Interview with Abby the Matcha Scientist

Ryan · 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan. This is Zongjun Li, who also goes by Sam. Hello, hello. And we're the co-founders of Sanko Matcha products. Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey, Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts.

Ryan · 0:14

And today we have Abby from Abby the Matcha scientist joining us. Welcome, Abby. Hi, thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited to join you and I love this podcast. Thanks so much. Thank you. We really enjoy your content and I think your short form is like really refreshing for us to hear because a lot of your content one has gone viral.

Ryan · 0:34

So congratulations. Thank you. And and it like really like spreading really important messages around marketing or mislabeling. I think we could fairly characterize it, but also just like basic science and showing like the visuals that show against that. So we'd love to learn more about your background as a scientist and how you got into Matcha.

Abby · 0:54

Yeah, definitely. So I am a chemical engineer. That's what I studied in undergraduate studies. And then I came to the West Coast, to California, and I did my PhD at Stanford in chemical engineering as well. But most of my research I'd say, was in the intersection of like chemistry and biology. I did drug delivery.

Abby · 1:12

So I sort of bridged this area between like formulating things with my hands and also doing like animal studies with cancer and things like that and health related things. So I'd say I'm pretty diverse, scientific interests.

Abby · 1:26

And during grad school I was really lucky to actually intern at Impossible Foods. So I got a little bit of exposure to food science there and kind of what matters, like oxidation and things like that. And so after I finished at Stanford, I went on, and now I work in biotech at a pharmaceutical company developing mostly cancer drugs, but all sorts of drugs for different indications.

Abby · 1:49

I'd say I'm very passionate about health. You know, I pay attention to a lot of my own health choices. Yeah. And so I'd say towards the end of my PhD, when I was at Stanford a few years ago, we took a trip to Japan. And that was really my first exposure to like, proper matcha. I didn't really know too much about it before then. You know, I was getting like the matcha smoothie at Jamba Juice and things like that.

Abby · 2:11

Before then, I'm not really like what I'd say I drink now at all. My going to Japan just really opened my eyes up to like, what matcha can be. We went to a tea ceremony. I'd say that changed everything. When I came home, I started drinking a lot more matcha from cafes, eventually started making it at home. And yeah, that was kind of my my intro into Matcha and how how I got here.

Ryan · 2:33

Very cool. Chemical engineering. I was a chemistry undergrad but I always had a lot of admiration for the chemi people because I feel like you had to take like 10 times more math and physics and like it was more application based. I was like, oh wow, I wish I had the brain for that, but I never did.

Abby · 2:49

I'd say my heart probably lies more in chemistry and biology, but I I think the applications with math enable a lot of things and jobs and opportunities. So that's kind of why I went the path I went. Yeah, cool. You have the crossover and food too, and product development, like a lot of cool stuff going on in that space.

Zongjun · 3:07

Pretty cool. So what was the impetus for starting Like the Channel? Yeah, so as I got more into matcha and was, you know, after this trip to Japan, sort of drinking at home, I'd say I first embraced it really for its, its taste and its beauty and its health, all of those reasons. But then I started asking myself questions related to the science, like, what's the best way to make this? How does temperature affect it?

Abby · 3:32

Why are some matches so much more expensive than other? Why does certain matches taste really nutty? Other ones taste really earthy. And so I started asking myself those questions and I started doing actually my own research to answer those questions myself.

Abby · 3:48

I definitely found that, you know, just like general social media content, there's a lot of people who focus more on visuals and, you know, making cool drinks. And then there's a lot of brands that, you know, put out some basic educational content, but they're really focused on their their marketing materials. And so I couldn't really find what I was asking myself, you know, these kind of basic scientific questions. I'm from the point of view of someone who's buying the matcha. And so then one day, kind of impulsively, I'd say, like, I was like, why am I doing all this research? Just for me?

Abby · 4:19

I should be like, sharing this to people who have these questions like me. And really my goal is to empower the consumer so that, you know, they feel educated when they're buying matcha. Lovely. Get rid of this like black box of like hundreds of matches available. Like which one should I buy?

Zongjun · 4:36

Yeah. Interesting. Actually what, what was your experience researching all of these topics? Because we, we kind of been doing a lot of these research as well. And frequently you know, a lot of the information are just not available in like English. No, definitely.

Abby · 4:50

There's a huge, huge lack of scientific content available. And so it is a challenge to do research. You know, I was looking on on Google Scholar and there's literally 1000 times more entries on Google Scholar about coffee than matcha. And there's about 100 times more Google Scholar entries about green tea than specifically matcha. Yeah.

Abby · 5:15

And so there's really a lack of academic study, like, you know, peer reviewed study on matcha. There's not a lot out there. And so primarily, you know, I have to really scan the Internet from brands using different AI tools to find real educational content to share. And obviously things like even this podcast, you share a lot of great information.

Abby · 5:38

I really loved your episode about the different grinding techniques and going deeper into the science there. So definitely, it is a challenge to find very legitimate content to share. And so I have to do a lot of digging. Yeah, it's a lot of digging.

Ryan · 5:52

And I found too, like I'm deep down a rabbit hole around like, what actually is Uji matcha, which will eventually it will but definitely be the most researched thing that we ever put out because it is such a complicated story and like there are contradictions everywhere. And then I'm wondering, OK, why are half the people on the Internet saying this?

Ryan · 6:11

Why are the other half saying this? And then like you have to go deep down these rabbit holes. And I actually think the new AI tools are really good at understanding like the intent of a question just for research. OK, I sort of trust summaries. I don't trust it for like blind answers, but like just as a more sophisticated search engine I've had a lot of success. Totally.

Ryan · 6:31

I'm leading you to sources too, I think giving you like 10 different things that maybe contradict each other, but at least you have the 10 and you can kind of self bring them together, yeah. Kind of amazing because even like 5-10 years ago, like the translation tool sucked.

Ryan · 6:48

It would be way more difficult to just run through like a 20 page PDF. But like now in the last two years, it's kind of a great time to be on the edge of knowledge, researching this stuff. No, definitely. It definitely accelerates how quickly I can put together a video, you know, because you don't have to spend all that time like self self finding all the sources.

Zongjun · 7:08

You've done a lot of recent posts about using the colorimetry. I am aware that colorimetry exists. I'm aware that measuring color is a pretty well understood science as compared to something like sensory science where, you know, there's lots of problems with different sensory methods. You basically always have to make a compromise. But from what I understand, colorimetry, you can basically objectively measure color color.

Abby · 7:32

So if you could talk a little bit about that and then how it works and then what you've found based on using this method. So when I first started thinking about my channel, one of the initial ideas I had, I was like, what science can I do?

Abby · 7:45

You know, what can I easily do at home on a minimal budget? You know, I'm not earning any money with this. It's really purely for fun. And the first kind of idea I came across was colorimetry. It's something you can just order a colorimeter on Amazon. It's an extremely, like you said, objective measurement. You know, it's pretty easy to do. There's not a lot of mess involved. And so, yeah, I ordered this.

Abby · 8:13

Let's see this Nix colorimeter. So it's literally this little machine. I mean, it is expensive, but I've gotten a lot of use out of it. And so literally what I do is I take about like 1/8 of a teaspoon of this. Just a little scoop of matcha.

Abby · 8:28

I'll put it on a white mat background. I'll take a spatula and basically pat it into his flat of a film as I can such that there's like really, it's really no cracks or view of any white underneath. You want just like a packed film, I'll very gently place this on top such that there's no cracks like in this in these grooves. And then I'll use my phone and take a measurement. And I try to do this in a dark room. And so yeah, this is definitely something I've I've leaned into as a feasible thing to do at home with science and I'm definitely trying to find other measurements I can do at home to help people understand matcha

Ryan · 9:07

and put date out there. Cool. Have you tried over your like elongated period like when you have like a can of matcha open from day-to-day to day? So like what's the longest period from like can first open to some date? Like, was there a significant change in the color? So I'm working on that now.

Abby · 9:24

I don't have a full set of measurements yet. Typically I just have measured open within a few days and I take the measurement. But it's something I'm doing right as we speak, is trying to take a time course to see if we can actually quantify over time what it's looking like.

Abby · 9:40

And I'm also looking at the different storage methods, like keeping one out in the day, sunlight in the room, 1 packaged away, one in the freezer. So I'm going to making those like temporally right now to see what what happens to the color.

Abby · 9:55

Love it. It also could also be interesting to take different measurements for different cultivars because different cultivars have different pigments and chlorophyll content so. Yeah, that's where I focused on, I'd say blends people are familiar with just to stay relevant.

Abby · 10:08

You know, people have certain matches they really love and so those seem to appeal. But definitely as I move forward, I'm going to start region cultivar, breaking it apart more and more. It is interesting. I've noticed the Yame are definitely less green than the Uji matcha's. They sort of, it sort of makes sense because they're roasted differently or and so they just go through a little bit of a different processing technique.

Ryan · 10:32

And so it makes sense they're a little darker than maybe the Uji. Yeah, grinding method plays an impact too, because something we've noticed in our own grinding experiments. So the finer you go, the brighter it gets. It makes sense.

Abby · 10:46

There's a few different things going into this. It makes sense why the most I've consistently seen that the most expensive matchas are the most green. The trend is definitely there. So I think that should hope, hopefully help give consumers some confidence that if they are spending more, it's pretty likely it is a better quality.

Ryan · 11:04

There's not a lot of deviation from that. Yeah, for sure, for sure be cool to do a humidity experiment too, because like we've been interacting with so much tencha and like a relative, we're developing machine and like Shenzhen, Guangzhou area just like super humid and like if we leave a you like don't properly seal a bag of tencha, it's like almost soft. It's like shocking.

Abby · 11:27

Yeah. I mean, I definitely notice over time just from consuming matcha that like the more time you've used a tin, you see more and more little like clusters forming the, you know, the humidity is bringing them into like little pebbles basically. Yeah.

Abby · 11:41

What would that be? Is there would be like some like hydrogen bonding going on? So like it sucks in the water and then those form and that's why it gets sticky. Yeah, I think, I mean, matcha's, I guess, #1A very hydrophobic, so it's super prone to clumping, and then when some get some water it, it wants to basically eat it and form like a self conglomerate basically. So yeah, there's a lot of different physical interactions going on with matcha.

Abby · 12:07

Yeah, I wonder if moisture, too, effects packing efficiency. So I was talking with one of my friends who's in food engineering. He kept using term packing efficiency. I was thinking, I never thought about it that way and how like I bet even like a like a 1 micron lower like from 5 to 4, like you can really affect that.

Ryan · 12:25

I don't know at what point that starts getting like a really clumpy from a packing efficiency perspective. One thing you do notice is that all these facilities have AC just blast on, you know, 21st century. Yeah, matcha is very delicate, and I think that's what makes it so fun, is that there's all these different parameters to understand about what's making it degrade.

Abby · 12:49

There's a million different ways that it degrades, and so there's a lot of different ways to understand it and improve upon it. And yeah. Yeah, wow. I bet there were. There are like a lot of shocking similarities between matcha and like pharmaceutical, like all these drug powders. Like do you find that like. Definitely, you know, I think my experience in lab, you know, measuring little amounts and being precise and, you know, having patience and rerunning experiments, I think all of that is direct translation to, you know, running home experiments with little bits of matcha powder and things like that. So there's a lot of lab skills.

Abby · 13:29

And then just general science skills as well, just the scientific method and being able to parse a lot of information on the Internet into something that I believe is, you know, scientifically credible. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be really cool if you take like a fresh can of matcha, open it, let it sit for a day and weigh it before and after.

Abby · 13:47

I would love to know how much water. These are awesome ideas. Yeah, we don't have access to a scale like that, but I'm sure you do. No, I have a decent scale. I'd say as I get more momentum on my channel, I am starting to invest a little bit more and more to improve all my tools. That's awesome.

Ryan · 14:04

I read through a lot of your comment sections from your videos, but like, what's your take on the online discourse and like the way this goes and like the, the way people approach these dialogues. It's interesting to read through, like especially your videos because they're educational content. Actually, I'd say like, I don't know, it feels like over 50% are like pretty constructive, which is, it's an interesting space to read through actually.

Abby · 14:29

No, yeah, I was honestly blown away by the amount of enthusiasm I got when I started. You know, I get tons of direct messages with random questions about when people be saying like, I'm so glad there's a matcha scientist like, and a lot of people have questions about what matcha to buy.

Abby · 14:47

I'd say that's the number one thing is overwhelmed with choices and not sure where to start. But overall, I've been amazed by the amount of enthusiasm. I'd say in terms of online, I think there's definitely different communities and demographics of people who are interested in matcha. There's people who are probably more interested in the aesthetics and the brands and things like that. There's kind of the tea specialists who know a ton about tea.

Abby · 15:14

Definitely I'm, I'd say I'm a scientist learning about matcha, but there's tons of people who have lived in Japan and studied the technique and know all of the kind of culture around it. So there's kind of that community and there's also kind of a community really focused really on wellness, people drinking matcha for the health benefits.

Abby · 15:34

And so I try to design my content to appeal to all of them. Some of them speaks to different, you know, groups more than another. I really think just focusing on education can bring them together. But overall, yeah, I think the response to my videos are super supportive, constructive, and people are really respectful. You know, sometimes I'll get a comment saying like, you're not making matcha the right way or, you know, you're not saying the Japanese terms correctly. How dare you.

Abby · 16:01

And honestly, I really do my best to do things correctly and honor the tradition. And so I think people need to have grace for each other that, you know, we're all trying to share the celebration of matcha and just be happy.

Ryan · 16:15

I think a scientist learning matcha is like the best way to put it, like because you know, like we're all learning matcha every day. Yeah, I mean, I've learned so much through doing these videos. Like I said, the inspiration was just I had questions and I wanted to answer them.

Abby · 16:30

And so still I don't know all the answers to my videos. You know, all of my future videos, I'm going to have a question and then keep answering the questions. So yeah. Yeah, I love that it's non commercial too, because it's one, it's curiosity driven, like very obviously curiosity driven.

Ryan · 16:44

And like you bring a very clear and objective point of view like because a lot of, including our own content, right. Like if you're connected to this economically some way like we are or some of the brands doing basically content marketing, but you always have to like question the perspective.

Ryan · 17:01

So it's really refreshing to see that and someone like also just like directly pointing out people, like ceremonial grade doesn't mean anything. The best of the content that's probably resonated the most is just different marketing terms, understanding what's legitimate and what's not.

Abby · 17:19

I think people really need that and want that. That's been clear from my content. Did you get any pushback on that on your ceremonial grade content? I'd say there's some people who are like, of course it's their right to do marketing tactics.

Abby · 17:32

And I agree. I'm just pointing it out, you know what I mean? I think some people take it as, you know, maybe anti capitalism or something like that. And I'm not bashing capitalism at all. I'm just pointing it out so that the consumer's aware that it really doesn't mean anything scientific.

Ryan · 17:49

Yeah. OK, interesting. Actually, I'm surprised you didn't get more pushback on that term because it's so many people use it. And what's interesting is like the matcha founders that we talked to, like some people know, like, yeah, we know it's not good, but we kind of have to.

Ryan · 18:05

So it's like the other side of capitalistic too. Almost like if you don't put it on your tin, someone might not buy it because it's not marked ceremonial grade at this point. So it's a it's a tough like Gray area to navigate.

Ryan · 18:17

If you have a matcha brand, probably. Yeah, and also realistically you do, you know by the end of the day need a system to kind of indicate quality. So like what wish you people do? No, definitely it's you're, you're in a tough space and it's it's tricky.

Abby · 18:31

I'd say there's, they try to mark it as like ceremonial grade, premium and then maybe culinary grade. But there's even in when I was creating this kind of matcha greenness list, there's not many just premium matchas, matchas that don't identify as ceremonial and don't identify as culinary. It's pretty binary.

Abby · 18:49

There's not many people in between. I might say. Some of the Japanese brands blatantly say, you know, this is more meant for usucha, it's not meant for koicha, and it's not culinary. But by far the most are marking themselves as ceremonial.

Ryan · 19:03

Yeah, makes sense. What do you see some of the biggest problems right now in the matcha world? Because across the vendors, across your audience, across like this whole landscape as you see it, maybe other than the storage, which is well documented.

Abby · 19:16

No, totally. I think there's a few. I think the first is Westerners have sort of this black box barrier to understanding matcha. Like like I said, I I didn't know where to start when I was interested in matcha, You know, I bought like a matcha latte mix, not knowing it was any different from matcha. You know, even since I've started this channel, my dad texted me like, how do I order this? You know, he, he wants to be supportive. He's like, how do I make this?

Abby · 19:45

Where do I start? You know, I think a lot of Americans grew up with coffee and just have no clue where to start. So it's sort of this enigma barrier to entry. You know, a lot of it is labeled in Japanese. We don't know how to even get going. I get so many messages on Instagram of people asking me like, what matcha should I buy from my cafe? They're, you know, they're just lost in this, in this category. And so I think that's.

Abby · 20:09

It's one. It's just not even knowing how to enter is a problem. I think another big problem is transparency from brands. You know, so many brands put out these blends and tell us nothing about them. I think I would love to know like you were saying, like can we measure cultivars, Can we say what region it's even from and more specifics. And I think by brands revealing this information, it would actually lead to more enthusiasm, not less and more interest in their product.

Abby · 20:41

Because it's hard for me to say anything about a certain blend if I know nothing about it, right? It's just labeled with a, with a name. And so a lot more transparency there, but also transparency with health related and ingredient related things.

Abby · 20:54

Very few matchas actually reveal their their caffeine content, you know, L-theanine content. I would love if more of them measured for heavy metals. You know, I, I did a video on getting my own blood tested for lead and heavy metals and you know, I was clean. But those tests, even the smallest amount of heavy metals is actually dangerous and bad, you know, even if a test can't pick it up.

Abby · 21:20

And I definitely think for like women who might want to have kids, like no one wants to be drinking heavy metals and caffeine levels are super important for that too. And so I wish there was more transparency on the ingredients.

Abby · 21:33

And that's definitely something I'm interested in just potentially actually testing in the future is like getting a whole slew of popular matcha measured. Yeah. The problem is that's very expensive. So Lead Safe Mama has some initiatives to measure different matchas for heavy metals.

Abby · 21:50

She's found a handful that have higher than I'd like amounts of heavy metals in them, which is a little concerning. So yeah, I definitely think from that front, brands could could be more transparent. Yeah, I think it was James Hoffmann, the famous coffee influencer.

Ryan · 22:05

It was either him or Michael Pollan or something. Someone in the coffee food world or food world said that caffeine is like the most widely consumed drug where we have no idea what the dosage is. Caffeine, it's measured even like where like marijuana is legal, like it's measured, but caffeine, like we have no idea. And I know that the variance is huge and matcha. Exactly.

Abby · 22:26

I guess number one is there's a baseline variance in caffeine and then in matcha then we have no idea. And so I have people asking me, am I safe to have six cups of matcha per day? And so, you know, I don't know how to respond. I mean, maybe they're drinking bancha that's way lower in caffeine.

Abby · 22:44

You know, like who really knows? It sounds probably, probably not safe like I recommend like 3 or less, but it's tough to answer that when there's not transparency from the brands and you don't know what you're consuming.

Abby · 22:58

So I, I think that's a major one for me is just add things to the label, do the measurements. You know, supplements are like omega-3 fatty acid supplements have to publish a lot of their like mercury levels and things like that and oxidation levels and like, it's matcha. If people are drinking it every day, we should be confident that it's safe.

Abby · 23:20

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I think one other problem just relating back to really the whole mission to my channel is, you know, a lack of scientific studies. I think that's a last one is just there's so much more research on coffee and green tea. Like I mentioned, like 1000 times more on coffee, like 100 times more on green tea.

Ryan · 23:40

And so some really clean clinical trials looking at the health effects would be amazing. As I mentioned, a deeper dive into what it's actually made of would be amazing. And so I think that's a major problem as well. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. A little bit hard to get, you know, this kind of research funded in the non biased way nowadays because we have been running into some research that, you know, properly published, you know, peer review paper.

Ryan · 24:09

But you can definitely see, you know, like it has a bias, you know, towards a certain way, especially some of the Japanese language publication, you know, it's sometimes funded by, you know, a large larger Corp into, you know, doing some sort of research. Yeah, definitely.

Ryan · 24:25

I mean, if you look at like the, the skin care industry, you know, certain brands like I really like a brand called SkinCeuticals, you know, they run their own trials on their products to like, you know, prove that they work.

Ryan · 24:38

And so I'd love a matcha brand, I guess, that got big enough to run its own health trials. Like prove efficacy and then the burden of proof shifts like on the manufacturer. Because it would be huge if there was data out there that showed having matcha every day can lower your cholesterol, things like that. It likely does, but there's no data out there proving the numbers or the amount that it actually could. Yeah, or having fresh ground matcha is healthier. And there's our corporate interest. But actually, we truly believe it because like it kind of makes sense.

Abby · 25:11

It's such a extreme surface area to volume ratio and what's already a very delicate product. No, Yeah, I wish I could have one of your machines at my house. We'll eventually make a consumer version, but might take some time. The motor just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger as like we wanted to get the right efficiency and the right particles.

Zongjun · 25:28

The motor itself is very heavy. It has enough torque to drag like a small like Toyota Prius. Only not very fast, but. That's a fun, fun fact to share. So I haven't kind of a fun question. If you could design any experiment in any field, like the chemistry side, the agricultural side, nutrition, I'm within matcha, how would you set up that experiment if resources were not a constraint?

Abby · 25:52

There's so many. I would do, I guess from the, from the chemistry side, I, I think the number one would be, you know, let's take a slew of matchas and look at the different variations in caffeine and L theanine and lead and all those components like a lot of like LCMS, put it through a column. Look what it's actually made of would be probably the first experiment I'd run.

Abby · 26:17

I'd say second priority on my list is some very controlled human trials like how, how does drinking matcha affect cholesterol? You know, how is it suppressing appetite? You know, that's another one is drinking matcha and all these antioxidants could lead to weight loss. So I mean, there's no, there's no data on that. I think I'd be also interested in brain effects, some trials on that.

Abby · 26:42

I think in another sphere, another experiment that I think would be really cool is just have a huge number of people consume matcha, like a set of matcha samples, reveal how they perceive the taste and then reveal how much they like it and just see that, that variance. Because I, I do think like there's a world where, you know, you could design like personalized blends based off of like what people, what people say about their, their sensory feedback.

Zongjun · 27:09

Yeah. But as we said, that's, that's really challenging because it's so subjective and someone might give a different answer day-to-day of what they taste. So that that's, that is hard. I'd love to use your machine and look at different particle sizes and just look at how it sediments. You know, there's potential to design like, you know, ready made drinks if we had particles that didn't sediment as easily and you know, how does that affect mouth feel? At some point it probably becomes gummy and like there might is there a sweet spot where it doesn't sediment but it still feels OK in the mouth

Abby · 27:44

Is a is a question I've had too. That's. Interesting, and it'd be really cool to know too. For especially for a latte, I think that the five microns might be overkill because you increase the viscosity. I think the suspension can, you know, those particles can dance around way longer and maybe just everywhere milling way too fine or unnecessarily fine or not, I don't know, but it'd be cool to do too. Yeah, I guess from my experience, I guess I consistently see things sediment and so that's why I wish I was just wish I knew the particle size, you know, if you're aware of a matcha that's on the lower

Zongjun · 28:18

end of particle sizes, it would be fun to experiment with. That's interesting. I know we were aware that some of the really mass produced matcha, some of the grade distinctions are actually how long it was went through a ball mill. It's like milling was is driving that different quality distinction.

Abby · 28:38

Just super weird. That effects like the shape and the size, right? And how big are you aware of like the biggest end of the milling numbers? Like how? How big? Beyond 20 I think 2020. Larger than 20. So actually for some of the even traditional methods, most of the commercial usu nowadays in Japan have a diameter of about you know they call it the Japanese 1 foot.

Abby · 29:05

So it's about like 30 ish like centimeter. But traditionally they use like way larger, usu, they call it like 2 food, sometimes 5 food and they get the matcha sometimes so fine that as you said, it starts to come up and it's actually not a good indicator of quality and they kind of abandoned that size nowadays.

Ryan · 29:26

I think that would be a really interesting experiment. Is just have different particle size matchas. Look at how they set them in and how they affect mouth feel and you know, it's a distribution. So I'm also interested to just know how messy is the distribution even even within that? And you know, how do these different grinding techniques lead to different distributions probably as well. Oh yeah, Just like how the coffee people talk about that and they're like bird geometries and whatever different distribution.

Zongjun · 29:53

Actually, we can share some after the call because we, we measured distributions from a mill and from ishi-usu. What's really weird is you have a little hump around 1 Micron. So there's some really interesting things. I, I don't know what it is, Our food engineering friend had a hypothesis that when you mill that fine, there's if I think it was within the context of like soy protein or something, you can do dry fractions and separate the different fractions from each other and some are more protein heavy, some are more whatever heavy. And he was suspecting that maybe there's some components that are coming.

Ryan · 30:27

I don't know what they are. Really cool to know that part too. But in coffee too, right, you you like, you always get like what they call the the ultra fine, right? Like in coffee. Yeah, ultra fines and boulders, which you don't want typically for those and typically I I think it depends too and if it's espresso or if it's pour over the grind size distribution that you want. ZK 43 got very famous for having a pretty narrow spiky, you know, unimodal distribution.

Ryan · 30:56

And it has something to do with like the compact efficiency of an espresso puck in the way those because you're putting like, what is it 9 bar through that bed of coffee and you can't get it to channel and like you have to get it to extract evenly to a couple talks on this like espresso physics.

Ryan · 31:11

It's fascinating. Like if you read into that world, it is so much more complicated than making matcha. But I wonder how it even effects extraction too, because if you have different grind size distributions of matcha particles, maybe you get different extraction.

Zongjun · 31:26

Probably. I mean, it's all about surface area, right? So like having different sizes, I'm sure you extract it. You probably get way more when there's more surface area to volume, yeah. But according to like people we talked to in Japan that, you know, you actually want, you know, matcha have different sizes in the middle, you don't want it to be very homogeneous in, you know, 1, you know, particle size.

Abby · 31:50

Because I push back there and say, what's the scientific evidence on that? Yeah, yeah, it's we don't know. And according to them. You know, that's part of the challenges we're talking about is there's a lot of sort of hearsay around matcha. This is the right way to do it.

Ryan · 32:10

A lot of tradition which we should all respect, but also there should be some acceptance, questioning it and, you know, getting the data. Well, in the context that we learned that it would have been absolutely inappropriate for us to say, like, can you point us in the right direction, please?

Ryan · 32:24

Like, can you could we prove this? It's actually really hampers our ability to learn because even like in our learning journey and like in the podcast, we have to preface it with we heard or someone told us. And like in a lot of the context, it is just either culturally or situationally, we just can't dig deeper.

Ryan · 32:43

And then like that opportunity goes and it's, it really slows down learning. And I can't imagine what it's like being a Japanese person stuck in the sphere because we're, we're coming in from the outside looking in. But imagine being in the system and like, you know, there's all these formalities around talking with people older than you or people who have won these awards.

Ryan · 33:02

Like it's not culturally acceptable to question how do you know this and why can you prove it? But like in the West, that's like totally a fine thing to ask. Yeah, I think, I think that's a major challenge is there's this delicate balance of respecting culture, tradition, honoring it, not breaking norms, but also pushing innovation, asking questions, taking data.

Abby · 33:27

And so I think that's like a a fine balance to navigate. At least it's heading in the right direction though. Yeah because even apparently like 5-10 years ago no one even wanted to give cultivars. Like why do you want who know the cultivar? Like who cares?

Abby · 33:39

No consumers care. Like that's like apparently where the conversation was at and now it's like very obvious. Like people care. Not only people care. They're shelling out tons of money for the single cultivar products. They're worth more on their own than they are blended, which is probably unthinkable.

Abby · 33:55

You know, knowing the cultivar, knowing the region allows us to have a better, deeper understanding, to calibrate our own palette of, you know, what tastes like what? And I think ultimately, being more transparent would garner more interest rather than than hurting it.

Ryan · 34:10

Yeah. Well, traditionally the knowledge was monopolized by all these tashes like tea blenders. You know, by showing this to regular consumers you basically are breaking this authority discourse challenging for them too. It's so interesting because the question about science ends up turning into something much more cultural very quickly about the way this information spreads, and political and political. Yeah, totally.

Abby · 34:35

I get a lot of questions. You know, I've done some videos on the history of matcha, some videos on the the shortage, and it's all related to the science. You know, it's like, why don't you have these answers? Part of it is is cultural.

Zongjun · 34:46

Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting. And it's interesting too as like new cultures enter like this sphere trying to source or learn about matcha. We can get some messages occasionally and it is so transactional and they're trying to source and they think that we sell matcha. I have to tell them that we don't. And then they respond pretty aggressively because I'm probably the only person who responded to them because like, all the Japanese tea farmers are like inundated. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, like there's some cultural sensitivity that needs to be learned. And like, a Japanese tea farmer

Zongjun · 35:18

is never going to respond to the way that you wrote this e-mail. But I can't say that. But it's interesting. These people mix. It's a very delicate balance of, you know, between cultures and yeah. Yeah, required, especially in Japan.

Zongjun · 35:32

Like there's so much sensitivity, which is both great and like, horrible at the same time. Like, very frustrating, but it's just a constraint. But I think it's heading in the right direction. You know with time things will uncover.

Zongjun · 35:44

Yeah, and all the different projects, like even like Obubu tea farms, like they've had what, 150 interns from like every country of the world? Like now there's 150 people you can ask in English, like what was it like farming tea and Wazuka And like they know farmers.

Abby · 35:59

Like that's so cool that alumni network, like that's also stuff that didn't exist and like like things like this, which is just awesome to see. Oh yeah, I'd love to do that. It sounds, it sounds so cool. And get the inside scoop.

Ryan · 36:10

Absolutely. So I have a question about your content creation process. You are very short form. I think that's exclusively what you do pretty much. How do you get it in a reasonable like timelines? I've tried to make some scripts for short term content.

Abby · 36:26

I was like, I can't do it. Like I my brain does not work that way. It's just why we're podcasters, I'm pretty sure. It's slightly forced because of my my life constraints, because you know, I work full time, I'm pretty busy and so short form is something I can kind of manage to get out almost daily. And so really all I keep an idea list like in my phone and on my computer.

Abby · 36:49

So really whenever like a question pops into my brain or I come across something, I write down the idea bucket the ideas into like kind of different categories. I'd say, you know, how how viral they could be based off of what I know from previous videos. So that's kind of the idea generation. And then, you know, typically I film these when I get home from work in the afternoon.

Abby · 37:11

And so I'll take the idea, say I want this to be like about 30 seconds to a minute long. That's my normal length. And then typically I break it up into like 5 to 10 statements. I'm like what 5 to 10 statements can encapsulate this idea and give the message I want to give. And so then I work hard on those 5 to 10 statements basically like still it into, you know, what is relatable, you know, what is conveying the educational content kind of mixed in so that people don't need to realize they're they're learning.

Abby · 37:41

And so really trying to narrow down like what 5 to 10 things, can I say? And then the filming is honestly usually quick for me is, you know, makes the matcha, you know, tell my story and film it. And, you know, then I'll take a few takes of the the different parts.

Abby · 37:58

Yeah, I think then and then I'll stitch together the the kind of 10 different blocks, try to add graphics or videos that, you know, supplement what I'm saying, try to make the really the 1st 5 seconds or I focus on a lot in the editing, trying to make it as appealing as possible so that people don't, don't scroll past. And yeah, that's really my process is just kind of focusing on getting like a few key messages, lumping it into 30 seconds to a minute and yeah, that's all. Sounds easy.

Abby · 38:30

It's not. Definitely I've been trying to mix in like more home experiment type, you know, whisking demos or, you know, I did the one like where I basically like ultra boiled water and like show the differences. See those take a little more time for me because I don't have any training in video or, you know, crafting graphic design.

Abby · 38:52

And so definitely I'm a little slower at making things look nice if I'm focusing on that compared to just videos where I'm talking. But yeah, it's it's pretty fun and I kind of like the short form because I can just kind of get it done in really one day. I won't do it all at once, but it's sort of like a one day project and on to the next.

Abby · 39:11

And definitely as I've started, I want to experiment with what resonates with people. So putting out more short content allows me just to see, you know, what do people like? What do people not like? And you know, what's what's hitting or not. And so hopefully in the in the future, I can expand and do more long form on, you know, the things that I get a lot of great feedback from love.

Abby · 39:30

It and I love the consumer like centricity too, science perspective, curiosity driven and then like really just helping making people make better decisions and choices and. Yeah, I mean, that's the goal is, you know, for me, I felt like I had a lot of questions that just weren't being answered through the current offerings on social media. So I kind of wanted to be that person that's scientific, but still fun.

Ryan · 39:52

Awesome, it's working. It's. Really captured the attention of a lot of people. Yeah, I've been surprised by the reception. It's it's been awesome. Yeah, we were excited to see us like, oh wow, finally someone started to watch a science account. That was my first thought sort of this. One last question to wrap up.

Ryan · 40:09

Love to learn about your future plans and where you're going to take the, I don't know what to call it, the channel, the content, the the brand forward. Yeah, definitely. So I'd see right now I still see myself in the the early stages.

Abby · 40:22

Oh, it's only been going a few months and the reception's been awesome. So definitely my, my goal for now is just building the community bigger, keep putting out fun content, see what people like, see what people are interested in. So that's, that's really my goal. I think I'd love with time to expand on the, the science, you know, like we said, I focused a lot on these color imagery measurements.

Abby · 40:46

I've done a lot of different like whisking home experiments, you know, how can we make better matcha? But I'd love to expand on that and try to find new tools, you know, can I do particle measurements? So can I measure for lead and things like that?

Abby · 40:59

I'm definitely expanding on the science. And then potentially in the future, maybe going into long form or doing a newsletter or maybe just expanding the type of content I might do. And definitely, we traveled to Japan really before I got into matcha, and that opened my eyes.

Abby · 41:17

But I love to do another trip to Uji or all of the tea regions and kind of go back behind the curtain, you know, and see what that's like. So that would be pretty cool. But definitely just for now, I want to grow my audience, build a community. Yeah.

Ryan · 41:33

That's awesome. That's awesome. The one thing could be interesting is some kind of like crowdfunding like experiment. Like you list all this experiment you wanted to do and let people choose, you know, like no. Definitely.

Abby · 41:46

I mean, that's something Lead Safe Mama, I had noticed does is she has her audience nominate things they want tested for lead. And so she's measured a few matches, but I'd say they're typically more like, it was like Jade Leaf, matcha.com. I'd love to see some of the Japanese brands as well, and more of a mix.

Ryan · 42:08

So I think that would be pretty cool, yeah. Absolutely. Or even a call for experiments. I know I'd have a bunch of requests to and if you ever need help getting reference samples or stuff like that, that's something we're working on at the moment.

Ryan · 42:19

Like we're trying to find tencha. It's like very transparently sourced, like we know like as much detail as we can about it, but happy to help contribute however we can. That would be amazing. You know, like I said, like knowing particle size, knowing even the cultivar so that I can like, you know, add that to my color imagery, like filter, if that makes sense.

Ryan · 42:39

Like if you filter by cultivar, you can see the differences. That would be so cool. Yeah, it'd be super cool. That would be awesome. Cool, awesome. Well, love your content and I can't wait to see your channel grow and really appreciate it. Like the matcha world really needs this. So thank you so much.

Ryan · 42:53

Thank you. And to all the listeners, thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it with a friend and we'll see you in the next one. Thanks. See. You in the future. See you, see ya.