Back to Basics

Ryan · 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan, this is my co-founder Zongjun, who also goes by Sam and we're the co-founders of Sanko Matcha products. We launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey, matcha startup stories and interview experts. Ryan from the future here.

Ryan · 0:16

Apologies for the late release. The whole team is actually in Kyoto Prefecture participating in some hand picking and meeting with farmers and some other industry people that are here for the 2025 harvest. So we have some exciting content coming down the pipeline and enjoy this episode.

Zongjun · 0:36

And before today's episode, Ryan sent me some very unfortunate photos of his encounter in London of drinking some very interesting matcha. So what was it, Ryan? Can you describe those in detail since we cannot share photos?

Ryan · 0:51

Yeah, no, this, the scene overall was quite interesting and kind of disappointing and kind of extra ironic considering the impact that the UK has had on tea culture in general and how it's a culture that has historically cared a lot about tea and tea quality. And the way that matcha is being served there was actually kind of shocking.

Ryan · 1:12

I kind of went in with low expectations because I think the way matcha is being treated in the average Western cafe is pretty bad. And so I was expecting something kind of a step above that. But I was pretty disappointed and it prompted quite a bit of thinking, especially because over half — I visited 4 cafes, I think 3 out of the four were Japanese operated and where the people behind the counter were Japanese and speaking Japanese to themselves, which made it even more surprising. OK.

Zongjun · 1:43

That's that's interesting. So it was Japanese people who are the staff and operating the — at a lot of these, at a lot of these places. And the sequence that I did, and by no means could we call this like the status quo of matcha in London or the London matcha scene.

Ryan · 2:01

You know, 4 is not enough. And I'm also not going to give away the names, at least not on this podcast. I posted them to my personal stories, which thankfully is impermanent because, you know, it's unfair to judge somewhere where you've only been once, especially when, you know, businesses can change and improve over time.

Ryan · 2:21

So we don't want to call anyone out. But I do think there's a lot of learnings for the whole industry about what we were encountering there and things that we can improve upon. And Zongjun, you and I just recorded an episode on why matcha is so bad at cafes.

Ryan · 2:36

And we had recorded that like a week before I went on this weekend trip to London. And it feels extra prescient now after recording that. And in some ways this episode I kind of want to be Part 2 of why is matcha so bad at cafes and what can cafes do to raise matcha quality?

Zongjun · 2:55

So for these cafes that you have been to in London, what are some of the things that really stand out to you and are coherent between cafes? Yeah. So let's set the scene a little bit. Three out of the four places that I went were matcha specialty shops. Like matcha was either in the name or it was some Japanese name.

Ryan · 3:18

And it was a — they were a company that specifically focused on Japanese tea. And the other was a Japanese style pastry shop, which I had heard had a very good matcha program. And thank you, by the way, to the listeners who live in the UK or in London who gave me recommendations. And so I asked three different people for recommendations and kind of chose the ones that were overlapping on a lot of people's lists.

Ryan · 3:42

And one of them was a Japanese bakery, which was supposed to have a very good matcha program. So that's sort of the scene from a consumer experience, just being a consumer walking in — objectively, you know, everything tastes pretty bad.

Ryan · 3:56

The one caveat I will say is that I was shocked by the price. You can get a matcha Americano or a matcha latte beverage in London — the price range was anywhere from 3:50 to 7 lbs, which is way cheaper than I was anticipating considering matcha prices both in Paris and in places like New York where I have a lot more consumer experience.

Zongjun · 4:24

So they're really targeting a price point that could be somebody's sort of everyday cup of coffee, so to speak. Interesting. 3 British pounds — that's close to four U.S. dollars. Yeah, about four U.S. dollars. OK. OK. That's not bad at all. It's like actually cheaper than some of the matcha Americanos that I've seen even in Shanghai in China. Wow.

Ryan · 4:49

It's not bad. So across all of these different places, it was actually a pretty unique set because the way they prepared matcha was so different. At one place they were measuring everything to order, hot, whisking it in a bowl and dumping it in a cup.

Ryan · 5:01

So like what we would consider like pretty normal preparation. One place was using those electric vibrating frother things in a setup that looks very similar to Cha Cha Matcha. If anyone's been to one of their locations in New York or LA, the behind the bar service experience looks pretty identical. And then a place that was using syrups where they had a pre-made matcha mix and were dumping that either into hot water for an Americano or into milk or some various syrups for some of the specialty drinks.

Ryan · 5:32

So seeing all of that and then tasting all of that, there was a really large range of issues that I experienced. I had super clumpy matcha. I had matcha that had no foam on it. That was this murky lake color and pretty tasteless. That was actually the least worst that I had — was the one with no foam at the Japanese patisserie. It wasn't that bitter and it didn't really taste like anything, which actually ended up being kind of a good thing.

Ryan · 6:00

I had a broken bamboo tine in one of them, and one of them did have some foam but just tasted objectively horrible. This one was from the concentrate, where they just dump it into some hot water, which I consider to be the least intentional way of preparing matcha, let's say.

Ryan · 6:19

Definitely the fastest. That was actually pretty incredible. I ordered it and I had my drink about 15 seconds later. So I kind of I understand why they do that. You kind of see that technique in a lot of these high volume cafes, like a lot of these chain cafes use that technique to compensate for, you know, really high bargain consumers. Yeah, and there might be a way to do it. Well, I've had some that are not bad. In Paris, there was a cafe that was doing it was serving Rocky's matcha, and that's how they served it. But unfortunately, my experience was less than stellar. They pulled out a large water

Ryan · 6:53

pitcher that was about a gallon or about 3 liters, and it was only had 1/3 remaining, so it was 2/3 empty. The matcha had settled to the bottom. I was clearly the first person ordering this. They kind of gave it a light like swirl, but not really.

Ryan · 7:10

I could tell there was still a lot of matcha still on the bottom. And they measured into a cocktail jigger and dumped it in a glass of ice water for the iced Americano. And it was not offensive. It was not offensive from a sensory perspective.

Ryan · 7:22

Like it tasted fine, actually tasted kind of decent, but it was by no means exceptional. Like it was when I was paying €6. I was really expecting a little more care, especially for a place that didn't even have a line when I walked in. So that was kind of disappointing. I understand why they do it, and I think for a latte, when you're missing a lot of subtlety and nuance, that's getting when you're using matcha as an ingredient, maybe it can also work there.

Ryan · 7:46

But within the context of an Americano boy, the one that I had in London, it tasted like really low quality nori or seaweed. It was very bitter, astringent, completely empty and at the same time like tasteless. Other than those notes, all of the sensory expression would be what I would call like negative attributes.

Zongjun · 8:07

Other than the green color, there was this very few things to rave about that product when it was consumed on its own. So that was very bad. It was very bad. Anything good that you have experienced in these places? Well, the best thing that I noticed is the demand.

Ryan · 8:24

Oh my word, I had to wait 20 minutes in line for one of these places. Every place was busy, full of people. People love matcha and people love this matcha, which is very strange to me knowing kind of the flavors, expressions that are out there.

Ryan · 8:39

And it just makes me so optimistic. If people are waiting 20 minutes for this, how long would they wait and how much would they spend for a product that is much higher quality, like the average quality that you would get in a city like Bangkok for example, or even in Japan?

Zongjun · 8:56

Also OK before I ask before I make this comment, are these places like new or they have been around for for a lot I. Think they're relatively new, all of the ones that I went to OK. So my. Comments. Multi generational, centuries old institutions, relatively new businesses.

Zongjun · 9:18

Sure, sure. But my comment is that this is also probably a little worrying because there are probably where a lot of first time matcha drinkers in all these places and they probably end up trying it once and never come back because you know, based on your description, a lot of these are objectively not a good product. Wow, so here's where it plays into a pretty negative stereotype around matcha lattes.

Ryan · 9:44

So thankfully I went with my girlfriend for this weekend trip. She loves matcha lattes so I had a perfect tasting experience where we got the same thing as an americano and a latte. I really don't like drinking my coffee or tea with milk, but I got to taste them side by side and it in a latte format, especially if you're putting in cherry syrup or sakura blossom syrup like everyone was doing because it was spring or some of these others.

Ryan · 10:10

I think it's just like a nice sugary drink. Like it's the same thing that like why everyone like likes pumpkin spice lattes or vanilla lattes or you know, brown sugar lattes. It's kind of a more mixed drink fascination where I think people are like the color.

Ryan · 10:27

They like the fact that it's healthy, and it's in this big, Milky, sugary drink that is a little easier to appreciate. And the fascinating thing, Sam, every place I went to, everyone warned me. Are you sure you want to get the matcha Americano? Are you sure?

Ryan · 10:46

OK. Do you realize there's no sugar, There's no milk. Are you sure it's just matcha? There's matcha and water. Are you sure? Interesting, so they they don't want you to consume it on its own? No, and I'm sure they're thinking, why is this guy ordering this?

Ryan · 11:02

Like no one orders this. This tastes disgusting. That that was an interesting and actually I have a call to action about that a little later on in the podcast. Also, I I tried to have as much staff interaction as I could.

Ryan · 11:13

So I went to be like, Hey, where are you guys sourcing your matcha from? How much matcha are you using? And usually it ranged between 2G. One of the place used 3 grams. It was actually interesting. Most of them were two. One of them gave me 1.2g.

Ryan · 11:29

I felt like I was being cheated and I'll talk about that cafe in a little bit. But then I would ask like, where's the matcha from? Except for one place everywhere said Japan. This matcha's from Japan and I had to think about it, which was a little weird.

Ryan · 11:43

One of the places said Fukuoka, and I was like, OK, that's a surprising answer. That was one of the Japanese run places, and that was also the only place that was offering single cultivar matcha. They had a much, much, much more expensive Okumidori they were selling, but you couldn't get it in a drink. You could only buy it as powder.

Zongjun · 12:02

I see. I see. But I bet if I asked, I have little confidence that anyone would have been able to explain anything about that product to me just based on my interactions the current. Scene for me is still a little bit far away from, you know what we have been seeing in Bangkok, like a very professional single origin focused matcha scene. It's still very much.

Ryan · 12:26

So it's. An extra bubble tea kind of concept. Yeah, maybe not quite bubble tea, but definitely more mixed drinks, mixed desserts. They also sold matcha granola. They sold matcha croissants, they sold matcha crepe cakes, They sold matcha sponge cakes.

Ryan · 12:40

Like it's matcha, matcha, matcha, matcha, matcha, matcha. It's like it's like a theme store almost, which I honestly I find quite strange. Like I kind of understand why businesses do that, but imagine going into a coffee shop and everything was coffee themed. It's just like it's a little weird you. Know it's it's weird but it's also not like consider a lot of these people probably were getting introduced to matcha for the first time and this is like a very nice showcase like education Cultural Center for them to see the possibility of how much can be used as a flavor that's my. Take true yeah, yeah, yeah

Zongjun · 13:17

actually it's probably a good thing at this stage in the market especially where there's less consumer education for what is higher quality matcha, the concept of origin or cultivars or processing or shading days and all the things that can create a higher quality product are not known.

Zongjun · 13:32

So having it be a more versatile ingredient with that type of exposure, yeah, I agree it's probably a good thing. But I would love to see a day when you can go in and have something that actually pairs well with matcha.

Ryan · 13:44

I always find some of the like like pairings a bit annoying. Like do you know what goes perfectly with the Smokey whiskey? Like BBQ, another Smokey thing. It's like very low level pairing ability. It's like, you know what you want with your matcha latte?

Ryan · 14:02

You need matcha ice cream and a matcha cookie. I understand why businesses do that right now. And quite frankly, if we owned a cafe, we would probably do that too. But like, when you go get a coffee, you don't want a coffee like cake and a tiramisu And like all of this. Maybe some people do, but like, like, I don't know, like a cardamom bun goes really well with a nice cup of coffee. Like, you can get it.

Ryan · 14:27

All of these Nordic roasters, like there's much more thoughtful pairings. It's, it's my only complaint. It feels like they lean into the novelty so strongly when you're a new matcha business that I find that it's very, there's a lot to be improved. Anyway, the core issues that I find across the board after some reflection is, is staff training is pretty bad. Both on the preparation side, making sure you don't have clumps, making sure the matcha is stored well, making sure it's staff can answer basic questions like where is this matcha from? It felt like no one was prepared to answer that question and typically they would look to

Ryan · 15:02

another colleague and the other colleague would say Japan. Very strange customer interaction. Baseline product quality also really needs to be worked on. If you are not proud to serve the matcha as an Americano, maybe you shouldn't be serving it.

Zongjun · 15:16

The baseline product quality is very low. That is a good take. Probably just not even offering it as an option I think. Or you do it, and you do it well. Yeah, that's what that's that's what should be done. It's I think that actually should be the action standard for cafes.

Ryan · 15:36

If the matcha you're serving, you would not be proud to serve as an Americano, maybe you shouldn't be serving it. Or you have two choices. You have one that's to be used as an ingredient in a latte or some sort of mixed drink with like strawberry matcha latte, for example.

Ryan · 15:52

And then you have one that can be used as an Americano. Doesn't taste disgusting. That someone wouldn't be embarrassed and say, Are you sure? You realize that there's no milk, there's no sugar. Are you sure you don't want a little bit of milk?

Ryan · 16:04

I was asked that, so it's I think that'd be a great call to action for anyone listening. Bad preparation technique is #3 it there was, I had this very strange experience. The last place that I went to, it's felt like they were doing everything right. They had two matcha products and they had a premium one and a normal 1.

Ryan · 16:22

So I said I'd like the premium one is an Americano, please. And they put it on a scale and they had a special can and it was a special area actually for the premium matcha. And the whisk wasn't hydrated. And I could tell by looking at the station that people don't order this very often.

Ryan · 16:36

So the the whisk wasn't hydrated. It looked like it hadn't been used that day. They put the scale down and the person preparing it scoops and two scoops of matcha and it's 1.2g. But she didn't even look at the weight. So she just did 2 scoops and then she took some hot water from like a little tiny cup, filled it up and dumped it in and didn't look at the weight. This scale, it was like measurement theater. The scale was there, it was on, but it wasn't used in any way whatsoever.

Ryan · 17:13

It was complete. You know, it's like, you know, they talk about security theater at the airports and in the United States where like you go through this whole rigmarole of like taking your laptop off out and your shoes off and it's like it's to make you feel safe like that they're doing something it it was really like measurement theater, which was very bizarre.

Ryan · 17:36

They didn't sift the tea, they whisked it. There was some foam. So I was pretty impressed by the foam. But by the time I got to the bottom of my cup, I felt even more cheated because not only did they use 1.2g and charged me more than £5 for this drink, which is highway robbery, but there were tons of clumps at the bottom. So there was a lot that I wasn't even consuming because they were still in the form of clumps and there was a broken bamboo tine at the bottom because they hadn't hydrated the whisks. So just like baseline, like preparation and staff training could have gone a long way.

Ryan · 18:13

And this measurement theater was very concerning too. It's like you have all these tools and they're not being used. It's just clearly a staff training problem. Yeah, yeah. And you know, honestly, it's not just them, right?

Zongjun · 18:25

Like it's quite ubiquitous, you know, from places to places, not just in London either. You see this kind of treatment of matcha in many, many other cafes, which is also interesting because, you know, unlike coffee, you have a lot of these books and videos that people can reference, can, you know, easily train their Staffs to give a pretty decent quality coffee preparation. You don't quite see that in matcha yet. You see a lot of these handbooks telling you how to prepare matcha ceremonially, but very rarely that you run across any reading material or educational material telling you how to prepare matcha for a high volume

Ryan · 19:05

cafe. Yes and no. I mean, the steps are not that complicated. Like most people should know how to use a scale. Like we're not talking about a very sophisticated form of preparation. Dialing in an espresso machine, that's complicated. Making sure you don't have channeling, making sure you're looking at volume in and volume out, doing all and making sure you're like depending on the humidity of the day and how you dial in the amount of coffee that you're using. That's complicated.

Ryan · 19:37

This is, I mean, we're talking about sifting a powder, making sure you get 2G and then making sure the water temperature is appropriate and you're using the right amount of water and then whisking it. It does not require masterful skill or technique just to get its baseline quality.

Zongjun · 19:54

That is true. That is true. It's the I think the base. The fundamental problem of this is not caring. It's not caring. I think everyone who says that there's not enough much education, which is us sometimes, but to get we're usually referencing like like really high quality product, but like just to get baseline quality.

Zongjun · 20:17

There's no excuses other than not caring. Like that does exist on the Internet chat. ChatGPT could tell you how to get baseline quality. It's a little pathetic. Yeah. Well, ChatGPT sense that a higher standard usually, yeah. But it was very concerning. And then there was this weird use of these vibrating whisking things.

Ryan · 20:37

Very interesting. It actually does produce pretty good foam as I was watching it, but boy, it makes a mess. And like they were cleaning it. It was so disgusting. The place that I went to that was using one of these, all of their macho was in this gigantic bowl that wasn't covered, exposed to light and air. Granted, this was a high volume place, so they probably go through that bowl in two hours, but it's still kind of was a mess everywhere.

Ryan · 21:03

They take scoops, they do measure it and they create large batches of matcha and then they use this electric frother and it just gets everywhere. This matcha station was a mess and green and the whisk then gets dunked into a cup of what was once water, but it's basically now in usucha.

Ryan · 21:24

Based on the number of times they have cleaned it off, they it into this cup of usucha, which is now usucha, take it out. It's still covered in green. And then they set it down. And then I was watching them measure it out into the lattes and they didn't give a consistent dose. Some people got, you know, certain. I forget what that number was.

Ryan · 21:45

Let's say it was 10 grams of the syrup and the next person got 12, the next person got 9. And you could just visibly tell how little care. I can understand if you're off by a little bit, but the person behind the counter so obviously didn't care and really didn't know what they were doing and had a mess of a station. And actually she looked overwhelmed to be honest. Didn't look like she was trained very well. She wasn't given tools that worked very well, and the workflow sucked and there was no time for her to clean the station.

Zongjun · 22:18

So I think this operation was kind of set up to fail by the very design of it, yeah. You know, there's still a lot of arts and science into that, like how modern Cafe can optimize their workflow and station design and tools to cope with high volume consumers. And you don't necessarily, again back to my previous statement, you don't have a lot of materials to reference how to do it well exactly.

Zongjun · 22:45

Or someone you can copy. I mean, the beauty of specialty coffee is you had Blue Bottle, you had Stumptown, you had counterculture, you had intelligentsia, you had the early multi roaster cafes and everyone can just copy each other. It's like the dining industry.

Zongjun · 23:01

If you listen to fine dining and the pinnacles of dining and like the Michelin status restaurants, they go eat at each other's restaurants and they get inspired, right? Part of the reason why Eleven Madison Park improved their coffee and tea program is because they had a dinner at Per Se and had a fantastic dinner and then at the end of the meal they had a pretty mediocre cup of coffee and they thought to themselves, wow, everything about this is world class except the coffee. And then that inspired them to do a coffee probe. You have all this cross pollination of understanding what other people are doing

Zongjun · 23:35

really well or really poorly and then improving on. I think we need a copy culture in matcha where these places go around. I mean, really, everyone just needs to take a trip to Bangkok or to Thailand, really be to learn what's going on, to see the matcha scene in that part of the world and then copy them, bring it back.

Ryan · 23:53

Like this stuff isn't precious. Like recipes shouldn't be precious, ratios shouldn't be precious, workflow shouldn't be precious. Let's go to who's doing this well and copy it for the love of God. It's embarrassing. And I can understand this quality standard at a coffee shop that might not know any better, but at a specialty matcha cafe where it's the only thing they're serving, it's unacceptable.

Ryan · 24:21

Like it's ununderstandable. I don't understand it how the quality standard can be that low and the staff training can be that bad and how the workflows can be that bad and everyone's interested in respecting tradition tea ceremony and using a whisk and using a bowl and whisking everything to order.

Zongjun · 24:40

Do you know what they should copy from chanoyu? The concept of working clean. There's this concept of working clean in cafes. James Freeman recently put out a post about it, the founder of Blue Bottle on his personal account, talking about their the first time they opened a cafe in Japan in Kyoto or in Tokyo, excuse me, And they served, I forget how many hundreds of people that day.

Zongjun · 25:03

They had news helicopters. It was a big deal when this Blue Bottle opened in Tokyo and tons of press came and they were just working nonstop all day, endless line. I think some people wait. Someone waited overnight to be like the first person in line at this Blue Bottle opening.

Zongjun · 25:21

Do you know how long it took them to clean up at the end of their service? Yeah, it was like 15 or 20 minutes, Yeah. It was 20 minutes. That's crazy. Imagine serving hundreds of people and it takes you 20 minutes to end the day.

Zongjun · 25:36

And the reason that they did it is because they worked clean. You don't have a big mess everywhere like it's crazy. And that's what we should copy from Chanoyu. Chanoyu has cleaning procedures baked in. They not only do you pre heat your bowl, you pre clean your bowl in front of the person you're serving it to.

Zongjun · 25:55

And there's a special white piece of linen that's part of the tea ceremony that every tea ceremony student learns where you pre wash the bowl. It's a pre wet piece of linen to pre wash it, to rinse the rim, to make sure anyone that was drinking from that bowl before that the rim is clean, that the bottom is clean and then like you drink from it and then they clean it at the end. It's actually a huge part of what a temae or the procedure of making matcha even is in the traditional way and showing that type of intentionality.

Zongjun · 26:27

And not only that, here's another thing that can copy from tea ceremony, inspecting the whisk. There is a motion where you inspect the whisk before and after you prepare the bowl of tea to make sure that you didn't accidentally serve someone a little piece of bamboo for them to choke on. There's all of these pieces of intentionality that that we should be copying the spirit of tea ceremony in this manner, like working clean and making sure you're not giving someone a piece of bamboo and not the form of tea ceremony which everyone's focused on.

Zongjun · 27:01

I totally agree you know, on the other hand Ryan, we we should probably not even copying the idea of how clean was being done in Chanoyu, either like it's probably very unrealistic to do all of those procedures in a high volume cafe. I think what the current specialty matcha industry is suffering is a lack of infrastructure, lack of tools that can support the spirit of working clean while maintaining the efficiency.

Zongjun · 27:29

Then speed cleaning a matcha bowl or like inspecting a matcha whisk that will break all the time. I think that's just unrealistic for a high volume matcha cafe. There should be tools that just don't break all the time. There should be pairs or equipments that don't need that amount of carrying, you know, from day-to-day basis.

Zongjun · 27:54

Like the whole idea of working clean needs to be baked into the very fundamental tool designed and workflow designed from the very beginning. And I think that's what the current specialty matcha industry is really suffering from implying this, you know, high standard onto like operating a mixed drink store in London, I think might be a little bit too too, too high because she probably won't don't even know how to improve the current workflow or how to procure any better tools to cope with the difficulties that she's running into every day. Yeah, potentially.

Ryan · 28:31

But I mean, even with the existing tools, I think that the level of quality preparation and inconsistency and the lack of ability to operate in a way where you're getting exacting standards can be done with existing tools and with DIY.

Ryan · 28:47

You know, let's not be too self promotional in this podcast. I mean, we're working on that infrastructure too. But I think even with what exists now, you're able to have very good workflows and even very good workflows in high velocity environments. I think it is possible.

Ryan · 29:03

We do see it in Southeast Asia where they are able to do it and to work clean that way meant to work efficiently and with exacting standards where, you know, you're not getting significant variation drink to drink. Look at Ooika. Ooika because a high volume cafe or kettle, I mean everything's sifted, measured, whisked to order on a, on a scale with a variable temperature kettle.

Ryan · 29:24

And so I mean there are people who are, and I'm sure there's many others who are not even aware of that are doing things to very exacting standards. It definitely can be done. I think the call to action is these matcha businesses or cafes doing matcha programs need to go out and experience it first hand at people and places that are doing it very well and just copying it. Yeah.

Zongjun · 29:46

That will be a more exciting future for Matcha. And also a lot of the times consumer, consumers don't know better. They are already liking the products that are being served today and there's a very little push from the consumer and for cafes to improve.

Zongjun · 30:02

And I think for more experienced consumer in the future, the pull and push dynamic will be more, more intense and we can have, you know, more kind of motivation coming from the consumer and to push cafes to improve their workflow and their product quality. Yeah.

Ryan · 30:21

Well, now, right now all the much of businesses have a great gift. Much is booming. There's a much of shortage so much as in the news like you know these places, there's very few of them and they have long lines. But that's not going to be that way forever. The economic opportunity of starting a matcha business is very obvious at the moment and just be by the fact that you have matcha and are serving matcha or a matcha specialty place will one day be not unique and special on its own. There's going to be more competition and the places that will win in the long term I think are places where the intentionality is clear, the

Ryan · 30:58

price is fair and the quality is consistent. Just like any good business out there that has very good staff training, at some point it's just going to be unacceptable for these places to exist at the way that they do. I think so. I agree that it's not there and there's not consumer demand for this type of perfection yet.

Ryan · 31:19

But the consumers will change and the competitive landscape will change. And the businesses that are going to succeed in the long run are going to do so in large part by improving quality. I mean, it's just sad. The products that I tasted were disgusting.

Ryan · 31:36

And you know, these these consumers that are drinking lattes or sakura mixed drinks and all, all of this stuff are one day those people are going to form the foundations of the people who want to have an usucha or a koicha or a light brew or an Americano style beverage or interested in competition grade tea or single cultivar, single origin tea.

Ryan · 31:58

Like Bryan from Matsu Matcha who we had on as a guest. He started with matcha pastries and matcha lattes full of sugar and milk. What he said in the recording, you know, now he started one of the most prolific high quality matcha companies in Singapore. These people who are waiting in line 30 minutes for a matcha latte are the foundations of this specialty market. We don't know who they are or exactly from an individual standpoint, but they are going to form this foundation who will care about quality.

Zongjun · 32:26

Totally great. So I think one call to action from this episode is that I think every Matcha cafe that serves an Americano or matcha with just water or whatever they call it comes by different names. Some just called it matcha, some called it matcha tea, some called it matcha americano on their menu.

Zongjun · 32:43

I know MTCH calls it a light brew. Anyone who's serving this type of thing, baseline should be proud to serve what they're serving. I think it's a pretty good action standard for any specialty matcha cafe out there. In getting the matcha not being bad, we asked ourselves in the previous recording, in the previous recording on this topic, why is all the matcha so bad? I think the matcha will be of acceptable quality when the matcha Americano can taste good.

Zongjun · 33:13

I think it's a pretty easy action standard. And the other thing is I think there just needs to be better staff training and better staff training. Not in like being told what to do, like not treating your staff like they're stupid and give them a list of instructions and say follow this exactly, but lead with context.

Zongjun · 33:33

How can we give everyone the first principles to understand why does matcha clump and how do you make it not clump? Why does water temperature matter? How is foam formed? And we give everyone the foundational knowledge to understand the mechanisms that lead to a higher quality product.

Ryan · 33:54

And I think my suspicion is a lot of these places give employees a list. They treat them like they're stupid. They say you follow this list. I came up with this procedure and they're not armed with the foundations to create a better product with that type of knowledge. Yeah, totally agree.

Zongjun · 34:10

Like probably on the list, one of the cafes that you have been to says take two scoops of matcha into the bowl, but didn't really, you know, convey the message that, you know, what exactly should two scoops wait? It's just two scoops.

Zongjun · 34:26

Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of these guidelines, you know, you probably need to have the staff to understand the fundamental reason why the, the guideline is there, the, the, the operation is there, instead of, you know, just springlessly training them or telling them, you know, this is the exact order that you should follow.

Ryan · 34:47

Yeah. I mean, and it's not rocket science either. I mean, I could do this in like a couple minutes. Like here would be my very impromptu education to someone who knows nothing about matcha, who's going to be preparing at a cafe for the first time.

Ryan · 35:01

I'd say matcha is an extremely delicate product. This is actually powdered tea leaf. This is not something that dissolves like instant coffee or like Tang or like liquid IV. So because of that, you need to think of it much more like flour than you would like, mixing up powder together like you would in a beverage normally.

Ryan · 35:20

Just like if you're making pancakes and you add way too much water too fast and you're mixing it and get very clumpy. Matcha is exactly the same. Because we're not actually dissolving the matcha, it forms a suspension in water, which means that these particles are mixed in with the hot water.

Ryan · 35:36

So that means 1. You need to save it either in a batch prior to service or you can sift it to order, but it needs to be pre sifted so it doesn't clump. And then you need to really whisk it well. But be careful. This bamboo chasen is extremely delicate. This bamboo is fragile when it's dry and because bamboo is fragile when it's dry and these tines are so small, this has to stay hydrated.

Zongjun · 36:00

So hydrate it, give it, just run it under the sink for a second before you and then wait a couple of minutes. And then you can use this whisk, whisk it very vigorously. But this is still a fragile instrument, so try not to scrape the bottom too hard. Be gentle with this whisk, whisk, whisk. And then what you're doing is you're incorporating air to create foam, which is also an important part of the sensory experience.

Zongjun · 36:25

And when you do this, please use the right temperature water. Matcha has an unusually high number of a compound called catechins. Catechins taste very bitter, very astringent, and they will readily extract past 80°C Celsius. So make sure your water temperature is between 70 and 75, otherwise you're going to bring out a lot of bitterness in this tea because matcha is not like other types of tea. It has a very unusual number of these bitter compounds which will stay locked in the leaf so long as we keep the water temperature low enough and we're only extracting the good flavors.

Ryan · 37:01

There you go, right? Pretty well encapsulate the first principles that you need to know to create baseline decent matcha. Yeah. And maybe a little bit more on matcha storage. And I think that would be a perfect handbook.

Zongjun · 37:15

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, storage too. Matcha is very sensitive to light. It contains a lot of chlorophyll. When chlorophyll is exposed to UV and to light, it degrades into a yellow compound, which tastes very bitter. So we're taking this very precious green stuff, and when it gets exposed to the sun and to the air, it's going to turn from green to brown. And not only does the color degrade, but the taste will degrade too.

Ryan · 37:40

So you need to make sure you keep the sealed and the refrigerator, or if not in the refrigerator than in a sealed opaque container. If everyone could just listen to that 5 minutes and implement that and incorporate it into their staff training, everyone would be drinking much higher quality matcha. Totally agree.

Ryan · 37:58

It's really not rocket sign. The amount of procedures required probably is even less than using a Chemex to brew coffee. Yeah. Probably, and by the way, anyone listening who has a cafe or has a friend that has a cafe, we offer free consulting services.

Ryan · 38:16

I don't know how long we will do it for depending on demand, but anyone who just like wins basic seminar on matcha, what is it? How do you prepare it? What are common mistakes to avoid? We do this for free so please talk to us. It's actually our way of kind of doing user testing too and to perfect our own training materials for the future. So if anyone's interested in that, we're happy to do it no matter where you are in the world or for your clients for that matter, and happy to share our educational materials as well.

Ryan · 38:47

We think that this should not be precious or gate kept in any way. So we're we're happy to do it. And same thing with baseline staff training for how to answer questions like what is matcha? Where is it from? Why is it so expensive? What makes this matcha better than this other matcha so that like staff are able to have educated come in with confidence.

Ryan · 39:08

When I asked where is this matcha from and no one gave me a confident answer or they had to like ask someone else. Like it doesn't send a good sign, especially if you're a matcha specialty place. It's crazy. So that's not the world that we would like to see.

Zongjun · 39:23

In the spirit of giving first, we're very happy to help anyone that wants any help with this and to share educational materials that we have and that we are creating. This is a good place to end. Yeah, I think this is a good place to end. So really back to the basics I think is what's required to improve matcha quality all over the world and that staff education is super important.

Zongjun · 39:46

We need to improve baseline product quality where people are just buying better matcha because garbage in, garbage out. We need to improve preparation techniques. So we need to do away with measurement theater for using these tools. Please use them actually.

Zongjun · 40:00

And we also need to improve matcha storage. And the last thing that I wrote that we didn't. To talk about is dosing, which we've talked about before, but a lot of the drinks that I have, especially in latte format were way too weak. Matcha felt like it was primarily being used as a colorant.

Ryan · 40:15

That's like something you were actually tasting. So I think places need to to dose a bit higher so that you can actually taste the product. Or if you're not dosing higher, don't serve like a 16 ounce beverage and with 2G of matcha in a latte format, you won't taste it.

Ryan · 40:31

Like force someone to have significantly less volume so you can actually taste it. It's something I've noticed that all the best matcha latte places do. You're not served this gigantic drink, right? You're served much smaller, much more concentrated drinks where you can actually taste it. Even though it might not be what consumers are specifically asking for, but protecting the integrity of the product, they might come around to actually appreciating that more. Totally agree.

Zongjun · 40:59

And also I would like to add that we need to do our part as well, Ryan, supplying the world with better tools and infrastructure. And other companies too, working on matcha equipment. Yeah, this is not just us. There's definitely an infrastructure gap and needs the creativity of everyone around the world who notice different problems or in different cultures or for different problems. Spaces not the same.

Ryan · 41:25

Matcha equipment is not meant for all types of businesses. Some places need to make a matcha drink in 20 seconds or 30 seconds to be profitable. Different businesses require different solutions as well. Absolutely, but all in the service of better matcha. So anyway, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing with friends or giving it five stars and whatever you're listening to.

Ryan · 41:47

And demand better matcha from businesses. Yeah, in the next episode. See you in the next episode. Bye.