Interview with No Bad Matcha, James

Ryan · 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan, this is my co-founder Zongjun. 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.

James · 0:14

And today we have James from No Bad Matcha joining us. Welcome. James Hi, guys. Thank you for having me. To give you a background about myself, I am a cafe owner and the founder of Nobad Matcha and I am based in a small province here in the Philippines.

James · 0:32

Nice. Yeah So about my story, I started a cafe way back 2022 so like 3 years ago. Fueled by the lack of good matcha or just authentic matcha from where I am at. So upon launching A matcha latte product that used actual real matcha, we gained reputation.

James · 0:54

So with our good, our matcha is. So with that we started to introduce and share authentic matcha to cafes around us inside our province, making it more accessible to people around us. So for no bad matcha, we really focus solely on cafes, slow bars and pop ups so we'll be able to reach more number of people compared to selling matcha to individuals.

Ryan · 1:18

It also gives us and our partner farms that actually runs that the matcha is actively moving and not sitting away in someone's fridge. That's nice. Only good matcha. No bad matcha. And like most things, it sounds like it came out of some.

Ryan · 1:32

Like personal frustration. Like the founding of it. Yeah, like the inability to find good matcha. When I started the business, it's like there are 20 cafes around me in my province, but not a single one serving real matcha. But matcha is riddled upon everyone's menu. It's like everyone's mislabeling matcha and. When was that?

James · 1:54

It's like 2022, 2023 and around 2020. Three, yeah. Did you fall into matcha in the 1st place? Where? Where did you grow an appreciation for it? I I first experienced matcha around 20/20/10 when Starbucks introduced matcha in the Philippines.

James · 2:11

That's my first experience with matcha. Years after that, my next experience would be chocolate matcha. Chocolate Kit Kat matcha. OK, I'm bought home by my dad who works as a seaman or seafarer. So after that, around 2019 when I had the opportunity to travel to Japan for work, I experienced much of person and I actually saw how it was processed.

Ryan · 2:37

And I was actually surprised how hard it is to make much. The work involved, not just about the farming, but also the processing. It's like very eye opening for someone who. Yeah. Where did you travel in Japan to see all the matcha production?

James · 2:53

The matcha production I saw was at Michio Japan Initio. Yeah, yeah, very cool. It's like a tea farm tour that is included in our vacation package. OK. Lucky you, you went there before all of these hypes. Now it's really crowded.

Ryan · 3:12

Yeah, much more off the beaten path. Cool. So would love to learn about how you've seen the evolution of matcha in the Philippines and it being adopted and you made a lot of references to fake matcha or not real matcha. So what what was being served and how has that been changing and how is the consumer awareness kind of followed that path?

James · 3:35

Yeah, so back in 2010 when I first tried Matcha with Starbucks, it was really good for me, was actually decent. Then what happened is around 2015 onwards, there was a sudden fluctuation of milk tea or bubble tea shops, what we called the bubble tea era or the milk tea era.

James · 3:56

There was a price war because of the number of shops opening up. There was a price war and to lower down the cost, matcha has been treated as an artificial flavoring, just like what they did to other bubble tea flavors. So yeah, Matcha was really bastardized here in the Philippines because of too much Milky shops serving cheap products that uses cheap ingredients.

James · 4:22

So what I encounter most of the time are generic green tea powders, the one that are almost pale yellow to pale green and chalky and sandy in texture. Then after that era, we are currently here for what we like to call the coffee shop era.

James · 4:38

So for the past five years, it's like coffee shops are opening up everywhere in the Philippines. Local coffee shops, big coffee shops, name it all. And I have a friend who is actually an importer and distributor of espresso machines. And he told me that the business is really doing good for us because for a month we are selling around hundreds to thousands of espresso machines, meaning that a lot of coffee shops are opening up and like 90% of their customers are coffee owners.

James · 5:11

And there was a small percentage for home Brewers who actually wants to buy an espresso machine for home. So recently this last few months, we've seen a lot of Cafe centric, matcha centric cafes that are opening up that is challenging the market for matcha.

James · 5:29

So matcha centric stores are actually eating up the market share for matcha of coffee shops that are serving fake matcha. So what we have in this season right now, there are a lot of matcha places that serves real matcha.

James · 5:45

So the coffee shops that are not serving real matcha are being challenged to upgrade their to upgrade to real matcha. And what we also observed is the sudden influx of matcha home brewers fueled by the lack of cafes serving real matcha.

James · 6:00

Yeah, you can see it in all over TikTok, Instagram, reals. There are a lot of content creators making matcha at home just because they can make it better than cafes. And that's what that's what I observed. That's really interesting, I like how you did find that in eras too. It's.

James · 6:18

It's interesting. From bubble tea shops, Yeah, from bubble tea shops, the price war was passed down to the coffee shops right now, actually. So some coffee shops are fighting for prices, while some are the specialty coffee shops are fighting for quality, but.

James · 6:36

Yeah. The knowledge about matcha was being left behind and just recently a lot of the educators are doing the right thing, doing the good thing for us, for the enjoyers, for people making matcha, for the farmers to educate people about what is real matcha.

Ryan · 6:56

Very important work. We were talking with some people who had met some tea farmers in, I think it was in Yame and very like famous producer and the the producer was saying they're asking them like what do you think of?

Ryan · 7:10

What do you fear about the shortage and what's going on with all this matcha hype? And he used the word scared, but it was scared that people weren't going to ever learn the taste of true matcha. And it's exactly this problem where you have a race to the top and a race to the bottom with the price wars. And it's like the bottom piece where the people who, you know, are much more cost conscious getting served a product that is being called matcha but just isn't. It's, it's an interesting phenomenon. It actually seems very common across just Asia in general as like this whole idea of coffee and cafes and now moving into matcha has exploded because

Ryan · 7:50

we've noticed a similar phenomenon in China. We've noticed it in Thailand, where there's this race to the top or race to the bottom in these very new segments of these small businesses that just didn't exist like 10 years ago.

James · 8:04

Yeah. Definitely, for sure. It's really, you know, by the end of the day, you know, what do you exactly care, right? It's you care about the quantity you care about, you know, serving more or you care about the quality or you care about, you know, consumer education.

James · 8:20

So yeah, actually curious to learn about your sourcing philosophy, James. Like when you source matcha like, what do you consider as like good matcha or up to your standard of matcha for? Sourcing matcha, we try to stick with the farms that harvest once or twice a year only.

James · 8:38

And for our customers, we try to be as transparent to our clients with the information that we are allowed to share. Because some actually some farmers are really secretive when it comes to their matcha. Most especially what cultivars are inside your plant. Some of them really answers daily and some will not even care to answer.

James · 9:00

Like this is trade secret we are not allowed to share. And also, yeah, for quality control, we have an internal quality control. For example, we've been batches of matcha, so for every batch, 1K will be given to my cafe here, my personal cafe, and then we will check our tasting notes, our texture, if it actually lines up to what we have been getting for the past. Year.

James · 9:28

That's awesome. That's like doing your own internal quality control per batch. Do you ever notice big changes or is it generally pretty consistent? Generally pretty consistent but this year actually gave us better matcha.

Ryan · 9:43

This harvest season it's like the match has been. The farmer told me it's because of the season and not really about the blend. They haven't changed anything with their blending, only the harvest. Interesting. So they're blending to keep it the same cultivars, but they're not blending to keep it the same flavor, even though the cultivar flavor profiles change because of the harvest season. That's an interesting like blending concept, because usually it's like the other way around. It's interesting.

Ryan · 10:11

Usually you try to maintain flavor consistency. But it's cool from a specialty lens because like all of your accounts, then you can be like, hey, like, then you introduce like the concept of vintage and like, this year is much better than last year. Here are tasting notes.

Ryan · 10:24

Here's the difference. Like it's a, but it also sets a really cool expectation that it's not going to necessarily always taste exactly the same every year. It's something that we noticed was a real problem. We used to work a lot in the craft, artisanal industries, and it was a big problem for craft beer because craft beer has variable ingredients. The hops every year can be different, the malt, the barley can be very different every year, every season, and it's really hard to maintain consistency. But in the wine industry, no one expects consistency because there's some good years, there's some bad years. But like, setting that idea in

James · 11:03

people's minds early is like a really cool concept because just, you know, it really should be the case in Matcha, yes. I agree with that. It's really cool. So I I would like to share more about the challenges when it comes to specialty coffee cafes because we have a lot of new clients that are from specialty coffee industry.

James · 11:24

So to share more about this, actually some cafe owners specialty cafe, specialty coffee cafe owners actually have high respect and care when it comes to coffee, but the same amount of respect and care is lost when it comes to their non coffee options, including matcha. So what we do, how we approach them oftentimes is give them we give them the hard truth that they are mislabeling if they are putting matcha in their menu and serving something that is clearly not matcha.

James · 11:54

And for specialty coffee cafes, mislabeling is a big deal and it proving reputation. So for us at No Bad Matcha, we need to start giving cafe owners the idea that matcha is not just like any other generic green tea, and we need to emphasize that it is a higher quality green tea with a more meticulous process, giving it a name of its own.

James · 12:16

Therefore, by labeling something as matcha in their menu, they are already giving a certain standard of expectation to the customers. Yeah, that makes sense. And is that generally received well or sometimes they're a bit defensive? When dealing with coffee owners in the specialty coffee in the street, some of them really have high egos when it comes to quality.

James · 12:38

So what we do most of the time is we always bring a pack of samples and we try to compare my side and seeing that their quality is not standing up to real much, it's like I need to change ass up. You can't argue with what's in the cup. Yeah, yeah, really interesting.

James · 12:58

So how have you seen like the workflows I guess the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to like a matcha program and how the barista is actually how their stations set up? I will serve a lot of workflows for cafes that involves a nice matcha set up. Actually, some cafes are willing to add additional manpower just to have someone dedicated to matcha alone. So when it comes to workflow, there is no single approach when it comes to this.

James · 13:27

So we try to get information from them like how many cups are you trying to serve per day, the volume of customers per hour and your target turn around time. Recently, coffee-centric cafes are now starting to have separate matcha stations, separate barista, while some are adjusting workflows to accommodate matcha without having to hire additional manpower. So they are not making matcha the traditional way with whisk. Some are using blenders, some are using hand whisk just to give space to their matcha.

James · 13:59

So when it comes to consistency, cafes with dedicated manpower and dedicated matcha stations will give better quality and better consistency compared to those who have that. And you see like most people using like variable temperature kettle and scales and like the same coffee hardware just purposed for matcha, you know, of course, other than the whisk and the bowl, but this type of thing.

James · 14:24

Yeah, yeah, I assured that too. But for some cafes that do not have a dedicated matcha station, they usually adjust the recipe like they do cold whisking and they sometimes use variable kettle temperatures like close to what they use with coffee.

James · 14:44

Got it. So around 90 for some cafes. OK. I recommend brewing at around 80 to 85, but I always tell them that there really is no, no rule about that about temperatures. You can calibrate your matcha however you like. Just give enough care and try to taste or cup your matcha when brewing at higher temperatures.

James · 15:08

It will serve up to your standards. Yeah, yeah. Is most of the matchas in the Philippines served in a latte or is it americano like just water based? What's the ratio of what people order typically? It's a latte, like I'd say 95 to 99% of orders will be matcha lattes.

Ryan · 15:28

Yeah, well, it's like the rest of the world. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I I've always found it weird that Japanese companies aren't doing more investment in optimizing for matcha latte because like so much is consumed with milk.

James · 15:44

But I think all of their sensory and flavor measurement is not in that application. It's yeah. And like. Well. It's it's hard because milk tastes different across different countries too. That's so true. Yeah, it's very different actually.

Ryan · 16:01

Yeah, that's a hard problem space. Because even within. So much more room for growth. So when you see all these coffee shops set up their matcha program, do you necessarily see a impact or influence of their coffee theory into a selecting matcha?

James · 16:17

Like if some coffee shops preferred like more, you know, roasted beans, would they like prefer Yame versus Uji and all that? That is more of a location issue. So here in my province, it's like not necessarily with the prefecture from where the matcha is coming from, but they are adjusting with their recipe.

James · 16:36

So in my province from where I'm at, people like their matcha latte with a balance profile. So just a little bit of sweetener, a balance matcha and new creation. Well, from other provinces, like from the one I recently handled like two hours away from here, they like their matcha latte sweet. So the sugar ratio is higher than the usual, the matcha ratio is a little bit less and more milk. While some other provinces would like their matcha very hard. If you've been talking to Miss Monique Pereira from Matcha Moment, she's from Batangas.

James · 17:12

So people from up there have their version of coffee that they call Barako coffee, or it's like a very strong version of coffee. So the recipe of the matcha up there leans towards the more concentrated matcha. Yeah, interesting. Interesting.

James · 17:28

People have been adjusting recipes not yet with the prefecture from the from where the matcha source and also not a lot of matcha distributors are varying partner farms from different prefectures. Feels like we're the early days for a lot of that. It's like generally hard to find like regional matcha sourcing I think.

Ryan · 17:50

And just in general at this point, other than maybe Bangkok, like it seems like you have to do quite a bit of searching in any other place in the world to get like these really regional differences, so. Hard to find matcha in general.

Ryan · 18:04

Right now that's hard to find. Hard to find no bad matcha in most places. How do you approach like recipe development from like a consultant's point of view? I recently had someone reach out and they emailed us. I forget what country they were from but I think it was somewhere in the Middle East and they were looking to open a cafe. Wanted some like consultancy help with recipe development and I wasn't exactly sure what to tell them. It's like, you know you just like adjust ratios until you get it right.

James · 18:37

But like how do you approach that? And like what's the question set that you ask someone if a business comes to you and say I need help with my recipes, I think it can be better. What should I start changing to make adjustments? So for recipe development it all boils down again to the volume of matcha you are trying to serve. Ask them will you consider yourself as a slow bar or a fast space cafe?

James · 19:04

Because recipes can be adjusted based on the workflow. So if you are using a hand whisk, you are incorporating a lot of air to your matcha. So you need a higher matcha ratio. Make it taste like it is hand whisk. Yeah, you have to adjust.

James · 19:19

It also involves a lot of self tasting and a few group tasting sessions after all, because it should also reflect your interpretation of the drink. So when we make recipes for our cafe, it will always be. First it will have to pass my tasting preferences. So if it pass my tasting preferences, next I will let someone taste it.

James · 19:43

Someone from a group. We have a very with coffee clubbing here who helps us with the sensory aspects when it comes to our drinks. So also in my experience and other home brewers experience, homemade and natural ingredients are what works best and that's as well with matcha syrups with artificial flavorings are really unstable and hard to work with when partnered, when partnered with authentic matcha based on our experience only. It just, it doesn't balance well with the artificial. OK, Yeah.

James · 20:15

I have I experienced some cafes that are marketed as slow bars but with the amount of people coming in, the baristas are really pressured to work fast and throw some things around. So I always remind remind them that you are being marketed as a slow bar so you have to uphold that, like when two people are making a decision in coming to your cafe. They always have in my neck.

Ryan · 20:39

This is a slow bar. I have to allocate like 10 to 20 minutes of my time just to get my drink. Yeah. The expectations already set, yes. Interesting. So you run like a coffee, kind of like a local coffee community, like with all the coffee and you do all the matcha tasting with yeah, cool. So do you blend it with any educational kind of content like kind of like?

James · 21:05

We're actually doing our workshops to different cafes, but all of our workshops are focused solely on how matcha is being treated on a cafe because there are different approaches when it comes to matcha, there's a different approach for home brewing and there's a different approach when you are at a cafe set up. That's for sure.

Ryan · 21:26

Yeah, that's so true. What makes a good workflow from like an efficiency point of view? And a quality point of view. Yeah, and the quality? For me best workflow will always have the setup that is very minimalist. The only have to put what you are bound to use for your workflow.

James · 21:45

You will not have to add any additional gadgets or stuff that will hinder you from working smoothly. Also a recently amount of matcha products, amount of gadgets that are coming has been very helpful for cafes. Really it's like a life changer, life changing innovation for them, like some hand whisk or matcha and also the one from Subminimal, the the one that makes your milk textured nano foamer, the one with the little screen.

Ryan · 22:17

On it, the little screen nano foamer, yeah, it can texture like the beverage better than like any of the other blender things that I've ever seen. It's really impressive. And also when I go to new cafes that are interested in matcha, I show them workflows that are too easy and make it not too complicated for them to have an idea that matcha is not really complicated. You have to make it approachable for them to integrate matcha to their menu.

Ryan · 22:49

It's such a conundrum because like, in some senses, preparing matcha can be very simple. But like when I talk to like new consumers, like friends or friends of friends or something like that, and they want to make matcha at home or in general, and I have to start describing the steps.

Ryan · 23:07

I realize it like it's actually like a lot of it's also very complicated. It's like, oh, you need to worry about water temperature. You're going to need a scale. You should probably buy a sifter. You're going to need some kind of bowl, bowl or something.

Ryan · 23:20

Yeah, a lot of it's. Just you gotta refrigerate your but don't put it in the freezer. But if you put it in the freezer, bring it down to room temperature before you open the like, there's all of this, these rules. How do you like simplify that to adapt into workflows?

James · 23:36

Because it must be so easy for like someone who hasn't gone through this training to mess it up. I think it's because we are comparing baristas, cafe owners, to home brewers. When you introduce matcha to cafe owners, it's like an easier version of coffee for them.

James · 23:52

So if they're serving espresso, they're serving pour overs. Matcha is like an easy walk in the park for them. Compared to explaining all of these matcha stuff to someone who hasn't got coffee at home to someone who hasn't used an espresso machine, it's really hard to grasp.

Ryan · 24:11

But for people with experience in cafes, I think it's like very easy for them. These are pros, Ryan. Yeah. Yeah, I get. It's the point of reference, yeah. Yeah, and actually I can see a lot of differences from matcha homebrewers making matcha versus baristas making matcha.

Ryan · 24:29

It's like the baristas are making it simple, but it works. Whereas for some homebrewers you will see the steps to be a much more complicated, but there is what is like the same. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. But yeah, I mean, it's so true. But it's also like, even in the States, you know, it's you. You would think that someone that knows how to operate an espresso machine could avoid the basic mistakes of matcha. I think for 50% of the cafes it's a very, very, very sad corner.

Ryan · 25:01

How large would you say the average like space footprint of people's matcha station in the cafes that you have interacted with? Like what's the percentage compared to the coffee setup? Comprising the bar area, it's like 80% will be dedicated to coffee and the 20% OK is for matcha. That's a pretty significantly large compared to some of the other we're seeing.

James · 25:26

So like they, they give it a lot of space. That's. And do you see people mix, use, you know, equipments between coffee and matcha or do they usually have a dedicated set of preparation for matcha? They usually have a dedicated set.

James · 25:42

Oh, OK, OK. Wow. Wow, people are getting serious. Yeah. For cafes, matcha centric cafes, it goes the other way around. So it will be 80% is for matcha and 20% is for. There we go. Yeah. So when you have like if you go in, if you're like a mystery shopper or undercover consumer and you go into a cafe and you chitchat with the barista or the person at the counter taking your order, asking about their matcha program, what's the quality of responses and the confidence that you've seen?

Ryan · 26:17

And then how do you like address a lot of the problems that you see with like the trainings that you do in staff education? A large number of baristas are very dismissive when it comes to matcha. So asking questions about matcha, they will come up with answers that I don't know.

James · 26:35

Our supplier doesn't talk much about the matcha, like it's been given around to them, just like any other powder ingredients. So for matcha education, what I see that is lacking to new baristas is the storage of matcha.

James · 26:51

Also, for cafe owners, some are even storing their matcha in transparent jars along with their cocoa powders, their prep bases. And also, I like to point out that matcha is a suspension. Many baristas are thinking that matcha is just like coffee. You're extracting something.

James · 27:09

Yeah. The truth is it is a suspension. You have to keep in mind how a suspension works just in making your drinks and making your recipes. Like some of them are very curious, why is my matcha powder settling down after some few minutes?

James · 27:24

Is it fake? We get a lot of questions like that. Also ratios and water temperature. I'd like to tell them that. Use it as a guide but always feel free to explore. What will happen to your matcha if it goes around 90° Celsius 25100? Because different matcha will react different way from different temperatures.

James · 27:46

Also the ratio. Yeah, you can pretty much adjust the ratio of your matcha based on how fine it was cried from the factory. Interesting, so you do thicker ratios for less fine particles? We can do much more thicker ratios if the matcha powder is cried fine than usual.

James · 28:05

Yeah, because it's more. Power, because if you distribute your ratio to something like one is to 20 and your matcha is like coarsely grinded, it will be sandy and chalky to the texture. To teach about texturing when it comes to hot matcha lattes, yeah, that's that one is what is pretty much laughing.

James · 28:25

Even in cafes that are matcha centric, when you order something like a hot matcha latte, you'll get something with good matcha but has bad texture. Interesting. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Do you guys try to make your own matcha lattes at home or are you more of a usucha guy? Mostly with usucha nowadays, yeah. Or an Americano kind of thing.

James · 28:50

But I do occasionally do some sensory work on lattes. I'm really fascinated by the flavor profile transformation that happens when you mix matcha with milk. And I think that a lot of people on the Internet are too reductive in saying that you're covering up subtlety and nuance and you're you're really just changing the taste.

James · 29:16

And I've noticed that you can mix some really high end matcha and I do it in very small quantities, like I do 1g. I make a very concentrated thing and just put in splashes of milk to taste what happens. And there are some really interesting transformations on completely non bitter matcha with the splash of milk. You get flavors that just did not exist before that are just as interesting as when it's with water. Like sometimes it's kind of cheesy, almost like a lot of this very umami heavy matchas with a splash of oat milk. It's almost leans into like a mascarpone, kind of like Italian, like sweet creamy

James · 30:00

cheeses. Like a cream. Or yeah, like cream cheese or these like cream cheese foam that you see in some of the high end like bubble tea places. Like it's there's a lot of work to be explored on the high end. And like you don't just need second harvest that is like very just bitter and like this first harvest stuff can taste really good. I think a lot of people are because like some matcha like it does cover some, you know, flavor characteristic of some good matcha, right?

James · 30:31

And I feel like that the argument really shouldn't be that don't use good matcha for latte. I think it should be like we should try to make some good matcha designed for be put into a latte scenario. Like latte deserves good quality matcha.

James · 30:46

But you know, you have to think it the other way around, right? Not like trying to find matcha to be put into not latte, but trying trying to, you know, design a good matcha or matcha flavor profile specifically for latte.

James · 30:59

You actually see that, you know, in some of the older tea houses already doing that, Like, holy shit, man. But I feel like more people should be doing it. It's it's really a gateway for people to get into the world of matcha. Like so many people got into matcha because of matcha latte. And you know, this deserves a better name, a better flavor. Yeah.

James · 31:20

And at all the traditional companies, if they do have a matcha latte or a lot of them, it's just the lowest and cheapest thing, it's their confectionery grade or barista third. Harvest sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, Third harvest, maybe even fourth harvest now it's much shortage.

Zongjun · 31:38

We've heard, we've heard some horror stories about that stuff. And like, where is the quality spectrum? Like it's, it's like they cap it at a certain point and then they're only thinking about usucha drinkers, which is really a shame because it's not what most matcha consumers are anymore. Like, yeah, there's some usucha drinker. I mean, we're usucha drinkers.

James · 31:59

But like, that's like a very small percentage of the market. It's just the historical market maybe. So that's like still what they're thinking about. Yeah, they did to try to see it at the Milky point of view. The tea that was used for milk tea was not incorporated with milk. It will not boom at all.

James · 32:20

Just like matcha. If you if we will be dismissed when it comes to matcha lattes, adding milk, adding some flavor enhancers, the matcha will really not grow as something as a part of a coffee beverage. I guess the the whole coffee kind of mindset also blends into the perception of quality in a specialty coffee. You don't necessarily expect to put high quality coffee into like milk or yeah, you expect to drink drinking meat. So I guess it happens both ways, yeah. I don't.

Zongjun · 32:52

Know how it happened? I think it deserves a better name and also better quality. Yeah. What's the standard dose of matcha in the Philippines? Is it like 2 grams 3/4? Or should check. We usually suggest 1 to 2 grams per serving.

James · 33:07

But for lattes, the standard drink size is for iced lattes here in the Philippines is 16 ounce. That's like the average size. So for 16 ounce ice matcha, we suggest around 5 grams of matcha powder. Wow that makes sense. Also for 16 oz is a.

Zongjun · 33:25

Lot of volume, well for 12 ounce hot, we also suggest 55, OK. That's good. That's what they need to do in the states. I mean these people, some of these cafes are black dosing like 2G or less for a, for a 16 ounce beverage. At that point, it's just a color. Just the coloring.

Zongjun · 33:45

So we're kind of in the matcha hardware business and you do a lot of work with cafes. So we'll ask a self indulgent question. If there is a piece of matcha hardware that you wish existed in the world, what would it be? And like, what would its function be?

James · 34:01

This is a wishlist question. We'll make it happen. Oh, we should. We'll. Try to make it happen. Or of something that will whisk your matcha consistently that will produce a certain amount of microfoam, not too much consistently.

James · 34:15

Also a nice addition would be a very mobile matcha grinding station or something that we can use to process matcha for cafes. Because for the current setup of cafes in the Philippines and in most parts of the world, they have coffee grinders.

James · 34:31

It's like a must have part of your cafe bar, your coffee shop. You cannot operate without a coffee grinder. So by putting something like a grinder in the cafe set up, it will change things a lot. It's like having fresh ground matcha is much more game changing than using matcha that was ground weeks ago or even months ago.

James · 34:56

It will bring out a different experience for cafe goers, cafe hoppers. That's for sure. We're working on that. Hopefully that future is sooner than we all think. But for auto whisker, do you see that you know, looking more similar to a traditional chasen or you know, retain the structure or do you think that, you know a more innovative mechanism will be OK?

James · 35:20

Not really limiting with the manual whisking that will be automated, but anything that would make the work easier will be accepted by cafes. OK, because for some cafes convenience is key. They like to do things fast, as convenient as possible with as little work as possible.

James · 35:39

The biggest coffee shop I partner with here in the Philippines that produces like 300 to 500 cups of matcha a day. Wow, wow. That's a lot. Wow, that's. Really with a dose with a dose of 5g per drink. Wow wow, they moved through a lot of matcha. Wow those are some crazy volumes. Wait 300 cups a day at 5 grams.

James · 36:06

On a slow day, 500 cups on a good day. So let's say on average 400 * 5 two kilos a day. Wow. Yeah. That's just for the drinks. They also have pastries, self-serve, and cookies that are much separate. Wow, so maybe I. So in average they use like 3 kilos a day. Wow that's insane.

Zongjun · 36:26

That's almost they use over a metric ton of matcha a year. No, like seven metric tons of matcha a year. Am I doing my math wrong? Yeah, it times 330. No, because it's 100. It's 100 KG a month. A little over. Yeah, you're right.

Ryan · 36:42

You're right. Almost one metric ton. Yeah. Wow. That's. That's great. I heard of some cafes in London recently doing I think it was between 5:00 to 10:00 KG a month but up to 10 or 12 and I thought wow that's a lot but compared. To 5 to 10.

James · 36:59

Compared to, that's nothing. Yeah, 5 to 10 KG is like the average volume of cafes here in the Philippines per month. Per month. Yeah, 5 to 10. KG Wow. Wait, these are gigantic volumes, but this is not like a small part of the sales.

James · 37:14

Yeah, yeah, like. Here in my province, personally in my shop we use around 1:00 to 3:00. One to two kilos only per month and from some the other neighboring shops that I supply matcha to, we're in our province, the largest consumption is like 3 kilos a month, but for the metro and other provinces that the demand is too high.

James · 37:36

Wow, well, this is that those volumes are crazy. That was not what I would have guessed. That's that's like next level our. Current rate of importation When I started this business like 3 years ago, I import only around 20 kilos to 20 kilos monthly.

James · 37:55

When I launched No Bad Matcha this January this year, we skyrocketed to 50 kilos monthly. But now, almost halfway through the year, we're doing 200 kilos a month. Wow. You guys are a major importer. Potentially, yeah. Yeah, kind of growth.

James · 38:15

That's crazy. Yeah, Congrats. Is it that's we're actually avoiding social media ads from the start? We haven't launched any social media sponsored ad because we cannot just keep up with the demand. The struggle that I see for someone like us, someone importing matcha that has good quality, the big coffee part, actors are actually gatekeeping us. They are not accepting A collaboration post or they're not helping out our company in any way to boost our social media following.

James · 38:48

And from their point of view, they told me that they are avoiding competitors with the supply and also they're telling that some coffee around us are copying their suppliers, typing suppliers from them, which are they are trying to avoid actively. Interesting.

Ryan · 39:05

Yeah, interesting. Well, that's crazy. Congratulations. Like that is some insane growth. Like this is really having a huge impact. And you know, this is like exactly what needs to happen from like that Japanese farmers perspective who said that he's afraid that the world is only going to be tasting fake matcha.

Ryan · 39:24

Like this is like the actual hard work that needs to get done every day across all these businesses and all the consumers that that serves. Because if you think about like your business and then your account and then your consumers, it's incredible leverage getting a great product that's actually real matcha in all of these hands and all of these cafes.

Ryan · 39:45

I mean, it's probably 10s of thousands of consumers and like that's only going to be growing. So that's that like thank you. So that's really incredible. And like it really needs to happen so that people can taste real matcha.

James · 39:57

It's only with like companies like yours that that's ever going to happen and like giving people the knowledge and the supply to create a great experience. And what we do on our part is we also have big our partner cafes, if they cannot give justice to the matcha that we are serving, we are supplying them. We are actually pulling out our matcha from them. So we had like 2 cafes that we pulled out from just because they are not storing the matcha properly, serving it properly. Whoa.

James · 40:28

Oh, you like, will stop supplying them? Yeah, yeah. Whoa. Wow. That's great too. Wow, that's next level dedication. Yeah. Wow, that's. Just my training there we do random research. Wow, that's that's serious. That's great.

Zongjun · 40:44

I. Thought seriously, that's next level. You're setting up like a new industry standard basically, which is awesome. Wow, I love that. Yeah, never heard of that. That's crazy about it. Philippines is relatively small to do that possibly, but for countries with larger regions it's like that would be very hard to do.

Zongjun · 41:06

That's true. That's true. Then they can just easily switch to a different supplier. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, that's very cool. That's very inspiring. You only heard of this kind of story in like electronics, these high tech supply chains, but not necessarily in sort of beverage, which is awesome.

Ryan · 41:25

And you don't hear about that very often at all, like sacrificing business because someone's not doing the product justice. Also after since it's like the main selling point of low but. Actually, yes, publish some kind of label like these coffee shops are supplied by No Bad Matcha, like this is really you guys are really making a quality statement. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James · 41:51

Only with their consent. Like I said, the bigger coffee shops are doing 10 kilos, 20 kilos monthly. They are not really willing to be part of our marketing. Yeah, so bittersweet, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Literally bittersweet. That's great.

Ryan · 42:09

So James, what's your future growth plan in the Philippines? Do you expect to expand beyond the country? And also along the way have you find any like like minded people that's willing to fight the battle with you? For now, No Bad Matcha, we are aiming to focus solely in the Philippines and recently in my workshops, the ones that I conduct here in my Cafe and on other cafes, we are actually producing like minded people that are helping us in importing good match and distributing it to other people.

James · 42:44

We don't mind at all if they become competitors in the future because for us we are still at the at our current situation for matcha. We need more middle men, we need more importers, we need more distributors for cafes to be flooded with real matcha and eliminate the use of fake matcha. So for No Bad Matcha, we produce like less than 50 students only, but some of them like one out of 10 has been gaining popularity when it comes to matcha, from making their own cafes to being there, being a distributor for e-commerce shops like Matcha Movement is actually one of my the first matcha students. Yeah, yeah.

James · 43:29

Small world. OK, awesome. Yeah. So like a big part of my students, from now on, I see them making their own cafes, matcha-centric cafes, matcha pops. And to be a part of their journey, part of their growth. It is just an honor for me to share the knowledge for good matcha, how to prepare it and how to prepare it for the people, for the people to like it. Oh.

Ryan · 43:55

I love it. They say. That's some of the most like successful restaurants that have ever existed. And I I hear this within the context of New York City, are the ones that produce the most number of alumni that go out and start their own successful restaurants. And sounds like a very similar mentality. Not not that it's a restaurant, but same spirit. You see that in the cocktail bar scene. All these bartenders, they all kind of graduated from like a handful of good bars.

James · 44:23

Yeah. And the current situation of matcha in the Philippines, I don't compete for clients. It's the other way, other way around. The clients compete for my stocks. The demand is just too high for competition to actually exist.

Zongjun · 44:37

That's great at least. That's especially great because then you can demand quality because, yeah, and maybe that's like over aligning of the market shortage. Like if it's difficult to find a supplier, you can be like, yeah, I'm happy to supply you, but we got to do some staff training.

Zongjun · 44:54

We're gonna make sure that you're preparing it right and really make sure the quality standards are there. Yeah, a lot. Of then it's not a race to the bottom. I love it. That's awesome. It's very energizing. Yeah, because we've had a lot of conversations recently with the, like other side, like on the the Japanese tea farming side and, and people that like have recently visited Origins talking about how terrified all these matcha farmers are.

Zongjun · 45:20

And like, this is like an exact solution to that problem. Yeah. Yeah, I hope we can bring the words to the other side too, Ryan. Yeah. Both words needs to know each other's existence. I feel like it's quite energizing. Yeah.

James · 45:34

Very helpful, very hopeful. Yeah, actually the people my partners with is also very conscious with how we use their match. They always take like James, take good care of our match. If a customer is rejecting the match, do not throw it away. Send it back to me and I will replace it. Wow wow, that's like next level commitment on their side too. Yeah.

James · 46:00

And we haven't experienced any dissatisfied customers like everyone is giving good feedback. That's a good sign. It's. Incredible. Yeah, it's awesome. I guess we need to travel down I. Think it's a great place to. Taste all the results.

James · 46:15

Also my advice for new distributors, new people that are coming in to the matcha market, I would advise that they would try to focus in promoting matcha to cafes that are not using real matcha so they do not have to snipe other cafes that are already using real matcha. Because competing and comparing two matchas is very hard and will oftentimes the cafe will still choose what they are currently using instead of choosing you.

James · 46:47

So to get an easy sale, it's better to promote to someone not choosing real matcha. You can do a side by side comparison and immediately get the sale. Yeah, a lower hanging fruit. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really important sort of battle to be won, so to speak. Yeah, for everyone and for our industries. Yeah.

Ryan · 47:09

Thank you. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great place to end. And thank you so much, James, for coming on. And thank you to all the listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing with a friend and give no bad matcha a follow.

James · 47:23

And we'll see you on the next one. Thanks. Yep, thank you. Thanks. A good matcha. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Don't drink bad matcha.