Interview with Zach Mangan, Kettl

Ryan · 0:06

Hi, hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan. This is my co-host Zongjun, who also goes by Sam. And we're the co-founders of Sanko Matcha Products.

Zongjun · 0:12

Hello, hello. Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey, matcha, share startup stories, and interview experts.

Ryan · 0:20

And today we're very happy to have Zach Mangan, founder of Kettl. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on. You're by far our most requested guest. So we're super excited and I'm sure our audience is very excited to hear from you as well.

Zach · 0:32

Well, thank you both for having me. I appreciate you asking and it's my pleasure to be here.

Ryan · 0:36

We'd love if you'd start off like briefly introducing yourself and sort of the founding story of Kettl and how it came to be.

Zach · 0:42

Sure. Yeah, so I moved to New York City in 2008 after studying jazz performance. So I moved there actually to be a professional musician and got my start playing there professionally. But obviously as a professional jazz musician, I needed a job to kind of carry me while I was there. So I was peripherally interested in Japanese tea.

Zach · 1:06

you know, fairly into it in college and made a lot of trips between Boston and New York. And Ito En at the time had a beautiful tea shop that was really way ahead of its time in terms of everything was refrigerated. They worked with really wonderful ceramicists. And I just would go there as a personal aside when I went into the city and I loved it. So I applied for a job there.

Zach · 1:29

when I moved to New York and ultimately was hired and started working there in the very beginning of 2008. And that's really where the of the professional side of tea in my world collided. Although at the time I wasn't really thinking of it as a path for my life. It was something that was just a strong, you know, interest in something that I, you know, if I was going to have to go to a job that wasn't music, I wanted it to be something that...

Zach · 1:55

you know, I felt like I could learn and be engaged with and ultimately I wanted it and feel like it wasn't a job. So that was the perfect kind of mix for me. And after about two years, you know, again, they were, they were really ahead of their time in terms of like the marketplace for, for Japanese tea. And actually they sold other teas as well. Chinese tea, tea from India, Sri Lanka. So it was a, it was a beautiful store and it was just in a very expensive neighborhood and just

Zach · 2:20

the match wasn't right. So after two years they had to, they made a decision to close the store. And it's a funny story because I was, I had just like maybe three months prior been like, I told my boss like, hey, I'm really going to go out and really try this music thing. Like, you know, I want to be, you know, give it my full attention. So I actually kind of like put in my notice and wasn't really working there, but like two weeks before they decided to close it.

Zongjun · 2:32

Like it's a

Zach · 2:46

they called me because someone had quit and they're like, can you cover some shifts? So I kind of went back right before they closed and I guess they never took me off the payroll. So when they closed, when they made the decision, they like gave me a severance check and I was like, wow, I don't think they know that I quit. So I just quietly and appreciatively took it and I used that money to go to Japan by myself for the first time. So I went for a month and it was sort of that.

Zongjun · 3:02

Ha ha.

Zach · 3:13

that moment where I made it to Japan, I started to understand the quality in the domestic marketplace there, which was so different to, know, and no offense to Ito En, they were sourcing and doing their best, but it was just the access was so different in Japan that that's what really set me down the road of like, number one, how do I get that product for myself? That was my first, that was my first real passion was like, I want to drink tea that tastes like that every day. How do I figure that out? And then we can get into how

Zach · 3:42

I set things up there, but that was like the real beginning of the journey. And then a lot of stuff happened after that. And that was 2010 when I made it to Japan for the first time and really started to consider tea as, know, I never really thought of it like strictly as a business, but more as like a life passion that kind of developed into a business, if that makes sense.

Ryan · 4:04

Mm makes sense. Thank a lot of matcha founder we talked to, there's a similar resonance. It's more of a calling than than a business. And you can feel that distinction very fast when you talk to people. The people who it is just a business for, at least in our experience.

Zach · 4:05

Yeah. Yeah, no, no question.

Zongjun · 4:15

Ha ha ha.

Zach · 4:16

really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for sure. They're both important passion in business, but it's certainly if you, if you were to like sort of reverse engineer Kettl, it didn't come so much from a like, all right, I see an opportunity and I see a way of, you know, of building a business. That's just, you know, even to this day, that's not particularly how my mind works. So

Zongjun · 4:38

Where did you first land it in Japan? Sixteen years ago.

Zach · 4:42

That's a good question. So I remember distinctly, landed in Narita, in Chiba prefecture. I never go to that airport anymore. I always fly to Haneda now, but back in the day, there weren't as many flights, international flights to Haneda. So I landed in Narita and I can remember rolling up the window and looking out and as we pulled in, the baggage handlers looked, I swear he looked directly at me and just bowed at the airplane. And then like,

Zach · 5:10

I remember being like, okay, I've arrived somewhere. This is different. You're used to being in New York where they're not even looking at the plane. They're on their phone or whatever. So yeah, I landed there and then I went, I planned this month trip to do.

Zongjun · 5:16

Yeah.

Ryan · 5:19

Yeah.

Zach · 5:27

sort of like all the stuff that I was interested in. ran a marathon two days after I got there in Nagano, which was like the worst, worst decision ever because I didn't factor in jet lag. So it was a rough day. And I played at like a, like a, this music festival, this like very avant-garde like jazz festival in Yokohama with a friend of mine. And then like the rest of the time I just, you know, you know, was looking for tea, like literally like getting off of trains and like walking into tea fields and just like.

Ryan · 5:33

whoa.

Zach · 5:56

You know, I I, I cringe to think now what I appeared like to some people there. Cause I really didn't know anything. I didn't know what I didn't know. So I was just like, earnestly trying to connect with people and by and large it was, it worked, you know, like I, I met some great people and then the real big meeting and I don't want to be long winded, but this is a pivotal part of the Kettl story and, and, and what, so if you, if you reverse,

Zach · 6:23

The very end of when I was working at Ito En, two gentlemen came in to the store. And I could tell they were speaking Japanese. I didn't understand Japanese. you know, I was brewing this tea that someone had brought, the manager had brought back from Fukuoka. And it was way better than anything that was in the store. So we were like, you know, the employees, we'd all like, you know, try and get a little bit out of the bag every day and drink it. And these two gentlemen came in and I thought, you know what?

Zach · 6:49

maybe they'd like to try it. So I said, do you want to try some tea I'm brewing? And they said, yeah, thank you. And I brewed it for them with sencha and they immediately looked at each other and they started discussing something about the tea and they said, can we see the package? So I gave it to them and they looked at it and they said, this is actually the tea we drink in our office. Like we know this farm, like we're from Fukuoka. And I was like, my God. And they were so like, they thought it was, I mean, it was, it was wild.

Zach · 7:15

just that that was such a coincidence that that would happen. So they gave me their business card and they're like, if you ever come to Japan, we'll take you to this farm. And at that point I was like, I have no idea what I'm gonna be in Japan, but thank you. Turns out, you know, as the story I told accelerates six months later and I'm going to Japan and I sent them a message and they're like, come to Fukuoka. So after I did all the other stuff, when I got there, I took a trip on the bullet train down to Fukuoka. At that point, I didn't know where Fukuoka was.

Zach · 7:43

and I get off the train and I walk to the gate and I'm expecting to see these two guys and I do see them but they brought their whole software company and they closed their business and every single person has a gift. I felt like I was being received as royalty. This was my first experience with the true Omotenashi Japanese spirit of hospitality and I'm like, what is going on? They rented.

Zongjun · 7:43

Yeah.

Ryan · 7:53

No.

Zach · 8:09

two vans and drove their entire company and me into the mountains to meet this farm farmer or you know processor and that is the moment where literally where Kettl was conceived because I get out of the the the van and i walk out and this producers like walks up to me and you know we exchange you know pleasantries and he's like yeah this is this is the gentleman who made the tea that you brewed for me in New York and I was just like

Zach · 8:37

was going on and that turned into the first and longest term partnership that Kettl has had. still work with that family. We've been working with them for almost 16 years now and without that opportunity, like number one, it's truly in my opinion, one of the great producers of Japan and number two, like without that

Zongjun · 8:38

Yeah.

Ryan · 8:53

it's crazy.

Zach · 9:04

ability to kind of have that personal connection and build that relationship based on that. It opened a door that like I don't think I would have been able to conceive of or technically figure out how to do it without that. So it was truly almost like an accident that this happened, but a very important accident.

Zongjun · 9:25

Mm.

Ryan · 9:26

Wow, some serious planetary alignment there. That was it's it's crazy. And just that and it I don't know, it's kinda shows the power of tea, just how that one sip at the retail store in New York just like could motivate these series of events that bring you there. It's

Zach · 9:29

Yeah Well, it's wild because I can literally look back and be like, that decision. that, like, you know, sometimes you're like, hey, I'm, you know, I have a headache or I'm, you know, whatever. You don't engage and then whatever, you don't know that you missed a chance. But like, I can look back and be like, if I hadn't engaged with those gentlemen, like, that may never have happened. So, yeah, it's wild.

Zongjun · 10:05

Yeah.

Ryan · 10:06

What was the learning curve? Like what was it like learning back then? Because like the knowledge environment about tea in general is very difficult to learn. Anything about it in like I don't know. Because I think I started trying to find stuff online when I was maybe like 2011, 2012. And I remember really struggling. There was nothing on YouTube. There was like one guy named Dr. T. And there was there were a few blogs, and I was like,

Zach · 10:25

Yeah.

Zongjun · 10:30

No.

Zach · 10:31

okay.

Ryan · 10:33

It was so hard to learn. So like what has your learning journey arc looked like from now to from

Zach · 10:39

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. And it's, it's, it's a really great point because, you know, one of the things I think like with your podcast, that's so important. is there, you know, nowadays there were people are sharing more and there is more opportunity to learn. But I mean, so much of what. You know, my experience getting started was the oral tradition, you know, or the come here, I'll show you this thing. It wasn't.

Zach · 11:04

documented in a way that, you know, there was always some technical materials and there still are, and they're all in Japanese and you can find them and they're, you know, they approach things from a very technical, like if you are trying to produce tea and you need to know, you know, about, you know, soil science and plant diseases and, you know, you know, relative quality in the marketplace, depending on these factors, you can learn that technical data basically. And now it's easier than ever. can

Zach · 11:31

If you don't read or speak Japanese, can plug it into AI or you can have it translated. And that stuff was available then, but really, like even today, like a lot of the deeper information and even sometimes the simple information that I've been trying to figure out very simple things for years. And depending what question you ask, who you ask it to, you get different answers. And I think that speaks to the fact that like,

Zach · 11:56

I don't think there'll ever be this like true knowledge. Okay, these are all the facts about tea. Tea has a quality where just by its nature, it's this and it's that. And it is and it isn't. And depending on who you speak with and you know, there's so many philosophies on, you know, how to drink it, how to produce it, how to, you know, feel about it, think about it, talk about it. So it depends who you, who you're speaking with and that really changes it. But to your original question, yeah, so much of

Zach · 12:25

Today, and I prefaced that before we started, is I speak a lot just from my personal experience because that's all I have. I have the interactions I've had over the 16 years. I've done a lot of interviews. I've done a lot of listening, a lot of asking, lot of just trying personally to be like, I want to figure this out. What is the deal with this? And Japan's an interesting place. And it's more often than not, they're not saying.

Zach · 12:54

A is B or you know X and Y that's Z. It's like well it could be but we're not sure or hmm you might be right about that. It's often much more vague when you're speaking to especially tea producers so yeah that's it's a it's still a process that I you know I'm really passionate about today I like to learn so you know I'm trying I'm trying my best.

Ryan · 13:08

Hm. Yeah. One of the things that a lot of people write in about and we have conversations to other people with is like how exactly is blending d is done? Like everyone's kind of aware that, you know, they're trying to keep consistency, you have these variable components and you try to, you know, match approximately price or at least traditionally price, this that's gone out the window now, color and flavor. But like the actual mechanics seem really opaque.

Zach · 13:25

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ryan · 13:42

to even a lot of other matcha brand founders that I've talked to. And I know you work directly with a lot of Chashis and have been involved in the process and even have custom blends. And I was wondering if you could sort of remove the veil a little bit on some of those processes.

Zach · 13:45

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so when you you sent over some questions in my prep, you know, I'm not a chashi. I'm not a I'm a tea professional in the sense that, you know, a very specific type of tea professional which is not working in the factory. It's not processing material. It's it's everything post that so I figured I actually had a meeting with a friend of mine Masayoshi Koyama, who's the director for Yamamasa Koyama and

Zach · 14:23

If you're familiar with that family, their history is insane. If you look at landmark events in Japanese tea over the last several hundred years, they're critically important. For me, wanted to bring you guys hopefully some information. I wanted to first of all credit Koyama-san and thank him for spending time with me to really understand how...

Zach · 14:48

this idea of blending or gogumi works. So everything I've sort of learned specifically that I'm gonna speak to now really comes from Koyama-san. I think what he wanted to share and kind of what he's taught me is there's a misunderstanding, I think, of what it is that it's simply mixing, taking different teas and mixing them together for flavor. But the purpose is to create something greater than the individual components.

Zach · 15:13

If you compare this to, know, we'll talk about probably later, which is like single cultivar or taking a, you know, a uniform, offering of tea from a field that has all the same genetic material and drinking it. this is taking multiple cultivars from oftentimes, you know, nowadays it can be from multiple prefectures and, making those components create something that are larger than.

Zach · 15:38

any one of those lots of tea would be on their own. And every tea that in the blend needs to contribute some strength. So you can't take mediocre tea and make it exceptional tea by adding a little bit of great tea. The faults in the tea will remain. So his idea is like, what are we blending toward? So a traditional wholesaler, basically, you know, the families, they have a flavor.

Zach · 16:01

So they're not guided necessarily by the technical aspects so much. Well, of course that's an underpinning to it. Like if you think about like just in Uji, right? You have Marukyu Koyama and you have Yamamasa Koyama and you have multiple large wholesalers who have a flavor. And that flavor is what they keep in their mind when they blend. So their blending could be technically different from another, you know, chashi because they're looking.

Zach · 16:28

to arrive at a place, at a flavor, at what their house, it's sort of similar to the champagne houses in that way. There's actually a lot of similarities if you read about champagne and think about how they're blending grapes to create the brand name flavor. So that's really, really important. And the challenge obviously is that tea is an agricultural product, right? There's whether...

Zach · 16:54

There's all these variables that the raw materials are changing each year. And I think, you know, that's something that is a miracle in itself that, you know, there's any consistency at all. That's something that when you taste something, you're like, yeah, this tastes a lot like last year. It's, it's wild. The technical expertise it takes to, be able to do that. but yeah, I mean, I think, you know, from, from my experience evaluating tencha, the things that you really are looking for, the chashi is looking for are.

Zach · 17:21

fragrance, taste, color, and price. And price plays a much bigger role. It's not something people like to talk about in their tasting notes on their packaging, but price now especially is a super critical component. And with the fluctuation now of tencha prices in Japan, mean, it's really forced chashi to, you know, it's like a curve ball that nobody saw. Like, okay, forever we made this blend, right? And it was...

Zach · 17:48

priced with tencha at these relative prices. And it all made sense. Now those prices have, in some cases, tripled. And they're like, well, can we afford to pay triple and keep our price? Do we have to use less expensive material? And it's really challenged the idea of being able to make this house flavor every year. But another important tool, or another important thing to think about too, is blending actually

Zach · 18:18

begins in the field. by the time tencha reaches the chashi, the farmer's already made a lot of critical decisions. So you have to understand there is a limited amount. you're not, don't, unless you're processing all the way from the field through to the final product, you're, you're getting the baton passed to you from a farmer. So blending really is in that sense, a collaborative effort. So when chashi are

Zach · 18:44

In some cases, they have contracts with farmers, right? And part of that is yes to understand their relative pricing for the year and keep that consistent, but it's really critical for them to understand what their material is going to be like so that they can prepare and say, all right, know farmer A is going to generally give me tea with this profile. And that's where terroir comes in, right? Because his teas are near.

Zach · 19:12

He grows near the Uji River and it's a silty soil and I know I'm gonna get that. But I'm from a farmer, know, sea in the mountains, I know it's clay soil. So I'm gonna get that and I know those are gonna blend well together. So there's, it's like air traffic controlling all this stuff. They're like really, really, really important decisions. And then of course there's the actual blending, right? And I think to your question,

Zach · 19:39

maybe that's what you're asking. I was like, how does it work when they get all these things together? you know, I think it's really important to understand, tencha is really the, it's the system that people use to taste. I don't know, I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with this, but I think, you know, for some people that are listening and might not know this, no one's blending powder. It's being blended prior to, to.

Zach · 20:04

you know, to the process of milling the tea. So the tencha is very, important to, number one, to be able to blend it, but to be able to taste it and imagine what it's going to taste like as matcha. But yeah, I mean, the intentionality of blending a new tea is something that takes a lot of skill. And, you know, I think the key points to remember are it really starts with, you know,

Zach · 20:26

the and understanding what's in the market and knowing how to buy for flavor and also buy for price. then, you know, there are, you know, the relative quality. You're blending, like, let's say you're blending an A, a B and a C quality together. C is always going to show up in the blend. can't, you know, you can't blend low quality out by putting in higher quality. It's always going to affect.

Zach · 20:51

the final flavor. So the key isn't necessarily to say, you know, we're going to improve the low quality tea by adding high quality tea. Generally what happens is you'd lessen the quality of the higher quality tea. Does that make sense? So if you have like something, you know, A quality and B quality, you mix them together, B quality is always going to be stronger than the A quality. That's just some alchemy that I've been, you know,

Zach · 21:15

that's been shared with me. So it's really important to understand controlling the faults of the tea because tea producers are always, they're not thinking, this tea is delicious. They're thinking this tea was picked a little too early or they're thinking this tea was shaded a little too long or too aggressively. they're really, they're basically, and this is very Japanese, they're trying to sort of mitigate.

Zach · 21:36

the negative points and that to them creates positivity rather than this is good and this is good and we're going to put them together and they're going to be great. So really the way that all tea tasting in the haikenba, which is when you go into the room and you taste through teas and you evaluate them, it's really thinking like what's wrong with this tea and how do I understand how to improve it by, you know, maybe mellowing something or enhancing something. So.

Zongjun · 21:43

No.

Zach · 22:01

It's very different than the Western, you know, as a consumer we think like, this tea has all these great qualities to it and that's why we enjoy it. Anytime I drink with Japanese tea producers and I make them finish tea, they're like, the way they look at it is sort of the opposite, yeah, this is pretty, you know, this wasn't aged long enough or this is, you know, that's where their mind goes to sort of technically breaking it down.

Ryan · 22:16

yeah.

Zongjun · 22:25

Very interesting. We we've tasted you know a lot of tencha on its own and also tried the matcha that's you know getting milled from those tencha and the flavor transformation between tencha and matcha is just enormous. And yeah, yeah, it's almost a different tea. And and how does chashi like kind of do the mental conversion? Because because like you're blending multiple tencha together, right? Like I I bet the difference is additive.

Zach · 22:34

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's almost like a different tea, Mm-hmm.

Zongjun · 22:53

probably exponentially additive. So how how how do they practice or learn?

Zach · 22:55

Yeah, it is.

Ryan · 22:58

Hmm.

Zach · 22:59

I mean, I always, know, my takeaway of all of this is like, if you wanna know taste, like that's, there's no shortcut for the experience of tasting. And I don't have, you know, I don't have an answer of like, well, they do X, Y, and Z and then they know how to do it. It's if you spend hours and hours and hours every day and every week and every month and every year and every decade doing this, you,

Zach · 23:23

you learn and it's the little things you notice. It's the understanding of like, okay, I can tell by the sheen of that tencha, this is a quality about it. Or I can tell when I look at that and like it's a flat green, I can tell that, you know, it's technical in that sense. It is like learning any skill where you would need to, you know, experience and remember repeatedly many steps so that you have that skill. I mean,

Zach · 23:47

Yeah, it's a great question and I don't have a clear answer on how they arrive at their skill. And I will say this, not all chashi are skilled. There's plenty of people that do an average job. And I think now more than ever, you can experience that in the marketplace is like, just because someone works in Uji and just because someone is a chashi and just because someone sources and blends tea does not make great tea. And that is a big, you know.

Ryan · 23:57

Mm. Mm. Mm.

Zongjun · 24:04

No, no.

Zach · 24:13

I think as the palate of the consumer continues to develop, that's going to be something that people will start to realize. And that is my professional job, is to be able to hopefully evaluate products that are already processed and say, I think what this family is doing is exceptional versus I don't think that hits the mark. And do we always get it right? No, of course we do. Myself and my team, our team, try our best, but we're in the same boat. It's just a technical skill that you build over and over over of tasting.

Ryan · 24:47

And when they're going for consistency, like the existence of each product. Like a lot of these blend houses will have a portfolio that consists of, I don't know, eight to ten core SKUs or core flavors. how do the like is there like like I want this blend to have this level of bitterness, this level of umami? Is it like very structured like that or is it more abstract?

Zach · 24:58

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think it depends who you speak with. One of my favorite producers in Fukuoka prefecture, he and I really, I remember when I first met him and he talked about chords using the idea of building a chord on a piano. And I was like, my God, that makes total sense to me. So a way that I often think about the...

Zach · 25:34

building blocks of a blend, is you sort of have a bass, like a middle note and high note. And for me, like bass note tends to be sort of a foundational flavor of any given, whether it's a single cultivar or it's a blend, you still have this chordal structure. And the bass note to me is generally the sweetness and the umami. It's like what pervades, know, pervasive on your palate. That's sort of the fundamental.

Zach · 26:01

note, so to speak. And for me, tencha often provides a really strong glimpse to the fundamental flavor. Milling tends to bring out for me the sort of the third and the fifth, like the middle and the top note. And for me, the bass note and the top note are the easiest to understand because fragrance for me is when I think of like the top note, I think fragrance and I think like umami and sweetness and then all the things that sort of exist in the middle.

Zach · 26:28

Those are the things that sometimes are the hardest to perceive. But a lot for me, a lot of the quality and the personality of a tea actually lies between the bass note and the high note. And I remember this being, this producer we were talking about, I was like, that makes total sense to me as I have a music background. So when I taste teas and try to understand their relative qualities, oftentimes what you're overwhelmed with at first is, especially in Japanese teas, umami.

Zach · 26:55

And umami to me is almost like you have to understand it and pay attention to it, but you also have to sort of ignore it because it can guide you down a road where you don't. And this happens with gyokuro all the time. You really have to understand its flavor sort of outside of being like, wow, this says a lot of umami, that's good. Okay, what's after that? What are those other notes in between and how do those come together to bring character?

Zach · 27:19

With gyokuro, for example, it's much easier because you can do a second brew. You can brew a second time. I think the second brew on gyokuro is often the most, it reveals the most about the tea. Where if you drink a bowl of matcha, you can't, that's it. You get one chance to enjoy it. So it's a little tricky in that sense. But yeah, I think that kind of chordal structure is a way that really helps me start to understand.

Zach · 27:42

what's going on. And you can taste that with single cultivar. So very, that's what we look for with single cultivar. Teas are harmonic, even though there's only one, you know, there's only one, you know, tea itself that's been offered versus the material being blended. It's sometimes easier to taste it because you're like, of course, there's like saemidori in this and there's uji hikari and you're getting those characters that you know from those cultivars. versus really good single cultivar, we're like, wow, this is harmonically interesting and it's only one person's tea. That's pretty profound.

Ryan · 28:15

Mm. Like a lot had to go right. Hmm.

Zongjun · 28:16

Very interesting.

Zach · 28:18

Yeah, absolutely.

Zongjun · 28:18

What what do chashi think about this whole single cultivar trend that's happening? And yeah.

Zach · 28:24

That's a really good question. So a couple things. I think what's important if we look historically, there's a couple of precedents that I think in today's modern sort of understanding of single cultivar, we kind of forget. this was really interesting to me is that, and this is something, there's a really good book, it's in Japanese, but you can get it you can translate it. It's called Everything About Matcha by Hideki Kuwabara.

Zach · 28:49

who was a wholesaler from Kohata in Uji. And he wrote this really, really wonderful book that is still, think, today sort of like the kind of gold standard for understanding a lot of the historical elements of how matcha production developed. And again, this is very, you know, it's Kyoto-centric. But it's a great book. And he talked a lot about single estate matcha actually sort of...

Zach · 29:13

was the traditional way matcha was sold prior to chashi. So initially it's just like the Edo period. Many of the tea houses that were responsible for supplying tea to the shogunate, who was the main customer, that was the person that tea was basically made for at that time. wasn't for the average citizens in Japan. They oversaw everything. So they grew the tea, they processed the tea, they...

Zach · 29:38

packaged it and ultimately sold it. So if you think about the origins of early matcha in Japan, it actually was single estate or not necessarily single cultivar. And I'm going to explain why in a second, but it was this idea of there was no blending happening. And the reason it wasn't single cultivar is because they were dealing with zairai. So it was already multiple cultivars. So it was like gogumi from nature, if you think about it, right? Because they're,

Zongjun · 29:52

Yeah. Yeah. Alter didn't exist. Mm-hmm.

Ryan · 30:05

Yeah.

Zach · 30:07

And for listeners who aren't familiar with zairai, zairai is the traditional seed grown tea. So it was prior to the clonal tea system where they're taking teas and they're cloning them for specific genetic traits. This was basically heirloom tea. So within a certain row of tea bushes, you'd have genetically diverse teas every couple of feet.

Zach · 30:29

They weren't blending them per se, but nature was blending them, but they were selling them as single cultivars. So the true way that tea was sold originally was without blending. And then it looks like probably in like Meiji era when the introduction of really... So tea at that point was sold as tencha to the customer, to the shogunate, and they milled it. So that was a big difference.

Zach · 30:54

What happened in the Meiji period is with the introduction of electricity and refrigeration, now wholesalers took the whole process and said, okay, we're going to turn it into powder and sell the powder to the customer. So in order to do that, that's where blending or gogumi really became much more of the norm versus like, okay, we're just buying it from this farmer. And the truth is a lot of those original farmers during the...

Zach · 31:21

Meiji restoration, they became the chashi. So if you look at oftentimes, if you look at a family, a chashi in Kyoto, you'll see two dates. You'll see the date they started like farming tea, which is usually like hundreds of years ago. And then you see the date in which they incorporated their company. So oftentimes they're all like within the same few years because during that Meiji era, they were like

Zach · 31:49

a lot of businesses were becoming more formal, more formalized. So you have them as a farmer and then you have them as like, now we are, know, Yamamasa Koyama and versus like, my family's been farming for a really long time. And that critical point is where a lot of what we know as modern tea began. And that's the introduction of electricity and refrigeration and the fact that it was now the responsibility of the tea producer or the manufacturer to mill the tea.

Zach · 32:17

And that was a lot for a farmer to have access to all of that infrastructure. It just became sort of impossible. So that's where you really see that shift from single cultivar to blended teas. Now we have the new era, right? Which I think you guys are interested in, which is, well, when did it happen now that farmers are now selling directly instead of the chashi? And...

Ryan · 32:39

Yeah.

Zongjun · 32:40

Yeah.

Zach · 32:42

That's been happening in some instances for a while, for a couple decades, but it's really only in the last, I'd say in my experience, five to 10 years that it's become more common to be able to buy that material. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan · 32:56

super frequent or recent. Yeah. Crazy. I I was doing a big research rabbit hole into the sort of the provenance of what gets labeled as Uji matcha, and I realized that the single estate idea kind of broke the definition of Uji matcha, because if you take like the idea that it's a crafted blend by a skilled chashi, they source from all over and there's the trademark definition, which is super expensive.

Zach · 33:08

yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ryan · 33:23

But at least ten years ago, right, like most of the tea sold as Ujicha came from these skilled people making it and that's all Uji Cha was that was available. And then if you have single estate farmers, like f like the Furukawas or Suchisan or like all these famous Uji names that you hear about, the most interesting thing about the product is that it's actually the tea from the place. This is Uji matcha, Uji tencha, and that

Zach · 33:33

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ryan · 33:49

the other stuff is this craft of blending, but it's not actually Uji Cha. Like how does that how do those politics land? Because I feel like consumers outside of Japan are beginning to make these distinctions that like there's the brand Uji and then there's real Uji if you care about proven.

Zach · 33:54

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Well, it's interesting because there's sort of two worlds. There's what it means to the consumer outside of Japan and what it means to people in the industry that live and work. And, you know, it could be Uji, it could be, you know, Nishio, could be any, know, Shizuoka has this in some cases with sencha. But yeah, I mean, there has been a reckoning in that sense of like, you know, what does it mean to have tea that is labeled

Zach · 34:33

from wherever, whether it's, know, Uji for an example. Yeah, a lot of, know, there's always this choke of like the amount of tea produced in Uji versus the amount of tea sold every year. There's a huge gap between how much is manufactured and how much makes it into the marketplace. And we've seen this, right? Like how can every new company that starts have access to, you know, tea from Uji? And the truth is,

Zach · 34:58

Teas that are finished in Uji are often times labeled as Uji but that doesn't mean that there are laws, percentages of what can be from Shiga and what can be from Mie and what can be from Nara. You can look at those and say, yeah, they have to have this amount, like 30 % can come from outside of Kyoto but that doesn't mean a lot of people are not following that. And this is, I think, a bigger point which is like standards in Japan.

Zach · 35:25

are changing more rapidly than people can keep up with, especially with the huge pressures to supply tea to the Western markets. And I do think that people are pumping the brakes a little bit of like, all right, what are we doing here? Like, how are we, you know, there's GI, geographical indication, people are applying for that. you know, I think...

Zach · 35:45

Unfortunately, what happens a lot is there's this sort of over-reliance on the government to figure it out for like, we need the local government or we need the Japan Agricultural Association to figure this out for us. And I think it's really going to be understood and fixed. It has to start with the producers themselves saying like, hey, this is really important for us to protect the integrity of the product here.

Zach · 36:09

you can't just wait for something to be legislated into reality. It has to really come from the producers themselves. And I do think there is quietly a change starting to happen, but yeah, it's funny, right? Like, Uji tea is by its very sort of like historical nature, a blend of teas. So this, to your point, like now if you're drinking, it's a unique thing to say you're drinking a single tea from a single place. It's sort of thought of as like,

Zach · 36:37

Okay, well you're eating one of the ingredients in the thing that we cook. Like we make soup, but you're only eating the carrot. You know what I mean? Like why would you do that? You gotta make the soup. That's where all the flavor is. But then someone's gonna like, that's the best carrot I ever had. So I just wanna understand what the carrot tastes like. It's interesting. So yeah, I mean it's.

Zach · 36:58

I think this is just to say we're in a very interesting, I could have never imagined when I started doing this, you know, 16 years ago that like there would be so much development, so much attention, so much opportunity. Like it's just a wild thing to be a part of right now. And, you know, I feel very grateful that people, number one, care about it and number two, buy it. And you know, that there are opportunities for the, for the industry in Japan to continue to evolve.

Ryan · 37:26

Hmm. Dick.

Zongjun · 37:26

Hmm. I feel like the idea of chasing all these geographic locations are slowly losing its provenance in some of the more advanced drinkers. Like people are slowly moving towards I feel like, you know, individual farmers like the Furukawa san or like specific farmers, Yamaguchi san, instead of like you know, it's from this very region or it from this village. I feels like it's moving into that direction. It's more human related versus geographic related.

Zach · 37:54

Well, yeah, mean geography and you can talk about this with anything. mean, tea production has technical, like a technical side and it has a human side. And I don't think that, you know, in technical I mean soil. I'm talking about, you know, the weather, the things that are not controllable by a human being that are, you know, what you're dealt.

Zach · 38:18

I guess understanding how you value the balance of those things is important. And that's also, I think for a tea brand, right? Like someone like myself, that's our responsibility to say, hey, how do we build a value system that includes or doesn't include in some cases, the human element or the, you know, the land or the area where it comes from. And I think what you see now with the sort of proliferation of brands is they just value a place.

Zach · 38:45

and they value a place because they've heard that's a place and they say, okay, well, someone told me this is a good place and I don't have a lot of experience, so I'll go there. And you see that now as like sort of step one, right? Like I can tell you it comes from here. But me personally, like number one, what interests me as a business owner and what makes me wanna get up and do this all the time is I like people and I love stories and I love learning about the human element.

Zach · 39:11

And above that, if you look at sort of the wine industry, I talk about this a lot, the highest value is no longer associated with a grape or with an area. It's associated with a human being that made it. And that's how you distinguish what makes something understood for its value. Because intrinsically, can't, it's very hard to like line up 10 teas and are, all right, everybody, let's all decide which the best one is. No, you can't.

Zach · 39:36

But you can understand the human element. You can trace it to a person and their values. again, it doesn't mean that that person for all 10 people is going to produce the best, quote, best tea because that doesn't exist. But it gives you a framework for understanding a consistency in like, OK, we know they apply these rigorous standards. We know where the tea comes from. We know there's consistency. And if you really want to understand quality, think

Zach · 40:03

understanding people and understanding their approach to tea is is paramount and there's that means lots of things when I go to me, you know, and I want to be clear, you know, I'm not a matcha only company I love and I'm super passionate about all the teas of Japan and you know, I spend a lot of time talking about matcha because it's got a huge audience, you know where there's not a lot of sencha podcasts that I know about but you know, when I go like

Zach · 40:30

One of the most important things I want to do when I meet a producer is just not before I taste their tea, just get to know them, get to, you know, kind of, and every Japanese producer is shy to begin with. So you have to go multiple times. You know, you're not going to get everything the first trip. You really need to build that trust. You really need to, you know, listen more than you talk. need to, you know, it's just things that you pick up on if you do this for decades. And then I always love to try their least expensive tea first.

Zach · 40:59

It's a weird thing I do, but when they bring out the teas, I'm always like, can I try your hojicha? Or like, can I try your second harvest? Do you make a set? Some people don't, but like, do you have a second harvest matcha? And for me, I glean so much from quote unquote their lower grade quality teas, because it's super easy to taste someone's like, you know, diamond offering, and they're always good. Like, you know, even, you know, a...

Zach · 41:26

mediocre tea maker can make a decent like, you know, like something for the tea fair that's going to be, you know, of very, very high quality. So it's really how they respect each price category for me is something that I've, I just, I do that because I, know, if you're drinking a hojicha and you're like, my God, they've really paid attention to this. under, they care about this the same way they care about their most expensive products that You know, that for me is just a marker of how I source tea.

Ryan · 41:57

Love that.

Zongjun · 41:57

very interesting framework.

Ryan · 41:59

It makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. When it comes to like, you know, these different farmers or the chashi, and sort of what like something that I took away from what you just said too is that a lot of it is like their expression. Like like how do you like all of the work that they do in bringing the product to the l to life, why do you think it is that chashi are so in the background? Because you have these rock star matcha farmers that have really stepped into the light.

Zongjun · 42:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan · 42:25

They're traveling abroad to give speeches about the way they do agriculture. they they are becoming more and more visible. But why have w like I feel like any of the traditional blend houses, the chashi is the greatest asset. You know, you could have very similar stories to like in wine, like I made this blend, I was very inspired by this, that, or the other thing. I hope you taste these things and I I did this to to create it, you know, to express this point of view that I have, or something like that. Why is it so hidden?

Zongjun · 42:54

Yeah, 'cause master blenders are ple like celebrities in wine.

Zach · 42:54

Yeah, I mean that's a good question I'll I'll take a crack at it and again, this is my if you know, I I don't You know purport to know how everyone however, chashi thinks their psychology psychology, but my guess And how I think about it is that you have to remember, number one, that chashi are very traditional jobs and their brands are very, very traditional. And it's not often that you see, especially within, for example, a chashi could be, generally they're the president of the company. And the reason why is because with blending there's risk, because if you do it wrong, you risk the reputation of the company.

Zach · 43:33

and the chashi are the president because they say, I'm the only one that can take that risk. So if we mess it up, has to be, you can't say, my assistant did it, sorry. Like if you have to be where the buck stops as the president. And generally, I mean, we are going through a change in terms of the aging out of some chashi, but generally speaking, they're not about to start changing the way they do it. And they also,

Zach · 43:57

You have to remember, the chashi's main customer, even if it doesn't mean by volume, is the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, you the schools. And that is so traditional. And the amount of humility and the amount of, you know, just being in the background, that's a cultural thing that's not going to be like, great, hey, everyone thinks your stuff's great. Like pack your bag, you're going to California to like...

Zach · 44:22

talk about it. They're much more like, no, I can't. That's not my position. That's not my job. Also, how would it look if the head of Urasenke saw me traveling abroad and like, they want me back doing my job there because they expect da da da. There's a lot of interwoven cultural points that they might want to do it. They might be like chomping at the bit to be like, my God, like I'd love to go out, but they have a very...

Zach · 44:49

specific responsibility to the company. And the company is a legacy company. It's not a farmer. They can do what they want. It's them individually. There's much more of a system in what we think of as a tea manufacturer or a tea brand. that's my guess is that's why you see them much more like I'm in the background versus, and you see it. I've seen, are, I know of several heads of

Zach · 45:18

Secha ends that are traveling and doing stuff. So, you know, it's it's definitely an individual choice for the company But I think if we're thinking of like the big ones and the very traditional ones, I don't think that's gonna change soon You know, I know when I did my first book, you know Some of the guys would be like there's no photos like you can't take my photo for the book one of my favorite stories is I am I interviewed the head of Marukyu Koyamaen.

Zach · 45:43

And he, mean, if there is one character that sits atop sort of the totem pole of Kyoto tea, everyone looks at it. It's the head of Marukyu Koyamaen, Koyama-san. And he said, no, absolutely I don't do photos. So we sit down in his office, which is like right when you walk into, if you've ever been to Marukyu Koyamaen, you kind of go to the, one of their plants and right when you walk in to the right, his office is like right there.

Zongjun · 45:43

Wow. Yeah.

Zach · 46:10

So we go into his office and we start, like today we're having a conversation. I'm asking questions, he's pouring tea. He starts to get a little bit relaxed, da da da. And I saw it, I just saw that I was like, maybe I can get this photo. So at the end of it, I'm like, Koyama-san, I completely respect and totally understand no photos, but maybe you could write a recommendation of something else like the tokonoma or...

Zach · 46:34

this flower arrangement, maybe something else we can put in the book as a photo while we're here. And I saw him like, well, maybe we can do one photo. So he like, you know, moved over and I just, I was like, don't, I just went, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, I have the photo, it's in my book of him. And you can see he's like in his work clothes, he's got his cell phone like in his pocket. And I just got that photo. And I remember it was like, that's how hard it was to even get a photo.

Ryan · 46:50

I've seen it.

Zongjun · 46:54

Yeah.

Zach · 46:59

So you have to imagine like for him to go out into spouse his greatness or his skill or his talent, not gonna happen probably. So.

Ryan · 46:59

Mm. Yeah. Mm. Yeah.

Zongjun · 47:08

I need to take notes on how you nudge all these Japanese grandpa.

Ryan · 47:11

Ha ha ha

Zach · 47:11

Well, that's something that I talk a lot about and, you know, it's really something that I've learned if there's one thing over the years that I, and my wife is also, my wife is Japanese and she's elbowed me so many times or kicked me under the table so many times. And I've really learned like, it's a whole beautiful, confusing, complicated, sometimes simple, like there's just so much.

Zach · 47:36

grist for the mill when it comes to navigating the culture there too, which is part of what's so interesting to me and something that like you'll never be done with that part, like learning how and why and how to navigate it. And it's something I tell people who come to me and they're like, hey, I really want to start a company. And I'm like, that's amazing. But you really have to understand that like it requires an immense amount of, you know.

Zach · 48:01

self-development because I see a lot of Westerners go over there and like, yeah, but that's not right or that's not how, you know, that's not what I meant or, you know, why don't they do it? They should do it. Then you just have to be like, dude, it's not about you. you're, it's a hopeless cause. Like what, only time, you know, and that doesn't mean people won't change or you don't get to influence them. But it's, you just have to understand the speed at which things.

Zach · 48:27

quote change is very, different there. And you just have to be like, cool, this situation does not make any sense to me. This is completely foreign and I don't get it. And all right, I accept that. And once you can kind of accept the absurdity of some of the situations you'll find yourself in, that counts towards something over time where you're like, hey, remember we went through that absurd thing together? Yeah. That's an experience that we have now together and they remember it, you remember it, and that develops the relationship further.

Ryan · 48:56

It's almost stoic.

Zongjun · 48:57

Ryan and I Ryan and I had quite a bit, I guess, bonding traumas.

Ryan · 49:02

Yeah, yeah. It's very hard to know where the invisible line is. It's

Zach · 49:02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, until you've crossed it, then it's very clear. It's hard to see it until it's behind you and then you're like, I've done something offensive.

Ryan · 49:09

Yeah. Even like little things, like like Sam accidentally walked into a a tea garden with his sunglasses on. Like it was a really bright day and just like oop instant like please take your sunglasses off. Like I don't know.

Zach · 49:20

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, know, how could we all know, right? Like there's just no, there's a lot to, even now, I mean, I, you know, there's things I do all the time that I'm like, you know, I do my best, but like, you know, wearing a ring during, you know, while handling expensive teaware, like, you know, if you're in a tea room or you're, know, take your rings off, take your watch off, things that you're like, right. Like, you know, you just don't, it doesn't jump into your mind as a thing you do, but.

Zach · 49:51

You learn, you can make any mistake you want once. That's what I think. No problem. You made a mistake, make it once. And then if you make it a second time, that's on you. Because now you know, and if you screw up again, it's like, well, you gotta be like, all right, no more sunglasses, right? So no second chance on no sunglasses, man. You gotta have them off next time.

Ryan · 49:56

that's a great rule.

Zongjun · 49:58

Hmm.

Ryan · 50:01

Mm. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Zongjun · 50:11

Great advice. Kinda wanna revert back to your comment about flavor. previously. about you know, like we we all know these iconic characteristics, for example, Uji is about umami. And I feel like roasty toasty has been becoming the new umami for Yame. and and your comment about you ca you you you almost need to like kind of untase these you know. iconic flavor to to to detect all the nuances. I guess my question is like do do you have like different quality judgment framework when it comes to matcha or tea from different regions or you actually have a more universal kind of framework that disregards all the

Zach · 50:37

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's a really good, if I'm understanding your question correctly, I think it's a really good point, which is like basically, do we apply the same set of tasting standards to teas from multiple places? Yeah.

Zongjun · 50:59

Mm. Yep, exactly.

Zach · 51:01

I actually talk a little bit about this. did a blog or a Substack post a while ago about how we evaluate teas. And I actually talk about that point in there, which is I don't think it's the same way that like brewing every tea the exact same way. Like, yes, you can get a baseline, but if you really want to understand a tea, it's really important to understand as much about the tea as possible in order to understand how it tastes. And I'll give you an example of this. is, I remember I took one year.

Zach · 51:30

So I took, was in Uji and I got two samples of tencha. Like they were literally like the day they were manufactured, the farmers came and they, two different farmers gave a sample of Asahi and Asahi from, I think it was 2025, I'm pretty sure it was 2020, no 2024. Two Asahi from two legendary farmers in Kyoto.

Zach · 51:54

I go to Fukuoka, and this was a really special day. They invited us, myself and our COO got to, and my wife, we got to go basically into the room where they're tasting as they're processing samples. So they're processing tencha and they're lining up all of that ears like immediately. it's like hot, the tencha is still hot. And we're sitting and we're tasting with them. And I'm just like, I'm hanging out in the back. I'm like, you know, I'm not saying anything. I'm just.

Zach · 52:22

You know, if they ask me, I'll give my opinion. And sort of at the end of that, I was like, hey, do you guys want to try two tencha that I just brought that was processed yesterday? And they knew both farmers. And they're yeah, let's line it up. So I lined them up, but they didn't know whose was who. And they pulled one immediately, like that's the one. And I remember I said, why did you pull that one? They're like, it's just showing much better. This is too light. It's just not. And I knew in my brain that

Zach · 52:48

Everyone knows the one on the left, that farmer, his tea doesn't show well until the fall. It needs aging. And if you don't know that critical information, and these are people who have, they're in Fukuoka, so they don't have all the nuance and understanding of, you know, at that level, but they have great taste. And they're tasting based on exactly what they taste at that moment. And so this is even a greater understanding of like, it's not just about even like,

Zach · 53:13

where it comes from. It's about literally the person who makes it knowing that subtle detail of like, you have to imagine that this tea is going to mature, it's going to taste different than it does right now. And you'd have to kind of build that into your plan if you were buying it. And I remember being like, that's why you have to go, you have to talk with them, you have to understand at a very nuanced level, a specific product. Otherwise,

Zach · 53:36

When you taste it, if I applied the same standards to both of those not knowing that, I'd say, yeah, this doesn't express X, Y, and Z the way this one does. But it's not true because if you wait until fall, those teas are exquisite. But if you don't have that piece of information, it's really, you you're missing something. that's a long way. Sorry, I talk a lot. That's a long way of saying that when you taste, you're not always going to know that. You're not like, there's no way that I can, every single tea I taste.

Zach · 54:03

I'm gonna be able to say, yes, it's gonna improve or we have to factor this in. I try to get as much information as I can and then on top of that, we do apply a tasting rubric. And now in the last two years, I used to taste everything 100 % myself and it was my responsibility and I picked everything. And now we're at a point where number one, I want the next generation of our team to, you

Zach · 54:29

have the professional skills to do this. So we taste together and I never tasted to like, okay, it has a number of, you one to 10 in this and this. I just tasted and go, yeah, that's it. Take that one. But now we do. We taste to a, we built our own internal tasting kind of rubric that we use and we always taste as a team. We have someone in Japan taste and score. We have myself, Christopher.

Zach · 54:56

and sometimes other folks, but usually Christopher and I are tasting together at the office. And we apply kind of a different framework and it's been interesting because it's a different way to evaluate than I typically do, which is much more like following my sense. And sometimes I miss that and sometimes I'll secretly still apply that. like, I know we scored at that, but we're still buying that, know, because I know I like that. So there's always sort of a, there's, I have a, I have a, yeah, like a, a.

Zach · 55:21

I can pull the lever at the end and be like, just kidding, we're still buying that. So it is important. It is important to taste and I think it's important to taste with other people. And some days my palate's off. Like some days I'm like, damn, like I just am not, it's not, it's not working for me today. I'm tired or I, you know, I'm not getting what the information I'm supposed to be getting. And then vice versa, some days I'm on and other folks are off and you have a cold or something. So.

Zach · 55:46

In Japan, they always taste with three people. So if you're evaluating teas professionally, the teams are always in three so that there can be a safety check. So if someone's off, the other two can be like, you're not picking up on this. So we do it in three as well, usually one in Japan and two in the States.

Ryan · 56:06

Okay, well, very cool. And async might even be more reliable, because then you're really not getting influenced, at least not as much. Or at least partially async. What do you think about all these new brands? Like when Kettl started, you were probably the first Japanese focused tea company to sell like single cultivar, single farmer teas to a Western audience. And now it feels like it's the norm, like a lot has changed on like the

Zach · 56:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan · 56:32

Consumer and market side of the business.

Zach · 56:34

Yeah, mean, it's wild. mean, I can't stress how I just never, I'm not like, yeah, I saw this coming. I knew it was gonna be like, yeah, I didn't. I was like, I'm very self-focused, so I'm like, I love this. I'm just gonna keep doing this because I personally like this. And people were like, I think people will like this. And I'm like, maybe, I like it. And that was always sort of my North Star, was like, I'm interested in this. And I have to be honest.

Zach · 57:00

Yeah, I knew it was great. And if I could say, I saw it. I knew, I knew, I knew matcha was going to be a big thing. I mean, I knew it could become popular, but I just, no one could have imagined that it was going to link up in this certain way where it became like, like the fabric of like, of culture. It's like a, like, it's a, it's it's it's, know, it defines some people's day to day experience and when they get their matcha, how they take a picture of their matcha, which is like,

Ryan · 57:19

Mm. Yeah.

Zach · 57:29

crazy to me to be completely honest. It's wild. And I think that there's two sort of, I break it into kind of two halves, right? One is how do we develop the opportunity that we have, which means there's a lot of people that are interested. We get a lot of people that are like, hey, I want to work in this industry. Like, you know, five years ago, I'd be like, what industry, you know, like

Zach · 57:52

there's not that many people that make their living dealing with tea as a material and can pay their rent and pay their car payments and do all that. There was a framework for it from a sort of the ability to have a life, so to speak, versus it's a really important sort of side thing that I do. And then...

Zach · 58:13

How do we develop that? That's really almost what I'm most excited about now is how do you build teams that maybe leave Kettl and go do something, whether it's in Japanese tea or it's in some other, I love, they wanna go do Taiwanese tea or do tea from Sri Lanka or whatever. That's something that I really want to take. I see this as an opportunity that I don't wanna miss to be involved in developing that. And that's why I think things like this podcast,

Zach · 58:39

things like people writing books and really trying to share their knowledge, that helps everyone make a stronger kind of industry. So I think that's really important because on the other side, right, with the proliferation of all these brands, there's just so many people that are good intention, have good intentions, but just are not, they just don't have enough experience. And the issue today, and this is like, I use an example of liking something a lot.

Zach · 59:07

and being in a position to then be an authority to sell that are two different things. Liking something doesn't give you the authority to say, hey, this is this and that's that. That's just not how it works. you know, it's like, I use the example a lot of like, hey, I really like to do pottery. I enjoy it a lot. I'm gonna make my first cup and I'm gonna have an Etsy store and sell it. Yes, okay, you could sell that cup, but like,

Ryan · 59:12

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Zach · 59:32

I feel like some people are missing that development of like the commerce part comes after you develop your relationship to it and I think what brands are lacking now is a perspective and a point of view of like, okay, yeah, we all like matcha like there what differentiates why you would shop with someone versus another and I think that that is really really important and something that I

Zach · 59:56

want to go on record as saying is like when people ask me like what should I do, take your time and develop a perspective and a point of view on what you want to share. And if it's still, if you're passionate about matcha, you know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, but you know, I don't think it's enough now to go and find matcha and start a website and put it up. like, there's that's, it's just, it's, I think you need to go beyond that. And one of the places I think I really look towards

Zach · 1:00:24

for inspiration is non-tea related things. I don't know if you guys follow music at all. There was a great quote from his pianist, Keith Jarrett, who's like a profound, one of my musical heroes. And he talks about creativity and he's like, saying music comes from music, like I'm inspired by this music to make music, is like saying babies come from babies, you know?

Zach · 1:00:46

There's, it's not like, this baby creates this, no, there's other things in between. And I think for me, when I think about Kettl, Kettl is a tea company, right, on paper. But what I'm trying to share through tea is an understanding of the human element of these producers, of nature, of craft, of design. Those are the things that really excite me. And I feel really fortunate to be able to use Kettl sort of as a catalyst to share those things. And I think,

Zach · 1:01:14

What I look for as a university, universally people could come to Kettl and understand it even if they're not technically proficient in tea. They could be like, cool, this has a feeling that I want to be a part of. And I think for all these brands that are starting, like whatever, it could be fun, it could be goofy, it could be serious, it could be simple or complex. It's fine to be anything, but I think you need to transmit a feeling so that when a customer comes and goes, they land on your site, they're like, cool.

Zach · 1:01:40

I found something that makes sense to me and I want to be a part of this. It's not so much about, yeah, you can learn how to source tea, you can go, I I literally wrote a book and put all the people's names in it. My wife almost killed me when I did that. She was like, you can't share all this information. And I'm like, honey, it's gonna get out there anyway. And I really believe in telling these stories, but I can tell you, you

Ryan · 1:01:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Zach · 1:02:04

Many farmers that you've already mentioned in today's podcast, tell me that people show up at the house, they ring the doorbell. And I'm like, and they're like, how did you find us? And they're like, well, we buy your tea from Kettl. So in a way, like I feel, I feel bad about that. You know, like, I'm sorry that then they're like, it's okay. But like, people show up in cabs, like they take cabs, they get out of the car and like, we're here to buy tea. And I knowingly know that like, I sort of

Zach · 1:02:30

the reason they're getting their door knocked on and I feel sort of, you know, I do feel sometimes like I'm sorry about that, but you know, I'm not trying to go on a tangent here, but it's important for me as my business to share that information. And sometimes it gets me in trouble, but like, I don't think you can create a meaningful company behind a veil of like, hey, I know this, I can't tell you, trust me, I know, you know, multiple companies have done that.

Ryan · 1:02:52

Hmm. Yeah.

Zach · 1:02:55

And one of the reasons I wanted to put all this information out there is to be like, look, I don't want to have like, you I don't want to pretend it's this or that. We'll tell you what it is. This is where it comes from. And I will trust that the relationship I have with those folks will, will be enough to maintain, you know, the availability of their product that I can get it and that we can continue to have a good relationship. But I just think for people it's, it's, know, putting something in a can, slapping a label on it is, you know,

Zach · 1:03:23

it's not going to take you that far in this climate because there's there's dozens of people starting companies, know, a matcha company every day. And it's important to really think about why you want to do it. Sorry, that was, yeah, I get passionate about that.

Zongjun · 1:03:23

Yeah.

Ryan · 1:03:36

Yeah. it's a wonderful. Yeah.

Zongjun · 1:03:37

Very cool. A wonderful answer. How how do how do you see Kettl like evolve, or change in the future or the in the c you know, coming years with your vision?

Zach · 1:03:49

I think about that constantly. mean, that's my biggest, like what am I, I never want it to be, know, again, I mentioned this story, but I'm a very different person in a lot of ways than I was 16 years ago, right? And I want the company always to reflect who I am and what I'm interested in now versus like if I started at 16 years ago and I didn't change anything, it wouldn't be a true reflection. That's my responsibility, I feel, is to...

Zach · 1:04:08

to update and to continue to think about what Kettl can be. I think the main areas that I see the company evolving are the impact we can have with building teams and training folks. And I'm actually in LA right now and this weekend I'm doing a fun in-store event for our customers out here. I get to spend time with our team here who I don't see as much as our team in New York, help how I can to...

Zach · 1:04:32

even if it's just drink a tea together and talk about it and to share my experience with the next generation of folks who are both working for Kettl or could go on to do their own thing. I'm really passionate about that. But the brand itself, I'm just so interested in nature. I think nature is this insane technology that is completely not being, when you turn on the news and they talk about how profoundly intelligent nature is, no, it's about AI and AI is interesting and I'm not.

Zach · 1:04:59

taking away from that, but like, I just am drawn to the natural world now, to trees, to earth, to how those things interact and how you create incredible, and tea is such a unique expression of the natural world. And, you know, before I really came to tea, I was like, it tastes like this, it looks like this. I'm interested in the flavor. And I still am interested in that, but it's like, I feel like it's bringing me in, it's calling me into understanding it in a different way, which is really through the lens of like,

Zach · 1:05:28

the magnificence of the technologies of nature. And if I could distill that in, you can tell that's not a great, I can't put that on our website, but like that's the type of material I'm thinking about these days and how I express that, whether it's through our packaging or through our, you know, video series that we're gonna start working on. I'm doing, this is interesting. I'm writing a book right now with Masayoshi Koyama. So we're doing a co-authored

Ryan · 1:05:32

Hmm.

Zongjun · 1:05:37

Ha ha.

Ryan · 1:05:37

Right. wow.

Zach · 1:05:55

book on matcha and we're going to we're trying to write like to your point earlier about just having you know like the absence of information and like I said and information that is credited and you know responsibly sourced from real people and from text etc. So I wanted to write a book on matcha and I really so I started it and I started to think like you know what

Zach · 1:06:20

I can tell a certain story from my experience, but in truth, matcha deserves to have a voice that is much deeper and much connected in a different way than myself. So I came up with this idea. was like, will you write this book with me? And he was like, okay. So we got an agent, we shopped the book around. And right now we have a few different publishers who are considering buying the book and publishing it. And it's gonna be this like my world and his world.

Zach · 1:06:47

come together to tell a different story. And there's gonna be like crazy technical information, which I think you guys are really gonna love. And then there'll be, you we've already done, we've done like five interviews and we're gonna have longer form interviews with producers. And I just wanna tell like the story of what I've seen over 16 years and have that infused with like Koyama-san's like literally his life and his legacy from his family. And I think together we'll be able to write an interesting book. So.

Zach · 1:07:15

That's also something like the kind of writing piece I'm getting more interested in. So yeah, there's a lot I have to get done in the next 16 years. So we've got to get rolling.

Ryan · 1:07:23

Yeah. that's that's awesome. Can't wait to read it.

Zongjun · 1:07:27

That's very cool. Yeah.

Zach · 1:07:29

Yeah, it won't be out probably until the spring of 2028, you know, we'll, we'll, I'll try and move as fast as I can, spring or fall of 2028.

Ryan · 1:07:33

Okay. Yeah. We're we're patient.

Zach · 1:07:38

Yeah. And I want to thank you guys too. think, you know, I know you're asking me questions, but I want to comment that, you know, it's been really, you know, I went back and, you know, I've listened to your stuff before, but I kind of did a little refresher and I think you guys do a really good job of pulling from some unique voices. And it's cool to see that we've like got a little, you know, it's a small world, but it's growing and, you know, people internationally all over the world are taking note and.

Zach · 1:08:05

and have a perspective and I really appreciate that you guys, you have a very specific way you approach it and it's very intelligent and very like, also like fun to listen to. you it's not, I give you, you guys a lot of credit for that, that you like, you could sit down and be like, wow, this is really interesting. I think that someone who might not even be into tea, so to speak, like would find what you guys, the questions you ask and the answers that you elicit from your guests is, it's really good stuff. So I give you guys, know.

Ryan · 1:08:32

Well, thank you.

Zach · 1:08:33

lot of credit for for yeah and thanks again you know obviously for having me join.

Zongjun · 1:08:34

Thank you.

Ryan · 1:08:38

our pleasure. And I can think of no better last question than what is your desert island tea?

Zach · 1:08:43

man, you're gonna pull this one out? Okay. This is funny because in my very first book, I did short interviews and the last question I asked every producer what their desert island tea was. Okay, I know it. I mean, I've always never changed. So the very first tea that I talked to you about that I drank in the Ito En office or Ito En store and then made for those guests, it's one of our teas. It's called Miyabi Sencha.

Zongjun · 1:08:44

Yeah. Yeah.

Zach · 1:09:07

That for me is my North Star tea. just, if I had to, I mean, not even if I had to, I drink it pretty much every day anyway. That would be the tea that I think if I had to drink one tea. And the reason why is it, it's a tea that I know probably better than any tea I've ever had, but every time I drink it, I'm like, Rob, what? Like it still is like, I still can't understand all of it. And I love that about it. Like it's always like, there's a little something that I'm...

Zach · 1:09:34

And you can cold brew it and it becomes this different thing. You can, you know, brew it hot. can brew it with less leaf. You can brew it with more leaf. And it's just a tea that I'll never get tired of. you know, I, you know, I, I can say this when we're on a matcha podcast, but I drink a lot of sencha. And one thing actually I wanted to say, which I forgot to say earlier, which I'm going to tie in cause I have no short answers is that for people who are really interested in matcha.

Zach · 1:10:01

drink other styles of Japanese tea. It's one of the great learnings that I've had to understand matcha is not just evaluating tencha and matcha, but drinking other styles. And if you want to understand Japanese tea as a whole, drink other countries tea, drink Chinese tea and drink Taiwanese tea. And if you want to understand black tea production in Japan, drink Sri Lankan and Indian teas and Kenyan teas and everything is connected. And I think what's really important, and this took me, you

Zach · 1:10:29

Not that I had to learn it, but I just came to this later in my career that a lot of the source material for all that I deal with professionally, which is Japanese tea, is in the lexicon and the history of other countries. The relationship between Taiwan and Japan is really interesting when it comes to tea and the research institutes that were set up and the way that the black tea production in Taiwan has really...

Ryan · 1:10:43

Hmm.

Zach · 1:10:57

influenced black tea production in Japan. I mean, China is like, you know, you guys know, it's just, it's, it's beyond vast. And it's, you know, regionally, like there's nowhere on the planet that has that level of, you know, depth and breadth and sophistication and like understanding how to taste tea and understanding nuance and quality. think for those who are really into matcha, I'd suggest one step would be like drink sencha, drink gyokuro, drink

Zach · 1:11:24

bancha, try those things that are very genetically connected to matcha and then also go one step out and look at like the source material where everything that came to Japan came from and build your palate that way. that's something that, you know, that's why a desert island tea is very hard. But for me, like, I feel like all of that information is sort of like inside Miyabi Sencha for me. So that's, that's why I would drink.

Ryan · 1:11:48

awesome. Yeah. I it's great advice too, I think, just having the broader web of context to contextualize everything.

Zongjun · 1:11:48

Very cool. That's very liberating.

Zach · 1:11:57

Yeah, absolutely.

Zongjun · 1:11:57

Totally agree. Yeah, I mean before getting into matcha, both Ryan Ryan and I were gongfu cha people and

Zach · 1:12:03

Okay, yeah, I could see that. I feel like your intellectual side, I could totally see that. I'm a lover of those teas, but I'm not a practitioner of them. So I love drinking them with people. I have friends, Max Falkowitz, for example, is someone who, I love tasting tea with him because he brings all of this experience that I don't have. And I just get to enjoy it and be like, yeah, that's really good. Can you make more of that?

Ryan · 1:12:03

Yeah, we s we started at more the Chinese side.

Zongjun · 1:12:06

Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Ryan · 1:12:10

Yeah. yeah.

Zach · 1:12:30

it's, it's a world I've just been so focused, you know, I'm very like, narrow and deep versus wide in my, my kind of, you know, focuses on things. So Japanese tea has continued to provide a lot of stimulation for me by, know, like I can, I can stay here, but I can go like that. And,

Zach · 1:12:50

But it's fun to step out and to drink Pu-erh and to drink oolongs. Chinese green teas for me have been a real revelation lately. For me, we were talking earlier about bass note, middle note, top note. I feel like there's so much middle note on those teas that I'm like, there's all this stuff in there. Because you don't get that underlying strong umami the way you do with Japanese teas.

Zach · 1:13:12

And the fragrances can be very, like they're very sophisticated, but they can be very kind of like light and, you know, like elegant, but it's like what goes on in the middle is like where the parties at on those teas for me that I'm like, okay, I can learn a lot from those. So, yeah.

Zongjun · 1:13:26

Yeah. It's it's it's interesting how you kind of reference Chinese green tea and with ja ca 'cause like the processing method is very different between Chinese green tea and Japanese green tea. And

Zach · 1:13:37

Yeah, and the psychology, I mean, for me, what I've learned is like the psychology of Chinese tea making, like of Chinese people and the psychology of Japanese people is so unique and how it ends up in the final thing. And people are always like, yeah, what do you think? Can we make matcha like in, you know, Vancouver or in Washington? And I'm like, you can make powdered tea.

Zach · 1:13:59

But like the psychology of Japanese tea production is not going to be replicated anytime soon. It's why, you know, that's to me, it's not about cultivar or, I mean, it is, it is, but it's really what makes Japanese tea interesting to me is the psychology of the tea producer and their relentless focus and their, you know.

Zach · 1:14:22

just the way that they do things is like, that's for me the piece that's interesting that like you could set everything up, you get all the machines, you can do it. like, you know, I'll give you an example. And I don't know if this will even make it in the podcast or not, but my wife Minami, my parents were moving recently and they have a china set. And they said, Minami, do think you could help us wrap the china? And Minami said, sure.

Zach · 1:14:44

So I was doing some things, Minami was just like, talking with my mom, wrapping, blah, blah, blah, blah. So everything gets packed up and shipped back and my mom opens the box and she pulls out the first piece of china and she starts unwrapping it and she's like, I have never seen anything wrapped this well, this securely. She's like, I couldn't do it if I tried. And she calls and I was listening because Minami was on speakerphone and my mom was like, Minami.

Zach · 1:15:11

These dishes, nothing broke, nothing moved. It was perfect. Like, I mean, I mean, was like, yeah, you asked me to wrap them. Like, what do you mean? Like, that's how you wrap it. And I could see it was a beautiful illustration of like, you know, and this is, I'm not being, you know, sarcastic or trying, like it really, my wife was just like, that's how you do that thing. There's no other way to do it. And I know Americans, like if you asked 10 people to wrap dishes, 10 people are going to wrap them a different way.

Zach · 1:15:40

If you go to Japan and ask 10 people to wrap dishes, they're all gonna do it the same way. And that is the thing that you really just, you can't replicate that. And it's so fascinating. I just thought that illustrated so perfectly like, yep, that's just how Minami does things, you know? And that's like, she doesn't have a, well, we could do it another way. It's just, it's that or you have broken dishes. Like, I don't know what to tell you. And it's true, I love my mom, but half those dishes would have been broken if she wrapped.

Zongjun · 1:15:57

Yeah.

Ryan · 1:16:05

Yeah.

Zach · 1:16:09

No doubt. There's just something else.

Zongjun · 1:16:10

Ha ha. You know, that's very interesting 'cause like I I guess a equival equivalent comparison will be comparing like tea makers in Yunnan, and you know, tea makers in in in Japan. 'Cause in a sense like like like the highest tea makers in like Iwo or in some of the more prized regions in Yunnan, they're like almost anti technology, anti human intervention.

Zongjun · 1:16:34

Like they they their whole dedication is trying to like remove themselves from, you know, the flavor of tea. Whereas, you know, like for Japan, it's all about like human care. Like when I first got into matcha, I I honestly like I I I cannot really appreciate the fact that matcha has been touched so deeply. and that's like purely a you know, with a very negative term that I would use back in the days, like artificial outcome. you know, it's it's all about human intervention. But like right now, it's just like the other end of the spectrum, right? Like it's how human is capable of doing. and and

Ryan · 1:17:02

Mm.

Zach · 1:17:12

Yeah, it's I always joke that like you'd never stumble like, you know, hack your way through the woods with machete and find a gyokuro field like you wouldn't. It doesn't exist in nature. It's it's it's, you know, versus like a wild tree, you know, like something that, you know, might be prized in China for its very expressive and very unique and very wild flavor. Like Japan is this like refining, refining, refining. You know, they get very involved and

Ryan · 1:17:20

Yeah.

Zongjun · 1:17:37

Mm-hmm.

Zach · 1:17:39

But there's also producers that aren't. We work with a really special tea maker in Nara who is completely hands off. he produces, we actually buy white tea from him. We buy really interesting, very, very unique, like silver, what we might call silver needle, black teas.

Zach · 1:17:58

And his whole thing is coming way more from the tradition of like, I'm going to do as little as possible and let the plants speak, but he's 0.00001 % of the style of Japanese production. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's super true. it's, and that is, it comes from that psychology. comes from, you know, the relationship to technology. Japan has a very, you know, they've, they've technology is a part of people's lives, you know, Yeah, it's technology is just a way of life there, so it shows up in teamaking often in in a a a very, you know, profound way.

Ryan · 1:18:23

With something like when thinking about like the Japanese-ness and the story of your dishes, it has a very objective outcome. There were no dishes broken after moving. But within this constant refinement of tea getting better and better and better, like it's a very subjective outcome. Who decides what that North Star is? What is better? And like, is it reflective of what the people who drink matcha like? Is it reflective if the iemoto of Urasenke tells a blend master this one's good? And that trickles down. Like how how is that what there's a tension there? And I'm curious what you think about it.

Zach · 1:18:57

Yeah. Yeah. Well I think that's a good question. And I think you've partly answered some of it, which is yes, the iemoto has an outsized influence on the what I talked about earlier, which is like the flavor of the chashi. So like a lot of the feedback that they originally got of like, yeah, stick with that, we like that. That sort of defines the house flavor, right? So in that sense, their quality comes from like if they can reproduce that.

Zach · 1:19:29

But I think if look at the farmer level, it changes. And I think, you know, for for me, some people are driven by like what is gonna sell or what's considered good at the tea fairs. And that's sort of the like double-edged sword of like actually yesterday I couldn't go this year because I I ha you know I was I had to be here, but the Zempin was yesterday, which is the bidding for all of the the

Zach · 1:19:53

Himpyokai teas, which is the the national tea fair. So Furukawa-san, I'm not sure if you know this, he won again this year the f the first prize. so someone bid on the teas yesterday. I was I was there for the bidding last year. I I I wasn't there this year, so I'm sure it was an insane price and I'm happy for him. so those guide a lot of what people think of as quality. They'll say, I want it to be good for himpyokai.

Ryan · 1:20:00

No.

Zongjun · 1:20:02

wow. I don't even want to know.

Ryan · 1:20:15

Mm.

Zach · 1:20:18

And Himpyokai is a grid. Like you you hit this, this, this, and this. And you could say, yes, they've done a really good job at that. But I don't necessarily think that's the only way to quality. And there are people who sit outside of that that go, like, hey, like, I want maybe more of the cultivar to be present, where, you know, I mean if you look at all of the top sencha, it's all Yabukita. You know, it's basically with very few you know,

Zach · 1:20:45

exceptions, like that's what it is. And Yabukita is great, but someone might be like, hey, I want to grow Shizu 7132 and I want to do a really good job of it and that'll never do well at the tea fair, but I think it's great and I'm gonna make it. And having excuse me, I think for me, finding those producers that are technically capable of producing himpyokai teas, but make decisions sometimes to say, that's not necessarily what I want to do.

Ryan · 1:21:07

Mm. Yeah, but

Zach · 1:21:09

Cause it's like in jazz, right? It's like you can play free jazz, but you can also play free jazz when you have an understanding of theory. And to me, that's always the more interesting, you know, when you when you purposely divert from something, not because you're incapable of doing it, but because you've made a choice to say, I've I have those skills, I'm gonna apply them in a different way. That to me tends to make the most interesting tea. And that requires a lot of individuality, right?

Zach · 1:21:34

You might not see that at the chashi level, but you might see it at the farmer level. And you know, there's outliers. I mean, Tsuji-san's a perfect example of that. He has developed not only has he developed s sort of a strong sensibility for what he does, he's influenced I mean, arguably, any tencha producer in Japan at this point, for you know, he's like willed the industry to be like, this is our direction. Still no one

Zach · 1:21:57

No one can replicate exactly what he does. He does something that is, you know, his level and understanding of of soil science is unbelievable. I mean, you know, I have w these interviews that we've put together are like I mean, if you like technical data, like it's beyond. I mean, he really understands it at a different different level. And then there's some people that are like, you know what? Like, I they're not as technically

Ryan · 1:22:06

Mm. Yeah.

Zongjun · 1:22:12

Right.

Zach · 1:22:23

skilled when it comes to the science, but they have they have an approach to how and when and why they do the things they do and they make beautiful, elegant teas too. So it's really like wine making in that sense that you can you can appreciate elegance, you can appreciate power, you can appreciate, you know, all sorts of things and quality can express itself in different ways. So it's not like, okay, we only we only buy tea from people that like

Zach · 1:22:48

follow X, Y, and Z, and then you know, their teas good and that's why we buy them. It's Nam, you know. Some people could ignore some things that Tsuji-san does and they could make profoundly good teas, you know. I mean a perfect example is Sakamoto-san in in Shibushi on the eastern side of Kagoshima. He's producing pound for pound, I think s the he for sure the best organic gyokuro in Japan. And I think his tencha is

Ryan · 1:22:58

Mm-hmm.

Zongjun · 1:22:58

Mm-hmm.

Zach · 1:23:14

every year improving, improving and very, very good. And his c he couldn't be more diametrically opposed in terms of how he works with the soil. And that to me is like super exciting to be like, cool, we have two people in our catalogue that think very differently. That to me is a a sign of a stronger catalog than like, hey, we've collected all the people that do this thing. Like I want there to be that tension of like you're over here and you're over here and like who cares the teas are still really good. If that makes sense.

Ryan · 1:23:42

Makes total sense. Love that. It's expression. Different philosophies. We've tasted a bunch of samples recently that are like zero zero zero fertilizer, zero pesticide, and I'm tasting flavors I've never had in matcha. Like why just taste that like

Zach · 1:23:46

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. When you let the plant yeah, when you let the plant like you you know, I mean when you don't give it a boost or you don't, you know, push it along and it has to do its own thing. It can be great and it can also, as you know, like it doesn't always lead to great things, but you can end up with some very, very interesting things. So that's cool you guys are trying those.

Ryan · 1:24:05

Yeah. Yeah, it's really opens the universe 'cause I feel like the heavily fertilized teas, there's a homogeneity to them. I feel like it can almost take the ammonium nitrate from the more industrial ones. It's like this very singular tone that it develops. Yeah.

Zongjun · 1:24:19

Yeah.

Zach · 1:24:22

Yeah, no. Yeah, it's all bottom end for sure. Yeah. And that's that's where w I you know you that's why I said earlier you really have to ignore umami sometimes because the Japan's gotten really good at doing that and especially with with you know sencha as well. Like there's very little unshaded sencha now that you can find and that's I think it's a shame because there's you know there's

Zongjun · 1:24:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan · 1:24:43

Mm.

Zach · 1:24:46

Just a a whole other world of fragrance that you're missing when everything is like kabuse, kabuse, kabuse. And you know, that's that's that's just how the market goes. So well we're we're trying to, you know, if more people buy other stuff then maybe that will change, but we'll we'll see. I'm not sure.

Ryan · 1:25:03

Yeah. No, makes sense. And I think it it's nice to explore those other parts of tea culture and essentials and stuff and ex expanded reds.

Zach · 1:25:10

Yeah, for sure.

Zongjun · 1:25:11

Absolutely.

Ryan · 1:25:12

Well, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you coming on. I know it's super early where you are too, so thank you for for dialing in.

Zach · 1:25:17

No, my pleasure.

Ryan · 1:25:21

And if you enjoyed this, please consider sharing with friend. And I'll see you in the next one. Thanks.

Zongjun · 1:25:25

See you in the next one.

Ryan · 1:25:26

Take care.