Context to Appreciate

Ryan · 0:00

Hello and welcome to this Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan. This is my co-founder Zongjun, who also goes by Sam. Oh hello and we're the co-founders of Sanko Matcha products. We launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey in matcha, share startup stories and interview experts, and today's topic is context to appreciate. So, Ryan, what's the context of today's episode? So I kind of see this as a reboot of the very first podcast episode we ever did called conditions for specialty matcha preference acquisition, which was an opinion piece. And this one actually has a actual blog post associated with it, which is nice because it

Ryan · 0:38

kind of pre structured our idea before that recording something we've since dropped. Maybe we should take that up again. Yeah, we should. We should. On a weekly cadence, it's a bit difficult, but. Some special episodes may be a worth a worth a shot. Absolutely.

Ryan · 0:54

But the core of the argument was how do you get someone from who is a beginner to a category, let's say matcha latte drinker or someone who likes matcha Kit Kat. How do you, how do they move? How does their consumer journey look as they move from consuming matcha as an ingredient to having something like an Americano?

Ryan · 1:14

So just having matcha on its own with only water to something like an usucha or a koicha and like, what does that ladder look like? And you see these ladders exist in other industries. So you have things like beer. Like how does someone in the middle of I'm just going to pick a random place Ohio get from drinking Budweiser his entire life to wanting to try an IPA or a stout or a saison beer.

Ryan · 1:39

And at our last company, when we were working at the intersection of AI, sensory science and science of taste and product development, we did a lot of work with brands and understanding what that consumer journey looks like for people and how people's preferences literally change as they move throughout that journey, throughout that ladder.

Ryan · 2:01

And it's a really important discussion in the context of specialty matcha because the way matcha is being enjoyed is very different, very fundamentally different now than it was 100 years ago. And that's going to continue to evolve. And understanding that trajectory, I think is super important.

Zongjun · 2:19

So I thought this was worth re looking at. Absolutely. I mean, you can kind of see a lot of similarities between matcha and the current matcha movement with a lot of the other specialty movement in other beverage or food categories. And one thing that's certainly AI would say a fundamental foundation or a cornerstone of such consumer ladder is first you need to have availability to more people so that they can actually experience, you know, the whole thing or the diversity of the selections.

Zongjun · 2:52

And then you need some kind of a gateway product to kind of lure people into the house and then, you know, keep them there, usually something very like bringlessly delicious. And that's usually the gateway. Yeah, you need something that creates A curiosity gap. And basically every person that I know that is a tea person had some moment at some point in their history where their mind like literally expanded.

Zongjun · 3:21

And I'd say over half of the people that we've invited as guests on this podcast talk about these moments. For some people, it was essential. For me it was actually again my cha and that got me into tea and LED me down the specialty matcha rabbit hole eventually.

Zongjun · 3:35

Took actually about another decade between my first sip of genmaicha to having a really deeper passion for matcha. But like, all of those have to be seeded somewhere. So I totally agree if we back out a little bit and talk about context to appreciate what is like the lowest level form of getting someone to appreciate something?

Ryan · 3:57

Like what is some common language or vocabulary that we see that anyone can understand that something is good or that something is bad? Good question without tasting it first. We're trying it first or after. Yeah, just like I'm giving you a gift, right?

Ryan · 4:14

And I'm giving you a gift and I'm, I'm trying to put context around it to get you to appreciate it, which actually in matcha is a really good example. Most people who are gifting matcha to people who have never had it for the first time, they need some sort of primer. So what's like the most basic low level primer that anyone would understand?

Zongjun · 4:33

It's not just for a matcha, but it really for other things too. It's expensive, right? It's you know it, it comes with with a pretty, you know, hefty price tag and it's rare rarity is often a trace or a indicator of quality and you know it, it tastes good or it tastes interesting and you should try it. I like it.

Zongjun · 4:55

I hope you like it too. That's usually the set of primer that you you know, you do a ordinary gift giving. And what's funny is if you look at the least sophisticated matcha companies marketing, that's exactly the type of framing that they use to get someone to appreciate something.

Zongjun · 5:14

Yeah, right. It's rare or it's expensive compared to other types of tea. And the iemoto of something, something sanctioned like that or endorsed, it's really. Very unsophisticated. And yeah, so that's like, I would say like the absolute lowest level context to appreciate everyone in the entire world, unless you're like in some nomadic rural tribe that has no interaction with modern society, understands price. And just about everyone, even the nomadic tribes, people who who who, you know, don't use funny, understand rarity for sure.

Zongjun · 5:53

And so these are like pretty universal basic human things that we care about. And it's really the lowest level that you can use to communicate it. And you see different flavors of this. I mean, you have some people arguing saying, you know, matcha is like, I think 6% of the tea produced in Japan and of that good matchas less than 1%. And they just do this percentage of a percentage of a percentage thing like inexperienced entrepreneurs do, saying if we can only get 1%, you know, of the coffee industry or of the tea industry, we could be $100 million company, right? Like it's the same thing, but

Ryan · 6:30

it's still like, there's still like that one that's really hard and you're still creating a whole lot of product to get there. And I I find it very similar. And actually in a lot of cases where I've been sold to that way, I find it a little bit as an insult to my intelligence as a consumer. It's like, OK, yes, it's rare, but OK tell me more Like it's typically only done by people who have a very shallow understanding of of matcha or the topic, whatever that is. Yeah, yeah, totally agree.

Zongjun · 7:00

I mean, you know, like I think a lot of the things that that you value in terms of rarity is not essentially rarity, right? Yeah, you can go harvest some, you know, very, very, very rare, like Himalayan salt from the Mount Everest mountain Ridge.

Zongjun · 7:19

And it's probably still going to taste like salt. It's salty by the end of the day, maybe with some a little bit of the flavor difference. But what you are actually, you know, valuing or paying for is the, the effort, the time that someone else spent their life or even risking their life to, to, to make it happen to, to have that delivered to you.

Zongjun · 7:41

I think that actually that value system really applies to most of the things that, that people value nowadays, not just, you know, specialty food or beverage, but also the art or anything that you want to spend more money to pay for.

Zongjun · 7:58

And it's really, you're buying someone else's life. You're buying someone else's effort to make this thing happened. And then you, you can preserve it or you can consume it or you can enjoy it or you can brag about it. I think that's, you know the, the, the value chain that we are seeing here for most of the products. Yeah.

Ryan · 8:16

And I think, but then Zunjun, how do you distinguish between, let's say you have two artists, both of them spent 10,000 hours doing oil painting, 1 might be quite literally worthless and another piece might be worth $10 million.

Ryan · 8:31

So how do you start making quality and price distinctions within that same of, let's say difficulty to produce some artificial scarcity because there's only one person that makes it or only a handful of people that make it?

Zongjun · 8:45

Like then what? How do you distinguish between products and how is value? Art, Assigned art will be a little bit trickier because, you know, there's the cost of making that art itself, which frequently is not that much.

Zongjun · 9:01

So sometimes you can end up using some more expensive material that, you know, is, I would say a little bit more arbitrary. You essentially having the artists or the gallery evaluating the worth and, you know, make up a number. And then frequently in the art world is that, you know, you have a series of a set or a group of galleries working together with the artists to kind of, you know, sell each other the artwork and to validate the price, kind of The Dirty, dirty secret of the art industry. But it doesn't necessarily apply to specialty product. A little bit.

Zongjun · 9:37

You have the seller giving a price tag and then you have the buyer actually buying the product, which is not just a behavior of purchase, but essentially a validation of the value. And you see that in, you know, in the world of matcha, you see that in the world of Chinese tea too, like all these outrageously expensive the Wuyi rock tea.

Zongjun · 9:57

And you have, you know, actual buyers buying them as a validation of the price tag that they give out. But, you know, if you take account into the cost of making those thesis, probably not that much. But then you also need to take account into the cost of spreading awareness, the cost of building this whole marketing strategy or this whole scheme, and also the effort of people, you know, creating all of these. And also the effort of people maintaining the status and the image of the product being so special that when the buyer and the buying the product, people don't won't necessarily bill them as, you know, idiots, but

Zongjun · 10:37

you know, they they can actually coin the status label to them as a consummation because of all these people marketing the product behind the scene and telling other people that, you know, this product is actually fairly valuable.

Ryan · 10:51

Would you say that that can be characterized as the context to appreciate? Yeah, I, I totally think that's part of the context. You know, you're creating context, you're creating a a culture, you're creating a. Story. Yeah, I totally agree.

Ryan · 11:06

So Zhangjun, there's an old saying that's frequently attributed to a French philosopher slash like sociologist named Pierre Bourdieu. I've actually never been able to dig up where exactly he wrote this, but there's a saying that the arts of the bourgeoisie will remain with the bourgeoisie because they have the formative experiences by which to appreciate them.

Zongjun · 11:29

Can we unpack that quote a little bit and then talk about how it is relevant to the discussion of giving someone the context to appreciate something? Well, if you view that in plain language, it's basically saying that, you know, the certain appreciation will remain within community or social circle because they, they had the experience of it in the past, which crystallized into a preference.

Zongjun · 11:55

And they only them can have the experience because it's, you know, either expensive or either it's, you know, gated by a set of social rules. It's, I would say it's, it's still true for some products nowadays, especially those for example, in the world of matcha, there's, there are just, you know, some matcha that just not purchasable.

Zongjun · 12:16

You have to, you know, know the guy that knows the guy or you have to, you know, be within a certain, you know, social circle, a teaching circle of iemoto or, you know, a farmer's circle to be able to have the product, to have the option to buy the product. Or if you be a little bit even more outrageous, you know, like in the world of wine, you have Romanée-Conti. You know, you actually need to buy a lot of wine from the estate, from the Chateau, enough to be put on a wait list to buy their, you know, best wine on the shelf. That's some serious formative experience that you know, it's not just money can buy.

Ryan · 12:55

You really need to be within the circle to have that experience. Well, even if you can afford that experience, right, you need certain like formative experience or like life experience to appreciate something and then to them value it. So let's put this within the context of like Asian food products, sea cucumber.

Ryan · 13:18

I didn't grow up with sea cucumber. I don't care about sea cucumber. Sea cucumber cost like a hundred U.S. dollars. I do not have the formative experience by which to appreciate sea cucumber. I don't even really like sea cucumber.

Ryan · 13:32

I've had it like twice Right and. Next time you're here. But I mean, you can say the same thing about anything from high end wine to crazy coffee to like, even like leather goods, right? I don't know anything about leather goods.

Ryan · 13:46

I don't care about it. I don't value it. I don't have the formative experience to tell apart, you know, a Birkin from a random, you know, cheap knockoff, right? Like it's, it's just not something that I can totally grok or understand and therefore value, right.

Ryan · 14:02

So sometimes it's gate cap, but often times it's just like the default. So what's interesting within the context in the sphere of Matcha is actually this quote is incredibly relevant to Matcha 100 years ago or 150 years ago.

Ryan · 14:15

Oh. Yeah, I totally agree the. Context to appreciate matcha at the highest levels, right? If we're talking about the consumer ladder of getting the better and better experience, the better and better product, it was literally gate kept and it actually still is.

Ryan · 14:32

If we think about the highest ends of let's say cuisine like moving from A1 to A2 to A3, Michelin star restaurant to, you know, the the apps to the absolute pinnacles of dining. The equivalent of that in matcha is progressing through the ranks of these tea ceremony schools. And you will absolutely reach a ceiling over time as a foreigner or if you're a woman.

Ryan · 14:54

And something that I think it was James Freeman said the founder of Blue Bottle is, he very quickly realized the experience of drinking coffee is so much more than consuming a liquid, right? It's about the ambience, it's about the space that's created. It's about the feeling that hospitality can create. And if we look at tea ceremony being like one of the fundamental examples of intentionality and hospitality and creating the set and setting the environment to enjoy something, in this case being matcha, right? As you progress through these levels, you get more and more and more and more context to

Ryan · 15:33

appreciate. And they'll probably be a ceiling you'll reach as a foreigner. There's a ceiling you reach as a woman. And you have to go all the way to the tip top to get to these secret teachings, which only, you know, basically all Japanese men and or their young heirs have access to.

Ryan · 15:50

It is like the equivalent of the arts of the bourgeoisie or remain with the bourgeoisie because they have the formative experiences by which to appreciate them. Some of those advanced practitioners in China, you don't even have the formative experience or the context to appreciate what's going on because it's secret teachings.

Ryan · 16:08

It's kind of the king in the high Castle level of getting the context to appreciate something in matcha, and I actually can't think of that many equivalents in food and beverage where this is still so old world it doesn't really exist.

Zongjun · 16:23

In wine, if you have enough money and time and cultural connections, you can get the best of the best of the best wine experiences, and the same thing for food or for coffee. But Matcha is actually really unique that it's still trapped in this old world system. Yeah, Ryan, but there's also a very interesting, I would say the assessment to how or what exactly are they appreciating by the end of the ladder, in this case, the secret teaching in Chanoyu.

Zongjun · 16:52

You it's you know, what exactly are they appreciating versus what do macho drinker cares? I think there's there there has to be a discrepancy. They are not maybe not necessarily, you know, looking at the same thing. I'm not at a discrediting the value or the context of both sides, but there's definitely a discrepancy.

Zongjun · 17:13

And to many extents I go back to my previous argument instead, the context to appreciate or the context. The, the sheer construction of a context is essentially you're building a culture. The context to appreciate something by the end of the day is within that culture vocabulary or culture knowledge that something is better than something else. And the comparison, the, you know, the, the, the factors or the criterias of comparison might be a little bit different when you compare 2 cultures.

Ryan · 17:46

In this case, you're comparing, we are comparing, you know, Chanoyu versus, you know, specialty matcha and you know. Totally agree and I think that is like why? Yeah, sorry, sorry. Go ahead. I think that's why we're at the cusp of the specialty macho revolution. We're building up this culture that's appreciating it on an entirely different, what I'll call pleasure vectors or culturally enriching vectors, cultivar, terroir, farmers, production techniques, right?

Ryan · 18:14

The Iemoto's aren't sitting around and the Chanoyu people aren't sitting around talking about how incredible this 44 day honzu shaded Asahi is. Like who knows what they're talking about, but that's certainly we're appreciating things in a from a very, very different perspective.

Ryan · 18:31

But this one can be democratized. The arts of the bourgeoisie don't have to remain with the bourgeoisie here, right? Anyone with an Internet connection and a little bit of disposable income can get access to these references and enjoy it and have a ladder to climb as they get deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.

Zongjun · 18:52

It's a people's movement. Yep, Yep. It's from from bottom to top, not from top to bottom, which is a very different route, but it's no longer being, you know, confined by, you know, a certain authority. It's easier for everyone to participate.

Zongjun · 19:08

But also for this to really happened in in a larger scale, you you really need to have the availability of different diversities of criterias and you need. You need to have new companies and giving people new sets of things to appreciate, right, Which is what all of these specialty principles are, you know, around cultivar, terroir, all the interesting stories and farmers and techniques that people are talking about that can lead to very different flavor profile outcomes, right? It gives people a rabbit hole to go down. And it worked a really exciting early stages of that, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Zongjun · 19:46

Ultimately comes. Ultimately comes down to the topic that we talked about in the previous podcast. What do you care about? What are your stock ranked priorities, right? And in a specialty subculture within matcha, it's about the flavor, it's about the people, it's about the farmer, right? It's not necessarily about the poetic name or how it relates to the theme or how that relates to the season. Those are all very beautiful and wonderful things, but the context to appreciate all of that is living in a extremely different sphere than something like special. Tea matcha is and actually, I think that's where we see a lot of this painful, what I'll call

Zongjun · 20:24

it, judgment on the Internet between people who care about very different things and that essentially like people are experiencing matcha on 2 entirely different pleasure vectors, different things out of this same product.

Zongjun · 20:39

And like the tea ceremony, people screaming at people for using quote UN quote ceremonial grade matcha in their matcha latte should have a taste of their own medicine. I think that they should taste a culinary grade in a latte and then taste the ceremonial grade latte and tell me honestly which one tastes better. Like I agree you cover up some subtlety and nuance, but the person who's enjoying taking a higher quality product and mixing it with milk, which is not me by the way, but you cannot deny that it tastes better and that person couldn't care less that it would make the perfect temae on the perfect tana after preparing it in on

Zongjun · 21:17

on a tatami mat. Like it just doesn't matter to them right? They want a good tasting beverage right? And it's in they are forming an appreciation that is so different than that other person. Yeah. But you know, this judgement is not unique to Matcha though.

Zongjun · 21:34

It's I'm just thinking out loud, but you see this in all the other specialty beverages. I think ultimately it's a judgement between something that it's in its, you know, quote, UN quote, pure form versus inclusions. Like you see this in in the world of coffee, right?

Zongjun · 21:54

Like latte is just being judged as inferior than black coffee by all aspects. The specialty coffee people wouldn't necessarily brag about, you know, they, they make the best latte, best tasting latte using this very expensive special bean. Also, you see this in the world of wine, right? Like you have all these fortified wine, which are actually very delicious.

Zongjun · 22:15

I'm a big fan of Sherry. How you end up making Sherry is that you add Brandy or extra alcohol into a fermenting wine to stop the fermentation and to keep a lot of residual sugar and adding some other flavors into the beverage so that it's no also no longer pure, which, you know, also views as inferior than, you know, you know, ordinary wine.

Zongjun · 22:41

So all these fortified wine, but they they can be very, you know, delicious and, you know, aged for a long time, but the price of them is still a much lower than you know, other, you know, well aged vintage Barolo, for example.

Zongjun · 22:57

Yeah, Why? I would say that's because that's where the specialty market exists within wine. People have a context to appreciate the other thing more. Yeah, yeah. But my argument is that, you know, this idea of adding something else into a product and getting judged as inferior exists in other, you know, products, not just, you know, matcha, but also in coffee, so in wine, which is very interesting.

Ryan · 23:24

Yeah. No, I agree. It's definitely not something that's unique to Matcha. Yeah. But they they can taste very delicious. I I wonder why, you know, this is such a stigma in in other because like sometimes they're not really like pure, right? Like you have all these sorts of Co fermentation in, in, in, in coffee, right?

Ryan · 23:47

Like you add like like fruit or some, some other things and spice and ferment with the coffee together to, to, to get a new product. You also have, you know, all these barrel aging practice in the word whiskey, right? Like you essentially adding other flavors into the into the whiskey, into the liquid by putting them into a barrel that have stored other things. So the the the matrix or the judgment criteria of something, whether something or not, it's purer is also very interesting. It's interesting.

Zongjun · 24:21

That you say that because I bet there's a parallel universe where that purity matters less. And something that I've experienced being obsessed with tea for a very long time is when you're obsessed with tea and ceramics in a Chinese context, you go back far enough. There's a lot of vessels, cups and things like that that had some potential crossover usage where an emperor would be using something.

Zongjun · 24:48

It potentially could have been for tea, or it could have been within the context of wine or what they would call what gets translated as wine. But then there's always another sub context there is that the wine that they were drinking in ancient China wasn't wine at all.

Zongjun · 25:02

It was some mix of stuff, like it was some kind of rice alcohol mixed with all this herbs and other stuff. And you know, that was probably considered the top of the top, wasn't a pure product at all. So. Probably. Human space have dictated that.

Zongjun · 25:17

Or even tea. Drinking, you know, like back in Tang dynasty, they, they also, you know, drink these powdered tea. It's the really the proto mocha, proto matcha. They Add all sorts of things into the pot like tea, ginger, you know, spice mints, all kinds of things. And it's essentially a soup by the end of the day, and then it's only to be consumed amongst the nobles and the monarchs, which is not pure at all.

Ryan · 25:45

Yeah, interesting. I wonder why that is in a broader context, why there's such a focus on purity now. Something transitioned in history simultaneously across different cultures that people start moving from, you know, mixing or mixture into a more pure form.

Zongjun · 26:04

Well, I mean I. Think that's also what the specialty matcha movement is largely about to like you cannot taste the difference between cultivars as easily, right? When it's mixed with milk and sugar and other things. So actually like if you look at it from the specialty principles of like specialty matcha bean to bar chocolate, like bean to bar chocolate, it's in the name, right?

Zongjun · 26:24

You go from beans to a bar and the implication is that you probably aren't adding like emulsifiers, milk powder, like all the other things you can do to make what a lot of people think of as chocolate, It's to get a more pure expression of the agriculture and the nature and nurture steps that were used to create. It doesn't mean that you can't produce delicious things, but it does unlock a whole new set of set of enriching experiences and hedonic pleasure by the fact that people can draw distinctions based on flavor, based on those attributes of the product, the cultivar, the region, the producer, the processing, etcetera.

Ryan · 27:04

Fundamentally different context to appreciate other than just like the pure sensory experience and blind hedonic pleasure of enjoying some combination of flavors. Makes sense having A and also having a product remained as having less ingredient. You, you are essentially getting closer to the terroir, you're getting closer to, you know, the, the farming technique, the, the, the local geography, the climate. Those impact will be more obvious with, you know, with that recipe versus, you know, adding other things. You kind of mask out of these nuances. So Zongjun.

Ryan · 27:43

For any of the Matcha brand owners listening, what are some things that we can do as an industry in your opinion, that will make quote, UN quote smarter consumers? Like if we have a lot of different consumer interaction and like some people will be like, OK, yeah, they're kind of basic. They're just talking about how much is healthy and rare. Or you can have a really enriching conversation where you immediately realize, wow, this person's got a lot of context. How do we create more of those people that are quote, UN quote smart consumers or good buyers or they're able to differentiate between products and then assign

Ryan · 28:19

value because they're aware of the market rates for products for similar products that have been objectively, objectively labeled that way. And I'll just use Horii-san as an example. And we like to use him. He's a really good example because so many, he has so much representation by other Western vendors.

Zongjun · 28:38

And you start doing some price comparison across websites and you realize that there's actually a ridiculously large range with Horii-san's products sell for. But it's the same product, right? Right. That that's what a smart consumer would do though. Start connecting the dots.

Zongjun · 28:53

Like this person didn't mention Horii-san, but everything is grown in Shirakawa, which is like Horii-san's basically the only well known producer in Shirakawa and these happen to be all the same cultivars, Asahi, Uji Hikari, Samidori, Saemidori, whatever that he grows.

Ryan · 29:12

And you know this is almost certainly from Horii-san. Like that's what like what smart buyers are doing right now with his products and like their price triaging. Johnny Matcha is selling it for an insanely cheap price. And then if you go over to kettle, it's like literally double. I was just checking this yesterday for what is basically the same product.

Zongjun · 29:31

How do we get more of these? And in that case, they're both labeled as Horii-san. But let's say they're not labeled as Horii-san, right? Like how do we help? How do people have the context needed to do this type of detective work? This.

Zongjun · 29:44

Really goes back to, you know, the, the quote from Pierre Bourdieu is that you, you need to have formative experience, you need to actually know what those products are and what do they taste like to be able to make a, you know, rational judgement or assessment of, you know, the situation.

Zongjun · 30:00

Basically, as we're talking about that this right here and and one thing that I think a lot of the vendors and our friends in the industry can really start doing is just to have the availability of different options for people to start trying. It's kind of hard right now, given, you know, this whole matcha shortage problem.

Zongjun · 30:22

But, you know, if you really want a smart, educated inform the consumer in matcha, in in the world of matcha, you know, words are, you know, not enough. You you really need to have them try all these stuff that they they will start to have a more coherent and, you know, formative experience and to to build up a context for them to, you know, inform themselves and also inform their purchasing decisions.

Ryan · 30:51

Yeah, that. You can't get past primary sensory experience because that's ultimately what you what you come to value, right? Like, all of this is fine and interesting theoretically, and it's like intellectually interesting, but until you make that tangible link, you know, it's, you know, it's just all fluff in the air.

Ryan · 31:12

Yeah. That's what makes tea special. Isn't such a tangible thing that you can taste at the end of the day. Yep. Yep. So one of the things that. Really frustrates me just as a consumer, and I'm just talking about my consumer experience now, is that I, we keep hearing from everyone a chashi's, chashi's, chashi's, they're incredible. They have such incredible skill and they're underrepresented and under talked about in the industry. They're a blind part of the industry, but you know, they really are the backbone of keeping these products consistent.

Zongjun · 31:43

Chashi's are blenders or tea purveyors. So if you go to like Marukyu Koyamaen, right, they have all of these different products and let's use tenju and it is as an example, right? It's somebodies job to make sure that that tastes the same every year.

Ryan · 31:56

Same thing with their hatsu mukashi or whatever poetic name products that they have. These different blends and what I get so frustrated as, OK yeah that's great. Chashi's keep these tasting the same. Personally, I'm not even sure how consistent the flavor profiles are because I'm not buying them every year.

Ryan · 32:13

And Even so, if they taste different, I'm probably going to blame that maybe 1 was fresher than the other, or maybe something's wrong with my palate or my memory is flawed after waiting one year to tell what the difference is like.

Ryan · 32:27

But in so that that's like one point, but the second point, no one knows anything about them. How in the world is a consumer am I supposed to appreciate what the chashi's are doing when I don't know how they work? I don't know why it's hard.

Ryan · 32:44

I like I have some idea based on other specialty products, but no one's talking about the actual skill. It's completely hidden without the context to appreciate. The only vector in which I can appreciate it is through my primary experience tasting these products year after year and hoping that they're consistent and observing it.

Ryan · 33:04

And then of just appreciating that fact that it does happen to be consistent tasting year after year after year, right? That's the only vector that you can use to appreciate the work that these people are doing. But the skill and the craft and the intention of why does this flavor profile exist?

Ryan · 33:24

What are you trying to do? How is it supposed to be used other than usucha or koicha, Right? That's great. All of these chashi's have what, I don't know, let's say 30 different blends that are meant for usucha. Why do they exist?

Ryan · 33:39

What is the intention behind this one versus this one versus this one? And you very rarely get that. And it's a complaint that I have in this industry. Like everyone says, they're so incredibly skilled. But like, let's give people the context to understand that that craft, that art. Yeah.

Zongjun · 33:58

It's it's very interesting that they're so, you know, mysterious because you know, they, I mean, they're, they're essentially formulators, right? Like or, you know, flavorists in all these flavor houses or, you know, star flavorists that make all these fine fragrance. You know that they, they are quite, you know, there's a very good community of or and culture of appreciating their work that exists, you know, in other industries, you know, other, you know, formulators in, in, in, in the, the wine industry, blenders in the whiskey industry, these are stark flavourist in the fragrance industries.

Zongjun · 34:37

They are basically doing the same thing, but you know, the same thing in terms of the, the spirit of it. But, you know, it's, it's so interesting that the Tashi's are so like hidden the world of matcha versus all these other formulators in other industries are basically celebrities.

Ryan · 34:55

Yeah, in the case. Of the flavor industry, they are a little bit behind the scenes, but that's because they're suppliers of suppliers. So for those of you who don't know, there's this gigantic industry called the flavor industry called flavor Houses and it's largely controlled by 4 very large companies IFF, Givaudan.

Ryan · 35:11

Symrise, Firmenich, and they have something called flavorists, and the idea is that a strawberry is not a strawberry is not a strawberry. You have various different expressions ranging from sour to ripe to green to jammy to cook.

Ryan · 35:26

There's all these different expressions and it's someone's job to basically take a bunch of chemical ingredients, mix them together to create these various flavored products that they put into everything in food and beverage products.

Ryan · 35:37

And in some cases, depending on the laws of the country, they don't even need to be labeled, right? So that can literally hide under ingredients in a label. So for example, if a yogurt already has something labeled a strawberry, sometimes if the chemicals that make up the additional strawberry flavor that go inside it can hide under that label because the chemicals that are naturally found in strawberry, for example. And those laws, those labeling laws differ across different countries, for example.

Ryan · 36:06

But anyway, it's someone's job to make sure to come up with those various flavor expressions and to keep it consistent over time. And that is very much seen as protected intellectual property because you cannot patent a food recipe. I think it's considered a trade secret. And the other interesting, really interesting thing is 1 The the formulation for those different flavors are kept incredibly secret by the flavor houses. And in fact, they're so secret that the companies that buy them, all the big food and beverage companies, they don't actually know what's in that flavor because it's a trade secret by the flavor house.

Ryan · 36:41

And then what they end up doing is they end up blending multiple flavors for multiple flavor houses to create a proprietary recipe so that the flavor houses don't even know what's in the final product. So it's a blend of a blend.

Ryan · 36:53

And it's very important for IP, for IP protection in the food and beverage industry. And what's going on in Matcha is not quite like that. Like, I don't know, you're working with just a handful of cultivars and like, yes, there's some seasonal variation, etcetera, etcetera.

Ryan · 37:09

But for the most part, these are not suppliers of suppliers, right? They're the final brand owners. And why it's kept so secret, it's just a bit of a mystery to me. Yeah, well, I wish. I can learn more about them, but you know, it's so hard to get in touch with anyone within that community.

Ryan · 37:27

But it's such a more pure. Thing, right, when you're adding flavors to food, you know, it's not that interesting. Just the average strawberry yogurt consumer care, like all of the like the complexities that went into driving that what's going on in that flavor. But in the world of matcha or specialty matcha, like there's a lot of probably so many interesting stories to be told around how and why these various blended products exist and the art that's going on by that blender and to keep them that way.

Zongjun · 37:58

Yeah, totally agree. And there's probably a lot of history behind it too. Like how do they exist in the 1st place And you know, how did this culture of secret teaching and the forming, I think that's that that will be something very interesting to, to discover even more.

Ryan · 38:16

Context to appreciate something. Yeah, yeah. And they don't even need to like. Spill all the beans, so to speak, right? They could like, just hint at it, right? It might actually generate more hype if they're a little vague in their stories. I'm surprised that they're.

Ryan · 38:35

Not doing this because it could be some really powerful marketing to get people to appreciate these products more. I mean the complaint is right. Is it like all of these quote UN quote macho gurlies on TikTok are buying up all these quote UN quote expensive and they're not that expensive cans of Marukyu Koyamaen and Yamamasa Koyamaen man, like all of these like old school blend houses and mixing them with milk.

Ryan · 38:58

They couldn't get the context to appreciate those products if they tried. I don't have the to appreciate those products beyond surely enjoying the taste. There's you can't get anything from them. And the Chanoyu people who are complaining that they don't have them for tea ceremony, they're not sitting around enjoying them across those vectors either. They're enjoying it within this broader set and setting that is Chanoyu, right?

Zongjun · 39:23

That has doesn't really have that much to do with the product other than the arbitrary poetic name that that product was given. Yeah. You know, from a different angle, you can also view it in a very damned way, you know, like are these contacts by the end of the day just distraction of you really just enjoy the sheer, you know, enjoyment of that tea. It's it's also a different aspect. I would say, you know, you kind of see that, you know, appreciating art or artist creating art or even in some other, you know, tea.

Zongjun · 40:00

Tea branding too. You know, you have White2Tea, you know making specializing in Chinese tea and they are intentionally hiding all the information about the tea. But just, you know, present you the the tea itself want you to enjoy it and you know they are delicious and you you end up focusing on the taste rather than the other information.

Ryan · 40:21

The reality is, though, is this. Can only exist in a high trust environment. That's number one. But the other problem #2 is that people have different preferences. It's so this might work in like the pu-erh crazy people who have very convergent preferences, but where their divergent preferences, especially on a global stage that we're talking about consumers as diverse as Thailand or Saudi Arabia or Mexico, like people's might have very different preferences. And without clearly labeled objective attributes, they are not able to draw a straight line between what they're tasting, what they like and what where to

Zongjun · 41:05

find that. Yeah, I I agree. And they are also facing a much more mature consumer community with which a lot of them already have the formative experience of all these kind of teas and they can make their own judgements or assessment of the product. I do agree.

Ryan · 41:22

And this is what the the matcha specialty matcha movement is lacking right now is you know that availability of, you know having more people have the formative experience of such which there is no universal. Beauty, there is no universal beauty and matcha It's, you know, we, we all might converge on very different things that we like.

Zongjun · 41:47

Yeah. Yeah. And you? Know this really doesn't contradict the traditional way of presenting matcha. All these, you know, traditional, traditional houses can still have their product, you know, sitting in a very mysterious box with a poetic name.

Zongjun · 42:02

And it might be actually more fun for people, for more people having the formative experience, having the context to appreciate a matcha, to revisit all these traditional products. And they might learn something new, or they might discover something new. You know, in the past it was just a, you know, mysterious can of deliciousness.

Ryan · 42:24

Now that I can actually taste the Asahi or I can taste the Gokou in the can. Absolutely. Totally agree. Going back and forth is a really interesting exercise and I bring on new lenses, new perspectives, new context to appreciate what was once a mystery, but can be less of a mystery because we have some ground truth references and, you know, appreciate it through a specialty lens and then go back the other direction.

Ryan · 42:52

I I totally agree. And as you accumulate more and more tasting experiences, you can start to understand, like, oh, I understand why this is crafted in this way, right? Like, I don't know, some samidori matchas I find extremely boring. And we were doing some very basic blending experiments. I was like, after tasting so much samidori during our testing, I was like, wow, I'm starting to understand why people blend.

Zongjun · 43:20

This is, like, really one-dimensional in kind of a boring way. Like, how can I start adding depth to this thing? Yeah, Yeah. And you only come to this judgement because you had the formative experience. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ryan · 43:38

Well, I think that's a great place to end. So context to appreciate super important, surprisingly very complex topic as people move through their consumer journey. Yeah, yeah. And it's fun and it's fun, right? That's what's.

Ryan · 43:51

Important. And we can all have different sets of context to appreciate something. I mean, that's the beauty on this, right? Like, there's just so many different ways you can slice this, and the fact that it's becoming more and more available and in a democratized way where it's not just preserved for a certain group of people is super exciting.

Zongjun · 44:08

So, you know, it's a very optimistic future from that perspective. Yeah, you're together. We are. Actually building a new culture and within this new culture we now we can detect what is know of our own preference by ourselves.

Ryan · 44:23

Yes, we can make our own judgments. And quality distinctions, which is a great place to be. All right. Well, thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it with a friend and we'll see you in the next one.

Zongjun · 44:36

See you in the future. Thanks.