. I don't think I've explored Chiang Mai enough to have any definitive answer. While I was at Chaseki meeting Tom,

most of the people that were walking in seemed to know what was going on.

and had preference and they knew what they liked and more experienced consumer. Yeah. Well, it feels that way in MTCH too. It actually feels a little bit like a mix. We went to Ksana which is probably the most Instagrammed, one of the most Instagrammed macha places in Bangkok because it's in this beautiful modern office building.

The whole thing kind of looks like an AI generated future office building setup. How beautiful it is. It's insanely beautiful. You got these water pools and all this reflection of light and this really modern city. Yeah. A bunch of installations and sculptures. Yeah. A lot of arts. There's a percent Arabica across the street, which is also like deserves to be an architectural digest, stunning architecture. Yeah. And in this corner, which is actually really hard to find, I

didn't find it the first time I went. spent about half an hour looking for this place the first time I went, and you got lost too. And there's this like fake cave installation where you can order matcha drinks and it's really cool cafe. And they have a single origin and a few blends too of different products. And we got to try there and there it feels a little bit less

repeat customer. don't know if that's true. Maybe they get tons of repeat customers from this building. Yeah, must be. But there were definitely a lot of people in there who were in there for their social media activity. Or it's like, at least from the menu it's feels like more of a grab and go. Yes, it does. And they don't necessarily give you too much information to give you the kind of matcha and where it's from and give you a description of the flavor.

We don't have a lot of selections either. Well when you compare it to other places in Bangkok, that's definitely true. But if this existed in New York, this would be considered one of the most top specialty matcha places. Just from their matcha offerings alone, I think. That's true. And they also serve hojicha. They also serve hojicha. Seems like a thing over there. I love it. I really like hojicha. Well, it's easier on the stomach and there's less caffeine.

really functional in a lot of ways. Yeah, yes, yes. Do you see similar things in Chiang Mai? Or it's just really the Chaski kind of... They had Hojicha, but I don't know. I haven't been to enough places in Chiang Mai.

Thailand is a wonderful place to come also for food and drinks. We also did some interesting bar hopping and one of the bar that utilized matcha as a ingredient for their distillation. Super interesting. That was a weird way to end the day. This home distillation setup where they were doing matcha, I guess, aromatic extraction. That was wild. It was completely random.

too. Like we ended up there. And weirdly enough, someone the day before came in that we met at a tea place. So there was a lot of interesting crossover of Japanese tea and matcha being used in the bartender scene across Southeast Asia. We got chatting with a guy who was using some very high end gyokuro and won a competition with it.

He was complaining how expensive this gyokuro was and when you win that competition it means you need to keep making these same drinks And you have to keep buying more of this expensive tea How do they even make money with those ingredients as the necessity? It's kind of wild. So I don't know if you noticed this Zongjun but matcha lattes and matcha drinks in Thailand

taste pretty different than anywhere else in the world, mostly just because of their texture and how thick they are. It is like not a comparable product. And I think one of the things that the rest of the world does, quote unquote wrong. And I say that with a little bit of hesitation, but people are just not using enough matcha. Yeah, they're really underdosing. Like when you go to the average place in New York or Europe or even in like

California, you really don't taste the matcha. And if you watch a lot of these people that go around to these different cafes saying, like, I tried every matcha cafe in New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco, Seattle, whatever, right? Like half of the time they're saying, I don't taste anything here. And I just think people are not using enough matcha. I think at MTCH, they use anywhere from three to five grams. And I think some of the recipes might even be more.

It's like a lot more than the standard two grams or some places are less than two. And I know Mark from Ooika is trying to improve on this. They do everything quote as a double. So I think all of their matcha lattes use four grams. It's a very similar spirit to what you see. But these people who come out with these new matcha brands and they price it very high and they say you can really make the stretch by only using one gram.

might be true, but maybe you only want to prepare a thimble worth of matcha at a time. You really don't taste that much. can't taste it. Then it's almost a colorant. I don't know. For anyone listening that always doses with two grams for a relatively large sized beverage would really encourage you trying to up dose and see how it drastically changes the flavor transformation.

In particular, when you have different machas, let's say one from Yame, one from Uji, or maybe two from Uji, but different cultivars, and you're making these light brew Americano style beverages or latte, you really magnify the differences between those products in a profound way and express some very different flavors. And in particular, I've noticed a lot of the chocolatey notes

or like dry cocoa nibs or all of the nice astringency a little dryness, a little bitterness and the way it plays with the milk. And some of them have this nice, like nutty aroma, like roasted pecans, roasted peanuts, or sometimes some edamame notes. You don't taste it unless you dose it properly. Well, it's no surprising that in Japan people really prepared the most premium matcha.

as koicha as a koicha form. If it's a usucha, you're missing a lot of the details. really take quite a high concentration to enjoy it.

See

So, Zongjun what do you think Western cafes, cafes in the West, in Europe, in the States, in Canada, what are some things that they could do, that they could take realistically from all the innovations that we're seeing in Thailand and use it to improve their matcha program? I think the first thing that people can probably immediately implement is the setup.

the counter setup for matcha. Right now, like for a lot of these coffee shops in, you know, outside Japan or outside of Thailand, it's really just a sad little corner that they separate from the rest of the coffee stuff. And they put a bowl and some scale and some very sad looking chasen and sitting around. I think there is something that everybody can learn from.

MTCH is how meticulously they optimize the entire flow just for matcha. I think that's something that everybody can learn from them. So I'll add on that too. One thing I noticed that a lot of these places do is they separate dry matcha handling from wet matcha handling. So they don't mix those spaces. By the time matcha gets to the preparation area,

It is sifted and it's dosed and it's put in this little stainless steel cup. And by that time it is ready to be dumped into a beverage and then prepared and mixed however. But there's not all of this cross mess crossover. There's almost a segmentation, physical space segmentation between dry powder measuring, sifting, whatever, and then the actual preparation.

and everything gets cleaned immediately. That whisk gets cleaned immediately, the bowl gets cleaned immediately, it gets dried and it gets put back in its place or immediately reused to start to be used. That was very interesting. What are some other things that some people could implement? I think using more matcha, honestly.

It's going to add a lot of cost, but it's really worth experimenting, maybe buying slightly cheaper matcha, maybe from a less famous region or less famous cultivar and up dosing and seeing what happens. So even making the cost the same, but being able to use cheaper matcha, you might be able to get a higher quality drink.

Just because it especially if you're not dosing very high and you're putting two grams into a 16 ounce beverage or even more even a larger beverage format, you're not going to be able to taste a lot of the tea. So that's one that's definitely worth an experiment and another one that's probably worth an experiment is variable temperature extraction. So trying some cold whisking or cold whisking and then adding hot water

There's a pretty interesting, you know, we put out a couple Instagram reels about adding hot water and we usually suggest people use 70 to 80 degree water because you get more foaming agents, you get more aromatic extraction, but sometimes you don't want a lot of aromatic extraction and in certain contexts, let's say like, let's say a matcha tonic, maybe you want more body, a little more umami, a little more sweetness and like very low bitterness.

Maybe lower temperature is fine. And maybe you don't even care about the phone. Maybe the phone isn't even a desirable thing when you're dumping that in a tonic. like this use cases definitely matter and everything needs to be optimized for the context. And really brewing is just for tools. There is no best way to make any of this stuff. It exists within some context.

The other thing that I think people can learn lessons from is experimenting and be more innovative. Doesn't necessarily need to stick with the traditional way of prepping matcha or powdered tea to create a delicious drink. What we have been seeing in Bangkok, like people using blender, people using all kinds of equipment to make more drinks.

or not just stick with matcha but also using hojicha, using hojicha stem. I bet other teas can be milled into a powder form and create delicious drinks too. So I think that there are a lot of interesting things that we can play with and result in a wonderful delicious drink that everybody can enjoy. Also really exploring the flavor profile diversity. I feel like most cafes just think

their matcha is their matcha and that's it. Yeah. Or you add some, you know, like milk or foam or cream, or sometimes if you're being really innovative, you add some fresh fruit. But, but not all matcha works equally well with, let's say fresh fruit, for example. So like I thought I've had this in a couple of different contexts, I think in cocktails and I've had it in like matcha specialty drinks where that are flavored.

I thought I did not like the combination of yuzu and matcha. Sounds great, both Japanese ingredients, both can be very high end. I thought that I didn't like it, had a bunch of examples. Just to me, in every example I had, were highly clashing elements. The bitterness from the matcha was too strong for the astringency and dryness and the zestiness of the yuzu and it just tasted very bad to me. I think most of those beverages are not well executed.

And what was very interesting is, I sitting at MTCH working one day. I already had a light brew. I usually just get it with water and I was a little hungry and like kind of craving something sweet. So was like, okay, I'm going to go get a Yuzu Frappe Matcha. And I ordered one and it's with a blend that they call Aoarashi It's one of their bigger full bodied blends.

It's very strong, very chocolatey when mixed with milk. And they dumped it on top as a float. They mixed it all together. my word. It tasted insanely balanced. I indeed did preference of matcha and yuzu. This frappe completely changed my mind. usually the Aoarashi in a latte tastes chocolatey.

And, but it didn't in this context with this yuzu. And this yuzu was very low, the oily notes of yuzu, the rind has very low in this type of expression. was more little, much more flavor driven, more lemonade -y, like a fragrant lemonade. Less zesty, more juicy, sweet body. and when mixed with this Aoarashi it brought in this.

fresh note. don't exactly know what to call it, but it was just this fresh green flavor. It wasn't grassy. It wasn't bitter, but it was distinctly matcha. This veridense freshness it brought in and it was so delicious. It was insane. think I finished it in like five minutes. but I bet

If you took a different matcha from their menu and you mixed it with that, I bet it would taste disgusting. Yeah, it might not work. It just doesn't work together. So matcha is not matcha is not matcha. like matcha plus anything is completely the wrong framework. It's this type of matcha paired with this thing is very good. Yeah. And that a yame matcha might perform completely different than an Uji matcha.

or within Uji matcha, Yabukita might perform completely differently with some pairings than Okumidori for example. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when people are talking about premium or the creme de la creme of matcha, people always tend to look into Uji. But other places produces excellent quality matcha too.

like Yame and Kagoshima, I really like Yame from this visit. I personally am a very big Yunnan pu 'er tea drinker. And Yame really reminds me a lot of this very robust, wild, powerful spirit of Yunnan tea. And I find it very enjoyable. Yeah. Well, for sure, lot of the Uji tea is amazing. is amazing of a terroir it is. You know,

A lot of them are umami bombs and that's great and it's wonderful and it's very tasty. But there's so much to the world of matcha than an umami bomb. I have wonder if we're going to see a pendulum shift because it used to be, know, 10, 15 years ago in a third wave coffee movement, everyone was into natural process coffee. I mean, the first time that you have a coffee and your first thought is blueberries or mangoes or pineapples, like it blows your mind.

Kind of like the first time that you have an IPA that you enjoy and you taste like mangoes and pineapple and, you know, some evergreen notes. It's like, my God, I didn't know things could taste this way. And then your preferences shift. Yeah. You know, as you consume more natural process coffee, they all taste about the same or similar one way or another. The flavor profile diversity is not very large. you know, if

coffee gets processed in that processing method. And it's actually not very terroir driven, right? Because when you natural process a coffee, you're fermenting it dry with the fruit on. And it's not really an exact expression because you have all of these variables that can happen when the fruit is in direct contact with that seed. And a very similar things with this umami bomb. People like to think matcha is very natural, but it's not. It is

highly fertilized. And these umami bombs are the result of either natural, let's say like fish and rice fertilizer, or synthetic fertilizer to create that nitrogen, that umami has to come from somewhere and it is not naturally in the soil. And those tea plants, if you remove that fertilizer will become very unhealthy. Ricardo from My Japanese Green Tea, deep in his catalog podcast, he did a episode on organic matcha farming with Ian from Yunomi.

And Ian was saying when farms transfer from being organic to non -organic to organic, which also means you have to remove pesticides and everything, which means you need to drastically reduce the amount of fertilizer. He says that those tea plants are like drug addicts. They go through a withdrawal. And actually some, think sometimes he said the leaves die and like the root structure is not very good because it's so used to being

bed right at the top of the soil and it has to learn to grow its roots and go down deep to access those nutrients and become a much healthier plant. But a lot of these umami bombs, which I am a fan of, I like that flavor, is really the result of a lot of human intervention. And we don't have a personal stance on whether or not, you know, how natural or unnatural things are, that fertilizers are bad or that...

Pesticides are always bad or not. They're not always bad. It's very context specific in the way that you use them but there's definitely high and lower degrees of intervention and umami bombs You know, well, they're the peak of the mountain for Japan, right? They don't have to be and there's so much more to matcha than all of these umami expressions that can be much more wild much more complex and there's an interesting movement that

I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing his name, Tyas Sōsen from the Tea Crane talks about this natural tea that is very low intervention. What like the natural wine movement would call low intervention, where you're not adding a lot of fertilizers, pesticides, you're not adding yeast to that fermentation for wine. It's just whatever's naturally there that the grapes pick up and they don't add sulfites afterwards and they're not doing tons of fertilizer.

and just letting plants do their natural thing. Apparently that's a very uncommon thing in Japan, but it is a slow and I think growing movement. Definitely small still, but one of the things we'd like to source is some of this natural tea. Apparently some of it doesn't taste very good either, which also adds to the challenge. Yeah, it's not that surprising. But it would be interesting to see, you know, like...

in different regions, you can really taste the flavor of the region instead of, know, they are all

steamed to a delicious but know like uncharacteristic flavor profile I would say. Yeah it's so interesting there's such a huge world for us to dive into that is on the same level of complexity that we see in other other amazing food and beverage products and Bangkok as a consumer is one of the best cities in the world to start to open your mind and your palate least

especially and at least in our personal experience, taste this variation. Not only across the terroir and the matcha itself as a pure beverage, but in the way it can be used and leveraged as an ingredient in other products in a very optimized way. It's deeply inspiring and I think is the way the specialty movement is going to go.

All right, I think that's all we have time for. So thanks so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or giving us five stars. thanks so much for listening and we'll see you on the next one. See you soon.