Interview with Homecoming Matcha, Dee

Ryan · 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan, this is Zongjun Li. Hello. Hello. Who also goes by Sam and we're the cofounders of Sanko Matcha Products. Yeah. We launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey, Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts.

Ryan · 0:17

And today we have Dee from Homecoming Matcha joining our podcast. Welcome, Dee. Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. It's been what is it like 6 months now since we met in Kyoto. So, so happy to finally record this episode 'cause I think we tried to do it back then and then decided to hold off a bit.

Dee · 0:36

Yeah, happy to be here, happy for this moment. So I guess jumping in, could you share a little bit about your background and your matcha brand Homecoming matcha, Sure. I guess me, I'm from Denver and based here right now and work as a graphic designer by trade. And kind of my matcha journey started years and years and years ago.

Dee · 0:57

I kind of grew up drinking tea with my dad. And so a lot of that is like Chinese tea. And my dad just drinks tea religiously. The man does not drink water. Yeah. So whenever even up to now when I go home to my parents house, he, you know, puts the kettle on.

Dee · 1:12

It's tea before dinner. It's tea after dinner, it's tea. And so that's just kind of been my normal. When I was doing college and kind of doing a lot of studying and working in cafes, it was like, you know, grabbing a coffee. And in times where I just really wanted a tea, green tea latte was on the menu.

Dee · 1:30

I'm not sure if that was matcha way back in the day, but that was kind of, you know, my entry point. And I'm like, yeah, it's nice. It's steamed milk with green tea flavor, green tea essence. And I guess I've always been drawn to green tea dessert as well.

Dee · 1:43

But during the pandemic, I got really into matcha and just started, you know, buying tins of it, sifting it, and really fell in love with the ritual of it. And it kind of became my constant through a lot of chaos. And about a year ago, I think is when I kind of hunkered down and really got into researching it, going into it And where I am, there's no good matcha around.

Dee · 2:04

And I just kind of wanted to bring that here and kind of have my own source of it and kind of work on my dream matcha brand. So that's kind of where Homecoming was born. I was also born in Japan and the kind of my first big trip back to Japan, my parents had lived there for a decade.

Dee · 2:25

And my Chinese name is named after Tokyo, where I was born. And so I just kind of felt like it was a big kismet or ambulance homecoming trip where I got to do a lot of inspiration, sourcing, meeting farmers and all that, and meeting you guys in person. So it's just been a really special journey and that's homecoming.

Ryan · 2:47

Just kind of my take on my dream Matcha brand. Yeah, it's a really homecoming, Homecoming both ways, you know, going back to Japan for you and then bring Matcha back to the US for the brand. Definitely. Yeah, that's cool. So what is your dream matcha brand like? What was the, I guess the visionary state and then how did you bring that to life?

Dee · 3:14

Feel like my brain is going in a million directions. I think like 1. As a designer I do judge things based on the cover. So for example I'll buy wine based on pre packaging. I just love a little surprise and delight moments. And so I'm coming to something I spent a lot of time like going back and forth on design on Ultimately, when you guys see it, it's it's a very stripped down version and very simplified version of a million iterations of what it was. But dream much brand, I think.

Dee · 3:47

I guess it's something where it takes the guesswork out. I'm trying to give as much information as I can about the matcha, about the products. I'm the girl in the grocery store where I read the label, read through all the olive oils.

Dee · 4:00

I just kind of like knowing where my food comes from. And I love a brand story. I love the community aspect of it. So kind of with Homecoming, I wanted it to be an extension of everyone else and everyone to see a reflection of themselves in it and kind of celebrate just the spirit of what Homecoming is.

Dee · 4:18

You know, it's a return to yourself. It can be a safe space, it's warm and fuzzy, it's cozy, it's sparking joy and just little moments. Or it can just be like peace within yourself. So kind of a lot of variance of it that I think everyone can resonate with. I think that's my dream Matcha brand, just something accessible as well.

Dee · 4:39

For example, I'm not an influencer, so I'm just kind of telling it as it is. And yeah, just trying to be the most real and authentic I suppose, if that makes sense. That's awesome. And you know, I think it's like a big thing that's missing from a lot of new matcha brands is it's not like reflective of the founder or of like reflective in a way that other people can see themselves through the product.

Ryan · 5:08

Because you see brands like, I don't know if you know, like Fly By Jing or some like this really cool new like of especially like Asian food products or Asian. Inspired. Food products that are telling a much more authentic story, not from the culture or the history that it's from, but of like themselves. It's true to itself as those founders with their experiences. And like I, I really see your brand positioning kind of living in that same space.

Dee · 5:39

That's Ryan. Yeah, that's so nice. I think when I first started Homecoming 2, I was like, worried, OK, am I doing matcha justice as a Japanese product? I'm ethnically Chinese, You know, my parents have that history in Japan. I've always felt this pull to Japan and felt like I needed to kind of visit those roots more.

Dee · 6:00

You know, it's my namesake. It's all that. But also, I grew up with this image my parents showed me. It was my mom and dad. My mom was carrying me at that time and it was in full bloom of cherry blossom season. And so for some reason as a kid, that image was so evocative.

Dee · 6:19

That became me kind of through my teenage years, my young adult life, I've always kind of been searching for that and curious about that and just kind of made my own, you know, in my own imagination was like, Oh my gosh, that was my parents life.

Dee · 6:34

And this is where I come from. And so how I understand Matcha and how I'm how I am, you know, born in Japan, ethnically Chinese, immigrated to America, I'm a third culture kid. And this is how I make sense of matcha. And I think inevitably matcha is becoming more and more modern slash contemporary slash, whatever people make it.

Dee · 6:57

And so I still want to honor its roots and also kind of put my essence in it and kind of put that out into the world again, with high regard and respect to kind of the process of tea farming and paying regard to that, paying homage to that.

Dee · 7:12

And, you know, that comes with working with farmers really closely and, you know, doing these sourcing trips and just having that community around and transparency in the business. That's just kind of how I'd like to carry that.

Zongjun · 7:27

Really. Really. It's really cool, yeah. Yeah, it's really one of the. I think the true forms of authenticity is to stay true to yourself, and I think this is a very good narrative. If I were to ask you guys what your dream matcha brand, what would that look like? That's something we talk about very often. And we?

Zongjun · 7:53

The answer changes. We frequently have different fantasies about that. And I, Ryan, you want to go ahead and share yours. Yeah, well, I have. I have a feeling what you're going to say, but no, on my side, I really like MTCH's motto, Matcha for everyone.

Ryan · 8:12

I find that deeply inspiring and think that like you need to have things that are accessible at all price points. So I think a lot of transparency and a really wide diversity of flavor profiles and origin and processing steps.

Ryan · 8:29

Would love to create a matcha or tencha brand under our label someday that would look and feel like some of the better coffee companies. Like there's a roaster called Sey in New York and they're just constantly buying small, lots of interesting things and roasting them and you'll just never get bored. There's always something new and there's tons of variety and it's insanely transparently labeled.

Ryan · 8:58

Like they say the price that the farmer got, they said the price that's fresh off the boat, like the fret, like all of the supply chain pricing. I don't know if we would ever get that far, but I would find a company like that very interesting. And then maybe creating a couple blends that are transparently labeled, but are trying to keep some flavor profile consistencies, especially for businesses and kind of meeting their needs where what's your sound? Well, fantasy of the bunch of company that I want to see do not exist yet, but I'm more viewing this as a kind of the equipment and the infrastructure

Ryan · 9:40

side of the Matcha world and which is we're working on right now. But I really feel very highly of a fellow this company that makes coffee equipments, their aesthetics and their focus on position and delivery of consistency. I find it very inspiring.

Zongjun · 9:59

And also for Matcha the self. We actually talked about that a few days ago. I think Ryan, you and I about there is not yet a sort of kind of like a really ground truth reference for people that can educate themselves for what exactly is this cultivar? What exactly is this Ujitawara, You know, like Wazuka or Uji or Yame, like something that's you know, that people can accept it as a ground truth and then they can learn from estate reading all the materials and then they can actually taste those tea coming from those regions.

Zongjun · 10:34

I think some kind of like a really reference, kind of almost like a library of matcha Would be super cool to see that in the future or if they already exist. A little bit, but like, not that easily accessible, actually. Yeah.

Ryan · 10:47

Especially in a way where you have controlled variables. It's actually my biggest complaint is when you say you want to get into wine, the single greatest piece of advice anyone gives you is you just got a taste a lot. Yeah. And you would think that would be true. I mean, it's true in tea, too.

Ryan · 11:05

I mean, you just taste a lot. But it's ironically not true in matcha. And it was just dawning on me earlier today that the people who have the most social and economic capital to spend on matcha or to have access to it and the highest, like, most elite consumers know almost nothing about the product. Like the people who spend the most money and who have the most access know the least.

Ryan · 11:31

If you compare it to any other industry, a lot of weird structural barriers to, like, get to know the product. And it's because this, like, library doesn't exist. Yeah. Even like getting access to this stuff probably even if someone like in industry might be a little difficult. Yeah, and also Cube.

Zongjun · 11:53

Access to farmers because of access to knowledge and the auctions and the fact that most of the stuff is already committed to an existing contracts. And also not just the good stuff, like some some of the intentionally flaw things that the not intentional, but some of the flaw products that you probably wouldn't end up having the reference anyway from any other sources that that would be interesting to have that in this library.

Zongjun · 12:21

Like I can have a product that it's on label that this product or this tea has been bitten by the tea jassid or they call it unka in a Japanese. And if you taste it, you know, the reference of the, you know, adjusted bitten matcha flavor or tea flavor, or this tea has been slightly more oxidized before processing and you can taste the oxidation note in this tea.

Zongjun · 12:45

And that's what you can learn from this product. I think that will be something that very interesting. Yeah, because somewhat their flaws might be things that we like. Apparently those jassid bitten tea similar to like the Taiwanese or Dong Fang Mei Ren, the oriental beauty. Apparently it's in the matcha context. It's quite floral and I D in Thailand was or sorry, not D pop in Thailand was telling me that a lot of the blenders and buyers for matcha that taste this tea go around to all of the different cupping bowls, slurping and they're like defect, defect, defect, defect and then starting to lower price.

Dee · 13:29

Yeah, sorry Dee. We kind of hijacked this interview a little bit, but. No, I love it. I'm obsessed yes, I'm like, tell me more. You know, I, I, I really like that and I love both of your dream fantasy brands because it kind of draws on, you know, kind of your values and it comes from, you know, you're, you guys are fountains of knowledge. So it's, it's really cool to see, you know, what is important to the consumer and what is close to the heart. That's really cool.

Zongjun · 14:03

Well, we really view ourselves mostly as students that really want to learn these references and just can't. It's like, I don't know if it's intentionally gate kept, but at least it's in the structural constraints are gatekeeping the ability to do this turning. Maybe a fountain, but the water is definitely coming from everybody we don't generate.

Dee · 14:24

The community pool. OK, fair enough. So do what? What's your experience been like finding farmers and meeting them and like deciding who you wanted to work with? Gosh, it's been whirlwind. I think in the very beginning when I was like, OK, step one, find a farmer, right? I messaged I think 6 farmers and three got back to me right away. So I was like, oh, this would be a piece of cake, right? My first farmer said no thank you. Second farmer said OK, yeah, sure. Third farmer said yeah, sure.

Dee · 15:02

So I was like exactly. I was like, OK, I'm going to have this whole lobster farmers, like I can't wait to meet everyone. But I think everyone since that I've reached out to has been either like no replies or like, yeah, maybe it's just been a ton of back and forth.

Dee · 15:17

So just the timing of it has just been unexpected. But the two, my original like OG 2, I got to meet them in Kyoto and it was kind of surreal. You know, one of them hired a translator and I think just picked me up from the station and they were looking for an American looking person.

Dee · 15:38

And so we were just kind of both at the train station for half an hour. You know, I didn't have Wi-Fi at the station, I guess, but we were just both standing right in front of each other. I didn't want to go up because, you know, stranger dangers. I want to be like, hey, it's me.

Dee · 15:54

Are you you? They're like, Oh my gosh, we were looking for an American. And so just a lot of, you know, kind of worms and a lot of discourse can be said about that. But it was just quite funny. But once we started talking, they showed me the field.

Dee · 16:07

They showed me kind of through the town. They were like, so why are you here? I was like, I thought, you know, to get to know each other. I guess all all that is to say, like conversations were just fairly more simple and it's just like to the basics where I'm, I feel like I'm like, let's have a conversation, Let's really connect. Tell me about your family, tell me about your life, tell me about your golden dreams and aspiration. That was like farmer number one.

Dee · 16:36

It was it was quite cool though. And I think maybe it's because they live in, I want to tell you know, this is their world. It's quite simple. You know, they focus on the farming, they focus on family and like that's life, right?

Dee · 16:51

My second farmer is in UG and he was really interesting to me because he's around our age and he speaks English. And so it is just kind of a really fun perspective to get he's 10th generation feminist brother taking over for their father. And that was just like a really fun experience because I asked him anything under the sun and he kind of had an answer for it. And it was just cool to see someone so young have a lot of enthusiasm for farming and tea farming. And his kids drank matcha.

Dee · 17:25

I think his son was like 3 years old when I met him. So almost like 2 ends of the spectrum where one farmer was older and super simple, super businesslike and the other was like young fun, like super fresh. And he kind of inspires me and gives me hope for kind of what macho looks like moving forward, what the industry could look like. Did I answer your question?

Dee · 17:51

Yeah, no, absolutely. When you were in Kyoto and in Japan, what was your experience doing tea retail? Gosh, I'm trying to think do. You do you find the experience confusing and did did you ask any questions of them other than you know the price? Yes I found it confusing mostly because I can't read Japanese but also even me looking at cans or you know Google translating kind of scanning the text.

Dee · 18:20

I'm not sure what's in this matcha. You guys have touched on poetic names a lot, but I felt that everything was named after a poetic name. And I was like, oh, but this had the same name as you know, a Masha I saw but at a lower end yesterday, using the Gokumukashi for example, I have two matchas with the exact same name on different ends of price range and quality range.

Dee · 18:43

And so yeah, I think in terms of understanding what type of matcha I was getting or cultivars were in, it's kind of honestly what I was buying. It was a little bit confusing. Definitely had to resort to the staff to make recommendations.

Ryan · 18:58

Yeah, we, we felt in a very similar state. It was, it's sometimes quite a mystery. I was reflecting on it the other day. We were in Yame and kind of accidentally walked into a store that sold no matcha but they specialized in the deep steamed sencha, fukamushi sencha. OK.

Ryan · 19:19

And they had like, I don't know, like 20 different products and we tried so hard like asking what is the difference There price range was huge and they were all supposedly from Yame and it was just such a mystery. And it's it's really not unique to just matcha, but we've had some but pretty confusing.

Ryan · 19:43

We're very confused at the way prop how anyone goes to Japan and knows I even if you speak Japanese from a lot of these traditional players. Yeah, that's reassuring then, because I was, it was kind of like almost a catalog put it in front of me and I was like, I, I can't even tell.

Ryan · 20:02

I'm. I'm just not sure because big question mark. And I think every, I remember asking like, OK, so if you can picture like a line of 10 matchas, a range of matchas from the same brands. And I was like, OK, so #3 and #7 kind of what's the difference when you talk me through? It was kind of like 7 is more expensive, he's less expensive, 7 will be more sweet.

Ryan · 20:25

Yeah, so it was. I said, OK, OK, so you just kind of have to leave that to interpretation or until you try it. But yeah, that's reassuring to hear. It was kind of the same experience. Although, you know, I think it is changing a little bit. We found one place in Kyoto, I think, was it called T 7? Is that right, Sam?

Zongjun · 20:44

Something like that, yeah. I think so. And they had cultivars. Actually they had quite a few single cultivar matchas. And they had some very unusual Japanese loose leaf tea that we're doing some like crazy fermentations like koji fermentations and lactobacillus. Yeah, they have all the different variations of goishicha and I've read about that, but I've never end up, you know, trying them until we we went there and it was a very interesting experience.

Zongjun · 21:16

I don't like them at the end, but it's nice to have the reference. And I will will spare the reference flavors for. One of them. One of them was really unappetizing. They were more interesting than good. But you know, that's what innovation is, right?

Zongjun · 21:36

Like, you know, you try some stuff, it works and maybe someone's cup of tea, like you never want to yuck someone else's Yum. But it's that's cool to see. Or maybe it's just not for us. Maybe you would like AD, we'll send you an address and you can try and tell us.

Dee · 21:54

How do you feel? I feel like I have to know this reference. No, it's, there's some really interesting innovative stuff going on. And I feel like the retail landscape is slowly changing. It probably is much more polarizing.

Zongjun · 22:06

It really has its own niche of people that like, really like it and then, you know, they're just more diverse product set for a more diverse set of like pallets basically. So one of the hot topics of the industry right now is the matcha shortage. How how has it impacted you and your sourcing and your planning moving forward?

Dee · 22:29

That's a super hot topic. Yeah. So I work with kind of family producers at the moment, and there have been times where I'm ordering matcha from them and they're either so slams because of the demand on their end, or they're like, oh, we're actually completely out.

Dee · 22:45

So that's happened with both farmers actually. And so that's one, a little concerning, right? And two, I think made me want to almost have expand my roster and expand my lineup of matcha, you know, kind of celebrate farmers from different regions. And that way this is kind of also shaped my business model too, but kind of provide a regional assortment, I mean, a certain of different watches from different regions. And that way the consumer can kind of taste, you know, matcha throughout Japan.

Dee · 23:22

And that's kind of the plan going forward because if I'm relying on just one or two farmers, that can happen and that can be a big stop gap in the business. So just hopefully working with a lot more farmers, ordering in the small batches and kind of in my messaging for Homecoming, just to like sip intentionally. And I'm hoping that with the information I'm putting out or kind of when consumers understand process of how much it comes to be, that can kind of shift the paradigm into the buying culture and consuming culture. Just even opening up to like, OK, like for lattes, I don't have to use a Creme de la Creme

Dee · 24:05

matcha, you know. So just kind of more aware and cognizant of how we're consuming it. But yeah, it was kind of scary when, you know, my friend was like, I'm completely out right now. You know, I did a video special and I'm sold out.

Dee · 24:20

But oh, OK. Yeah. So there have been some delays in the timeline. So it's very real. Very, very real. Yeah. Even talking with with him this week, I was like, hey, I have some events coming up next month. I think I'm going to need extra stock and he's like no can do. Very short.

Ryan · 24:39

But yeah, I'm not sure what the right answer is, but just trying to do 1 foot in front of the other trying to figure that out. So in terms of finding more regional assortment of matcha, are you planning for another sourcing trip back to Japan?

Dee · 24:53

And if So, what are some of the regions that you wanted to discovered and explore? Yes and yes. I'm not sure when, maybe later this year, but right now I have like Shizuoka, Wazuka and Uji for the tea. I really love Yame cha myself. I love those toasted notes and you know, nutty notes. So Yame, just visiting some parties around Kyushu would be really, really fun because that's my personal preference to can flavor some stuff.

Ryan · 25:23

So I think that's perhaps the next source of trip. Nice, sounds awesome. Yeah, we love Yame tea too. Yeah, cool. It's actually like weirdly hard to source good Yame tea in the states. I don't know, feels under represented.

Dee · 25:38

It's hard to source in Japan. One recommendation do get a international driver's permit. Try to hire a car. Because. Some of the places are pretty hard to get to public transportation. Wow, OK. We had to walk in the rice field for like 20 minutes. Oh.

Dee · 26:00

Yummy after we get off at the last stop of a bus line to get to one place. OK, yeah, I'm going to need a guide and a license. Yeah, OK. Because I feel like I'd be the blind leading the blind. I'm just walking through fields. Yeah, we really learned quickly that the public transportation infrastructure has an end.

Dee · 26:27

Wow, the Obooboo people in Wazuka, they did their crowdfunding for the bus because you know what's even now getting to Wazuka is a little bit difficult to do any type of tea visits, etcetera. So yeah, transportation actually is a bit of an issue. And ironically enough, after that 20-30 minute walk in the hot sun, I had put in the wrong place. And the place that we showed up to didn't even sell matcha. Amazing.

Ryan · 26:56

Yep, and somehow we're still partners, Ryan. Somehow. Incredible. Yeah. So what's your approach to to go to market in terms of go to market strategy as you launch, I'm assuming locally in Denver 1st and then expanding from there? Mm hmm.

Dee · 27:15

That's the plan I hope to stock from coming in kind of a few of my local cafes and in the works with some collaboration events. So I'm slinging matcha while people are making pottery, right? I'm slinging matcha and it's a music show. I'm just trying to get more of the community involved. A lot of word of mouth and I started, I guess in hands. I'm looking back years and years and years ago, I made this alias on Instagram.

Dee · 27:42

It was kind of during COVID time, so there was a lot of noise on the Internet. I made this alias called Girl with Matcha, and it was just an account. I had nothing to do with Homecoming back then, but it's just something I liked. And I wanted to have a faceless account where I can follow a lot of art and design and so be inspired to kind of filter out the noise.

Dee · 28:01

And since a few months ago, I kind of revitalized that account and used it to make matcha or, you know, through all my tastings and learnings and recipes, kind of build a mini community there. Again, I am no influencer, but there's been like a really fun core group there and hopefully that's that's been kind of where I'm sharing some news.

Dee · 28:27

But yeah, I think so far go to market plan is just like word of mouth local e-commerce and see if that can take. And hopefully I'm doing pop ups like I have one in LA next month and hopefully one in New York this summer.

Dee · 28:43

Hopefully that can kind of make its footing in different markets as well. Cool. Are you going to stick to mostly like direct to consumer or are you going to do B2B sales as well? I think if there's a B2B out there that wants to stock this, I'm down. So I would love to stock and I, I think it's a good opportunity to to kind of like go in, you know, have a tasting and kind of give them equipment too.

Dee · 29:11

What I'm seeing in cafes around me is kind of just a really sad chuss. And I'm seeing green on it. You guys, I have to tell you this. And I think this is a safe space, but I went to Cafe. It's a fun little cafe here in Denver.

Dee · 29:26

And I saw them using a big sift. So this sift is like the size of your head, like a small pizza. I think that's the size of our heads. OK. And she was dumping a big bag of green powder in there and then a big bag of white powder in there.

Dee · 29:44

And it was this tub, like this clear tub, like heavy duty tub. And she was just sifting it. I was like, OK, that's for sure for like a tiramisu, like she's cooking. And so my nose itself, I was like, excuse me, what you make in there, girl? And she said, matcha, this is our matcha blend. And I'm like, what are you blending? And she said it's powdered sugar and it's matcha. And that's their house blend for matcha lattes. And I think I was just a little mortified. All all that to say is like, I am very open to B2B because I almost want to go in and tell them about it. And, you know, almost part of

Dee · 30:22

the, you know, consuming with intention is kind of understanding the product and how we can respect the product and love the product. And, you know, not mixing the matcha with a tub of powdered sugar probably make a product last so much longer. It was slander, you guys.

Zongjun · 30:38

I didn't say anything. Maybe I should have, but I think I was just paralyzed from what I was seeing. Maybe you might feel as bad with those matcha coming from Kagoshima or China maybe. Probably. I mean, even in Paris you could you go to like one of the Korean grocery stores, they have a 1 kilogram bag of matcha from Kagoshima. It's €50.

Zongjun · 31:03

It's like wow, retail, wow. It's so cheap. It makes you really concerned. Like what is Oh my God, I was almost tempted to buy it but it felt like too much food waste because I knew I wasn't going to like it. But very curious what the baseline quality was there knowing that that that is probably what a lot of the local businesses are buying because who else buys 1 kilogram bag of matcha for a few? Have.

Zongjun · 31:31

You been seeing a lot of these like concentrated syrups in Denver has that has that hit yet like these pre mixed with water matcha syrup things drinks. Gosh, I haven't seen it in Denver, but I've seen it on the Internet.

Dee · 31:47

They seem to be more and more common. Actually. Before a year ago I didn't see them anywhere and then all of a sudden I'm noticing them everywhere and even at like much of specialty places, I've never had one that was exceptional. I've had some that were decent, but I'm still a little skeptical of this preparation method.

Ryan · 32:08

Same. I'm trying to make sense of it and I can't at the moment. So Dee, what's your current matcha line up right now? You know, as you're launching Homecoming Matcha, you know, what are some of the first products that we can expect? Yay.

Dee · 32:22

OK, so I think earlier y'all asked me dream matcha brand and something else I wanted to add is kind of accessibility or kind of fostering A curiosity and personal preference for matcha. And that's part of, you know, a self learning journey too.

Dee · 32:38

And so I have a line up where there's an okumidori that's really friendly for beginners and enthusiasts. It's good as usucha. And if people like a little dash of milk do that thing, have a fun saemidori that's koicha grade. And so young people can experience, you know, doing usucha and koicha what they're trying matcha straight. There's a really fun, naturally grown hojicha and it is rusty, toasty, kind of filling the void of my yomi preference moments. And then, yeah, and then a matcha blend. And I've named it the Uji blend, just paying homage to my farmer, the Matcha Capital, where he blends it and he kind of uses it in his own Matcha Cafe.

Dee · 33:29

And so I think that would be a really good point, a starting point for everyday matcha latte. Love hers and, you know, doing crafts that were just from that and then just a little fun accessories, the brand expand. That's not just kind of like Ryan, you touch on MTCH like matcha for all.

Dee · 33:49

My tagline is kind of like matcha for you, me and friends and family. It's just something, you know, to share something to vibe out on something for yourself. And then Sam, you kind of mentioned like aesthetics from fellow kind of functionality, and hopefully it's a little bit of that in Homecoming. It's just a safe brand, a welcoming brand. I just hope everyone just drinks matcha, finds out what they like and is excited to learn more, taste more, drink more, but intentionally nice.

Zongjun · 34:21

Yeah, love it. I think it's a good range too because it really is like like you have like a natural ladder and upgrade cycle, but there's also like really high diversity of of flavor profiles. And it's hojicha powder. It's hojicha powder, Yes, yes. Nice, nice.

Ryan · 34:41

I actually really like it. Me too. That's my beauty pleasure. Oh my gosh, that's so interesting. Yeah, I think in Japan when we went, it was so hot, right, 6-7 months ago. And I think just kind of in the restaurants that you sit down in, it was like chilled hojicha, but it was from leaves.

Dee · 35:04

But yet this powder, I tried it. It's, you know, grown from organic farming in Japan. So, you know, I just had all these consumptions going in. What's the flavor like? I don't know how organic hojicha works, but it's really delightful. So yeah, kind of you'll see pleasure. I mean, there's no guilt, but it's all pleasure. It's it's quite nice and delightful. So I'm excited, yeah.

Ryan · 35:27

It's so refreshing and it's a bit easier on the stomach too. Totally. Actually, I've been thinking a lot about this recently is like, you know, you hear about in business, like the jobs to be done framework like popularized by Clay Christensen. And I was thinking that that's a great framework to view matcha because like one job of matcha is for a latte. One job of matcha is like for a sensitive stomach when you haven't had food yet.

Ryan · 35:51

Like 1 is when you really need a push. 1 is like where you want to be contemplative and like, you know, you can no, no matter where you are in the experience spectrum as a consumer, like there's just sometimes that I just want caffeine or I just want something refreshing and I don't really care about anything else. And like, I, I think that like the products in your portfolio really like hit the jobs to be done. Different consumers have but or the same consumer could have it at any one point.

Zongjun · 36:21

Thank you. Yeah, hopefully people will like and want to try more, and I'll bring in more tea from different regions and farmers. Awesome. When you do collaborations, do you would you plan to use different combination of these tea for different like events like maybe pottery for a specific type of tea, for music for a specific type of tea or just a thought?

Dee · 36:47

Yeah, I'm not in the loving desk with Potteries. I'm actually having this event this weekend at a local ceramic studio. Yeah, I'm highlighting like a matcha and a hojicha. So just kind of basics. And we made it into a theme of like, you know, hojicha brown.

Dee · 37:04

And so is the clay at the studio. So kind of naming it after the clay with the lattes. I'm doing 1 like two ways. 1 is a strawberry matcha, so using that Uji blend matcha and 1 is just normal matcha latte, which I'll use the Okumidori for. And so kind of people can get a little tasting of just kind of all three, but I think definitely tailoring different matchas for different experiences for like the music show, there's going to be little bites included. So maybe seeing the menu and what will complement that, I think that would be very.

Ryan · 37:39

Fun, yeah. And just like this is sort of an indulgent question for us, believe it or not, like off camera, I'm a little bit shy, especially in person. How do you go about approaching these like other businesses to do collaborations or pop ups like what's the like 0 to one on the way that you like approach them and kind of pitch the idea?

Dee · 38:03

How do you go about setting up these kind of collaborations? Yeah, right now it's kind of word of mouth. And so ceramic studio, I took some lessons from these girls and they now have their own studio. And sometimes I go into practice pottery.

Dee · 38:19

I'm not good, but I go in and I practice. And so it's just kind of catching up conversations. And usually in a market like Denver, I feel like people are down to help people or, you know, the creative community, food community is still kind of small, I think in my eyes.

Dee · 38:35

So if you know one person, they'll kind of talk about it to someone else or they're like, Oh my gosh, I have someone else who would love that. So that's that. And I think in terms of like cafes, I don't really know cafe owners. So it might be a cold pitch, it might be me showing up. I feel you with the introvert thing, because I'm actually pretty introverted myself.

Dee · 38:55

I think it's just putting on this persona. I used to be a pro cheerleader and so I literally put that persona on and I love hyping people up. So it's kind of just having those conversations and seeing how I can help or how I can enhance that Cafe experience.

Dee · 39:13

It's more of like what I could do for them and not like what they could do for me. Always looking at it from the perspective like take picture community, like I just want to help you. How can I help you get there? How can I support you? I think, you know, Homecoming can be a good partner in this. Let me jazz this up.

Ryan · 39:32

Just being a hype girl. OK, that's a, that's a great very much a give first kind of framework. Yeah, definitely. I think that's what tea is all about, you know, just the hospitality, the sharing. And I love that sentiment about tea too.

Zongjun · 39:49

Same tea people are really the best. Yep, tea. People are the best. Very pure and you can really feel it. It's something you feel. It's not something you say like it's, you know, it's, it's feel like you either get the feeling or you don't. Yeah, genuine tea people are really great. You definitely feel that when talking to, you know, some companies in Japan, some farmers strike you as, you know, a tea person, a charging says.

Zongjun · 40:19

Some others feels much more familiar. Because we used to work with a lot of corporate people in Japan, we definitely had a familiar familiarity back from talking to them. Totally. That's. A kind way of doing it. Yeah. My my Uji farmer Taishi earlier, I think I asked him when we're meeting, like, how do you know who to work with or the right people to work?

Dee · 40:50

Because again, I wanted to approach matcha super respectfully. I'm like, look, if you don't think we're the right fit, like I just want this to work for you. And he's like, it's a feeling. Like I quote, he said. It's a feeling.

Zongjun · 41:02

And so maybe this is real, this tea, energies, fashion comes forward. It's just, you know, let's gather around. It's bigger than yourself. A great, that's a great quote. I feel exactly the same too, even it's like we're like planning on launching our own products and our beta tester program for the mills and stuff like it. It like as we want to find partners to work with, like a lot of it is just a gut feel like because especially in like the early days as we try to launch new products and bring them to market, finding the right partners that are going to be constructive and honest and all these things really like the the charge in tea people kind of

Dee · 41:44

personality type, you kind of have to feel everyone out. In tea, we trust. There we go. And let's make T-shirts. There we go would be cool. So one of the unique things about this day and age and being US based business are this all of the tariffs that are going up and changing every hour it seems so sort of as a small upcoming business. How have the the tariffs in the Trump administration and effect? Gosh, it's something that's like quite heavy and real. I feel like at the moment the matcha is quote safe just because tariffs in Japan are OK right now. I will say I'm making matcha kits and my tins and other things like for the matcha are

Dee · 42:34

manufactured in China. So I work with Chinese partners to bring those to light. And I think in the past two weeks, just my invoices, I would pay an invoice and because of the time difference, my project manager would get back to me and say, oh, you know, it's actually can you get PayPal $66 more?

Dee · 42:55

And I was like, you know, the invoice was what it was yesterday. So there have been increases and over a week, I think just kind of those totals have gone a little out of hand. It's hard to make sense of too because, you know, with a small business, I'm bootstrapping this and I don't know, it's a little invasive to where I'm like, wait, what this cost? How much now?

Dee · 43:22

And I can't expect my customers to kind of have that sort of inflation. So it is a little bit like I have to look inward and be like, OK, what is valuable here? Will this matter in two months? Can I wait two months? So it's a lot of like shoveling a lot of cards, juggling a lot of values, but it's hard to keep up with too.

Dee · 43:42

Just kind of as you guys mentioned, the numbers keep going up. Yeah, a lot of uncertainty. Totally. And I think I don't know if, like on the Japan end, Japanese businesses will be reluctant to do business with the US, I just feel like the US is kind of creating a reputation for itself too.

Dee · 44:01

So it's I think we're all just kind of waiting around seeing what happened. But the effects are very real in life. It's happening in real time. So it's just, it's kind of a funny feeling. It's strange. It's it's very weird.

Zongjun · 44:16

Yeah, we definitely feel the same way too. Yeah. Now for certain categories of products coming from China, it's going to be tariff 245%. Wow. Yep, and. That number doesn't seem real. No, Yeah, yeah, It seemed real. This is like this is all one big Onion article.

Ryan · 44:39

Like seriously, like it's. Yeah, Truly, truly. Some seriously Black Mirror. Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. It's alternate reality. I think one day, like when we tell our kids, oh, 256% on tariffs, they would laugh. I think yeah, unless that's the way the world is.

Dee · 45:04

Ridiculous in the future. Yeah, it's right, because yeah, it's a little goofy, but are you guys finding it since, you know, you guys are doing your mill and all that? It's definitely affecting you guys as well. We don't even know like how this is going to work.

Zongjun · 45:22

Like if ours mill is not exempt, it means like US customers are going to effectively need to pay like 240 something percent more, which is just not viable. And this is not something we can make in the States. At the very beginning of the company, I reached out to two like industrial ceramics companies. Like there's no way that like even the millstones could be made in America for a company of our size. Like they would just laugh off that, laugh us out of the room at like our order quantities and what we want, let alone for a lot of the other components, which probably would be. So at least the base materials

Zongjun · 46:01

would probably be sourced from China as well. So it's, I don't know, there's like moments of rage in my head. Be like, gosh, just like, forget it. Let's like sell this to everywhere else in the world except the US. They're going to have to wait.

Zongjun · 46:15

But of course we can't do that. I mean, it's our home market, but like it's very frustrating. Yeah, I bet, I bet I will fly to you to get one. Well, we're, we're going to meet all of our obligations. We will. We will definitely make it happen.

Zongjun · 46:33

Maybe we can go talk to some Mexican cartels, Ryan. Although we are seriously thinking about assembling it somewhere outside of China and then it can be technically made in a different country and then brought in. It seems like it's what a lot of people are doing through Vietnam. But actually we, if we are capable doing assembled in Japan would be super cool because I also have like super high quality standards for like QA check and stuff. So I don't know if we'll go that route. But we're still kind of like figuring it out too. Like there's no predictability, which is the worst part. I mean, we're bootstrapping this

Ryan · 47:11

too. You have to think of how much innovation is going to die because you just. You can only bootstrap for so long. Exactly, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's very painful. That was a nice political diversion. Yeah, thanks for holding space for that rant.

Dee · 47:26

It's important to talk about though. I mean, I think I, I bet a lot of other matcha businesses, you know who also source a lot from China, even if their product comes from Japan, like China is a pretty important part of all of our businesses from packaging to like boxes to.

Ryan · 47:41

Exactly. To chasen to like like all all of this stuff like it's. Yeah, matcha. It's not just matcha itself. Yeah, there's the whole system around it and. Totally. Well, if our listener has any suggestions or any ideas of how we can encounter this, please let us know and.

Ryan · 48:06

Please we'll. Be happy to share that to the community too. Absolutely. Actually, if anyone listening to this does have a like an unusual amount of context that they could share to the broader community, we would love to have a episode just dedicated to advice on navigating the tariff situation for people who are either based in the US or where the US is a major customer.

Ryan · 48:30

We would, we would love to distribute that information because it seems like everyone has no clue, which is maybe just the reality. Hopefully someone out there has some wisdom or guidance or, or extra information. So I think we have time for one last question.

Ryan · 48:45

So D as a match of founder and someone who's building a match of business and sort of this new era of match of companies that we're starting to see and with more transparency and you know, better a new type of storytelling than what has traditionally been done in the way that products have been positioned. What would you see as success in 5 or 10 years as a matcha industry in general?

Dee · 49:07

Like what? What end state in a 5 to 10 year time horizon would you be really happy with as an industry? I think with one just kind of the farming decline, having that plateau out would be really nice and reassuring thing just to kind of have that industry live on with that also.

Dee · 49:26

And you know, having more knowledge about where matcha comes from and knowledge or consumer, because a lot of that knowledge of power and without power can come a lot of creative innovation like one, what you guys are doing with the over the counter Bill? I think that's brilliant, right, Getting more attention accessible and fresh ground matcha to the people. And the other day I was kind of thinking about Oishii Berry. Are you guys familiar with the Omakase Berry? Oh.

Dee · 49:54

Yeah, the the paler strawberries or I guess some of them are pale, but some of them are like the red ones too. Yeah, pale or red or pink, these berries are kind of engineered and grown under the quote UN quote perfect conditions.

Dee · 50:10

And it's vertical farming, urban farming. And I just thought that was a really fun take on farming in general. I'm kind of an eco girl and the climate crisis is on my mind a lot. And inevitably that will affect, you know, crop and, you know, it's already affecting coffee and prices.

Dee · 50:28

So it might even have affected matcha as we know it. But I think more innovations where we can bring in a little science, You know, what if we can cultivate a urban gardening system, maybe, maybe not. But this is wishful thinking of, you know, potential leaves, you know, throwing tea plants in an urban environment. And that way we can get more young farmers to do it. It can be fun projects.

Dee · 50:53

It can be more accessible. And, you know, this has a lot of new ones because obviously matcha run in Japan and so are and all that. And there's no such thing as, you know, the perfect matcha, you know, the perfect tea.

Dee · 51:06

But just, yeah, I was just kind of thinking the other day about the world, the state of the world. But if we can just innovate and have more ways of making things happen, accessibility and being more open minded, I think we could find some really creative solutions to the matcha shortage.

Zongjun · 51:26

And I'm kind of excited to see where that takes, how that can, you know, kind of folds into a matcha future. That's awesome. That's a that's a cool idea I've never thought about, like vertical farming for. I don't know how feasible it is because roots and you know, but just yeah, you're. Gonna need that very very soon in even in Uji because the urbanization of Uji is crazy now. A lot of the places were used to be tea farms or just, you know, rice fields are now like buildings in Uji. Wow.

Zongjun · 52:00

Yeah, Yeah, that's true. Very true. Yeah, that's a cool idea It yeah. I don't know if how viable it is either, but things like that. I mean, anything's possible when it comes to like science and technology. I'm very much optimistic science and tech person. Love that science.

Zongjun · 52:21

Rule. I think the more scientific spirit in general that's brought to this is an industry I'd like to see and just have more problems solved that way, especially on the eco side. I totally agree that there's probably some unsustainable methods in like many different parts of the tea industry, both on the environmental side and the fact that it's just like no one wants to do it anymore, broadly speaking. Obviously there's tons of people doing it, but there's a lot of people who don't want to enter the profession, especially young people.

Zongjun · 52:51

That leads to a very questionable future about who's going to be making matcha into the future on a broad scale. Yeah. Definitely. You are seeing a lot of these urbanizations happening at Uji, but also a lot of abandoned farms.

Zongjun · 53:08

One of the tea farmers we met in Uji was talking about that too. No one is growing tea anymore except very few people still are sticking out around. And he's one of the very few younger generation farmer that would go door to door and like asking people to lease their land to him and he can make the production instead of just having, you know, very precious Uji tea land sitting there growing weeds.

Zongjun · 53:34

Wow. That's crazy and like one of the best like terroirs that there is for matcha. There's like abandonment going on. So sad. Wow, it is very sad, yeah. But yeah, I know in the long run, I think I think that the science and technology can really help and help with the matcha shortage too. Cool.

Ryan · 53:53

Well, I think it's a great place to stop. Dee, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a long time coming and when, when can we look forward to the I, I know you guys sort of had a soft launch. Is it officially launched or is there a date yet or like the the primary one? At the time of this recording, it is launching this week, so it'll be mid-april launching this week. Thank you so much.

Dee · 54:14

I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm all the thing, but I'm stoked. Wow. Wonderful. I cannot imagine the feeling you know that you've been working on this for such a long time. Yeah, it's, it's so funny because it's been like, I feel like in my brain for every day for a year at all hours, all minutes.

Ryan · 54:30

And now it's like, Oh my gosh, it's real. I'm holding A10, you know, So I'm excited to see what everyone thinks. Also all the butterflies. But I'm hopeful and I just want to take this where as far as I can go. Best of luck and anyone listening please check out Homecoming Matcha.

Ryan · 54:48

You're on Instagram right? And I'm sure you have a website as well. Yes, So homecomingmatcha.com. Homecomingmatcha.com We'll put it in the the link. Thanks friends. Awesome. All right. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider sharing it with friend and or giving us a rating on whatever platform you're listening to and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks.

Zongjun · 55:10

See you in the future.