Kissatens, Blue Bottle, and Specialty Matcha

Ryan · 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Specialty Matcha Podcast. My name is Ryan, this is my Co host Zongjun. Hello, hello. And we're the Co founders of Sanko Matcha Products. Yeah, we launched this podcast to discuss our learning journey, Matcha, share startup stories and interview experts. And today we're going to share you a very interesting experience that we just had in Tokyo, visiting some coffee shops.

Ryan · 0:20

And one of these coffee shops was really original inspiration of the birth of Blue Bottle, which is part of the major player of modern coffee movement. So we thought it would be fun to visit old school Japanese style coffee house called kissaten, which really like is one of the founding inspirations behind the Blue Bottle experience, which was extremely novel to people at the time 20 years ago and made such a strong impression on people and gave coffee this stage and space and created this experience for people that it opened their minds to a coffee could be where coffee wasn't coffee wasn't coffee. But it created an experience in

Ryan · 1:04

a space where someone could want to appreciate or learn more about single cultivar coffee or single origin coffee that's been lightly roasted and hear all the different flavor expressions based on the way that it's been processed during green processing, et cetera, and really helped form the foundations of what became the specialty coffee movement.

Zongjun · 1:24

So we think that there's actually a lot of lessons to be learned here between these different cultural exchanges that happened in the early days of coffee to build the specialty coffee industry that are highly applicable to the matcha industry today. Yeah.

Zongjun · 1:38

So we thought that it would be a great opportunity to utilize such almost a pilgrimage to follow the past path of James Freeman, who is the founder of Blue Bottle. And we started from this place called Chatei Hatou. It's a kissaten in Shibuya and it's a really the first time that James Freeman in a lot of his interview talked about that.

Ryan · 2:03

He really got inspired. Yeah, and just give you a sense of some of his stories. And I, I really urge everyone to go listen to some of his early talks. He gave one, I think at Stanford. He gave one at Google, really interesting talks about the the founding story of Blue Bottle. But anyway, he he walked in and he sat down at the bar and there's this gigantic wall of cups and these are all European style cups.

Ryan · 2:27

He said 10s of in general have a very European feel. We'll kind of describe what our experience was like walking in in a second. But the coffee person took his order. He turned around and he looked at this giant wall of cups and as if he was trying to select the right cup for the right person at the right moment for the order that they got. And they thought about it and they picked one off the wall for him.

Ryan · 2:52

He preheated, even preheated the saucer. He made the coffee by hand to order and then presented to him with such care. And this is the level of care that you would see in something like chanoyu. And like a tea ceremony where there's economy of movement, where there's consideration for a unique thing for a guest.

Zongjun · 3:11

But when you host a tea ceremony, you often choose tea Ware or flowers that are reflective of the season. And even depending on different people, you can select specific chawans or tea bowls just for that. It can be highly customized experience.

Ryan · 3:25

It's a really a good reflection of ichigo ichie like to create a very unique moment for you to experience and to remember. Yeah, And all these implicit indicators saying I see you care about you in crafting an experience for you, which is just in the next level of hospitality.

Ryan · 3:44

And this is not just true in tea ceremony or in kissatens. It's all throughout Japanese culture in Japan, at the very nice restaurants, at the very nice bars, at the hotels. It's just this level of implicit message. I see you, I, I'm taking care of you.

Ryan · 4:02

I care about your experience in a way that's not flashy or Foo Foo. And you really, it'd be easy to skim over this and not even notice. But when you really look carefully, there's so much consideration for every little detail that crafts an experience. And this is really what he took away and was able to present coffee in a very different way.

Ryan · 4:25

I mean, to create the space for dialogue and to create interest and almost a curiosity gap when people would walk into these early Blue Bottle cafes. But anyway, preheats the saucer, hands him the cup, has him enjoy it.

Ryan · 4:38

And there's other good, there's other good pastries and sweets there as well. And this was such a formative memory for him that he kind of took a lot of the style and level of intentionality and did things like do the emotional mapping journey of Cafe design. Where are the anxiety points?

Ryan · 4:58

How are things supposed to be clean? How do we justify everything that's there? It's not quite minimalism. And when people say that he's minimalistic and it's a minimalistic aesthetic, he says. I don't know really about that because it's not minimalism for the sake of minimalism. Everything that you see just has to be rationalized. The really the the original idea of less is more, right? Like it's not really about less, it's really about how can you experience more from the less.

Ryan · 5:28

From from what is there, which I mean, which is very different than kissaten, but the similar level of intentionality was brought to this type of aesthetic. And then he thinks that the sensory experience of entering a cafe doesn't start with your first sip of coffee.

Ryan · 5:43

It's such as the door handle the first thing that you touch and was like all obsessed with this kind of thing, which I find deeply inspiring. It's all the things that people generally don't notice. But 1000 details, perfectly executed, create these next level experiences.

Ryan · 5:59

He's really obsessed with this. He brings it back to the States and people love it. And as Blue Bottle begins to pick up progress, he also imports Japanese, one of the first importers of Japanese coffee equipment. So things like gooseneck kettles, those weren't popular before Blue Bottle really started popularizing them.

Zongjun · 6:16

Interesting. Or the the siphons where they have these big halogen lamps in this very scientific looking thing. Just out of curiosity, were they invented in Japan or? Goose necks? That's a good question. I don't know, I assume.

Ryan · 6:29

So because I've only seen legacy brands in Japan that like create this source of, you know, equipments that did well and really think of anywhere else. I think it's all Japanese inspired. Well, they have these large enamel tinware ones where the spout starts at the bottom and it's like a swan neck. I know there's a long history of those companies, but I don't know where it was developed.

Zongjun · 6:52

I mean, arguably maybe is inspired from like your design maybe goes back to China maybe, but for a completely different purpose, similar functionality, at least for your design. Well, I mean like that's how they use back in the days to pour water or. Wine.

Ryan · 7:08

For for for more Thai like powdered tea. Yeah, that's true. And there was a boiling vessel for tea even before that during the Tang dynasty, so who knows. Yeah, who knows. I anyways I would bet it was you are inspired and it goes back to Tang dynasty and can be traced through China. As with most things in East Asian culture, China was the ultimate exporter of culture in the early days. At the time, yeah.

Ryan · 7:33

So, but anyway, when they opened their cafe in Mint Plaza in downtown San Francisco and they had all these halogen lamp setups and these Kyoto style ice drip, they had this very new looking aesthetic. And we're presenting coffee in just such an interesting way for people with a level of hospitality that probably people were not used to with probably both with largely implicit messaging.

Ryan · 7:57

A big thing he talks about is not really talking about the brand. The interesting thing, a lot of these kissaten, you don't necessarily see gigantic signs or on lights. And he was like, I really dislike this idea of a big logo saying blue bottle.

Ryan · 8:12

Everything is meant to be very small, very subtle, and he didn't like it when brands shoved brand messaging down someone's throat. And not to punch too much on other matcha companies, but this is a personal frustration of mine when people are like this match has authentic, it's rare.

Ryan · 8:31

Everything else you're drinking is crap. This is the real stuff. It's like same level of explicit in your face messaging and it's so top down. I can't stand it. Which is quite irony because if you walk in the streets of Tokyo, that's all you see, like all these ginormous neon like signage just everywhere.

Ryan · 8:52

It's quite, quite an interesting, like, I guess contrast. I bet a lot of people had the same frustration here in this country. Yeah, well, I mean, all the good places, the good bars, the good kissaten, they're quite subtle, relatively speaking, so you get the mix of contrast even here.

Ryan · 9:09

But anyway, but when the Mint Plaza place opened, it made like the front page of the New York Times food section, and it really made quite a splash. No one had given coffee this type of treatment before, right? I mean, to most people with Starbucks and diner coffee and maybe Peet's coffee, but no one had made it like the center stage and focus of a specialty product. And I got so many people, including myself, very interested.

Zongjun · 9:33

And so we did this pilgrimage and then we went to a Blue Bottle afterwards to make a a comparison. Sam Zhongjun, do you want to talk about our experience at the kissaten that that James Freeman was inspired by? Well, I'm I'm actually quite curious about his emotional journey in the 1st place, but this kissaten, at least for me, it feels like it's very similar to a lot of the other kissaten that I have visited for the, you know, audience and listeners that have never been to a kissaten in Japan pictured a very old and strange looking antique store that only features like western style tchotchkes like. Lots of tchotchkes.

Zongjun · 10:18

Like, like these are balls. Or like, you know, oil canvas paintings. Equestrian. Arts, equestrian arts, all of these little gadgets and then you have a very big shelf that sits like hundreds of different ceramic wares ranging from Chinese to Japanese to European Masons style ceramics. And then it's usually like kind of dark. I've never been to a.

Zongjun · 10:49

Always pretty dark. Always pretty dark and you have all these, you know, very old looking wood finish tables and and you're inside such a weird forest of old timer things that's almost like a time travel or almost like someone's imagination or dream of a generic European country.

Zongjun · 11:10

Yeah, it feels very Western like, clearly inspired by Western coffee cafe culture, which is interesting, right? Because these places were places where you could go appreciate coffee from all over the world, but it didn't come with the baggage that matcha comes from. The more we learn and the more time we spend in Japan, the more we realize the tea ceremony really has very little to do with matcha.

Zongjun · 11:32

Everyone we talked to in the industry, it's just like, it's just something completely different. You know, it's about as related as like random style St. dancing is with ballet. Like these things really, other than the fact that it's both dance, they don't share that much in common. Like these tea ceremony is just so different and it's so unfortunate in some ways when at least if you're trying to advocate matcha as a specialty product, that tea ceremony is like the first entry point and the obvious quote UN quote experts to go to learn about matcha, but they don't know very much about matcha.

Zongjun · 12:11

They know how to prepare matcha. In their specific way, but ceremonial way, it holds back. So then everyone's trying to do some version of this because they're the comparative X. But for something like coffee, there was other than European style cafes, there was nothing. There was no baggage, there was no right or wrong way to do anything.

Zongjun · 12:31

And it was able to evolve and become its own thing with innovative brew techniques like the Kyoto ice drip. Things like the nel drip when you're using a cloth sack to slowly drip very coarsely ground coffee at relatively low temperature produces a very unique profile and they offer these coffees from all over the world and are able to present it to you in a highly tailored way. It's very interesting.

Zongjun · 12:51

I mean, like this is really first entry or exposure for, you know, early days Japanese people, but to Western culture, essentially it's a it's a lens for them to look through and try to, you know, maybe teleport themselves into somewhere else that's far away that they have a strong admiration of.

Zongjun · 13:10

Japan was really a wonder for the first country to open up to the West and industrialize. And this idea of kissaten, you know, was born along with that industrialization process. So you you kind of see a lot of similar ideas elsewhere in Asia too, like for example, these they call it part time time.

Zongjun · 13:33

For example, if you look into Hong Kong and you see all these, they call it tea canteens, which they will serve very interesting Western influenced food alongside with the milk tea and also coffee and you have a very but using local ingredients like Cantonese.

Zongjun · 13:51

Separation. Western style interpretation. Yeah. So it's almost reverse Orientalism like you. Are but things like bread and toast, things like scrambled eggs. And I remember we were in Hong Kong recently. You were telling me there was a very large group of Russian people that came over to Hong Kong before the Bolshevik Revolution who were supporters of the tsar who was being overthrown at the time. And there's this very weird long old history of borscht in Hong Kong.

Zongjun · 14:23

In Kowloon area too, like I was grow up drinking this borscht. We call it Losong Tong. It's really. Russian cabbage soup. Russian cabbage soup beaten. Cabbage so localized that people think this is a local soup, like they grew up drinking it. It's very strange.

Zongjun · 14:40

We're it's such an interesting mix of cultures. So you have all of that accumulating in a kissaten, and then you have an American going over having this incredible experience with incredible hospitality and intentionality, lifting a lot of these things away and moving it to a coffee shop that ends up becoming Blue Bottle.

Zongjun · 14:59

Back to the West. Back to the West, the pendulum swings. Such an interesting. Dynamic. Yeah. Such an interesting dynamic. And then, you know, people evolved on it even further. I mean, you walk into other places like La Cabra in New York or places like Black Fox and you have all these elements now, especially in New York and a bunch of other cities and, and in the Middle East actually of Australian own and run cafes that are kind of merging this Blue Bottle idea, but with great food programs and kind of this special feel like the introduction about 10 years ago, a bunch of these Australian owned cafes opened and they're

Zongjun · 15:37

really have become some of the best cafes in the city, at least in New York, usually marked by having incredibly strong food programs using local ingredients, etcetera. One of the few places maybe a little earlier than 10 years ago, if you went to New York, it was incredibly hard to find a place that served both good food and good coffee.

Zongjun · 15:57

Those things just did not mix until very pretty recent history. Yeah, now you have suited. Yeah, now you have suited. Now you have Black Fox and then some of the Nordic players came in like a Cabra, but that's not a full on food program either. But they have a great pastry program. Some of the best cardamom buns ever. Wow, you ever in New York?

Zongjun · 16:18

Cardamom Buns and the Cabra 10 out of 10. Or if you're looking for a very simple bread and sausage and scrambled at breakfast, go to suit it. Suited has one of the best programs. I think it's the best American breakfast I've ever had in my life, honestly. I mean, these people are next level at Suited. They make their own syrups.

Zongjun · 16:38

If you get caramel syrup and a drink and like a mocha, that caramel is made in their kitchen, probably with some ridiculous butter that they've sourced. They're they're like sausage, egg and potato platter. They make their own sausage in house.

Zongjun · 16:53

This, this Cafe is just next level in the level of care that they give their coffee, that they give their tea and they give their food program. So this level of intentionality keeps evolving across all these different cultures and owners.

Zongjun · 17:06

And it's so interesting to experience this contrast. So how would you describe Blue Bottle in comparison? Right after the kissaten? And, well, we moved from the 18th century to the 21st. Let's first let's talk about the coffee in kissaten. It's very interesting.

Zongjun · 17:25

Like it's clearly, I would say the seed of specialty coffee movement because they care about the origin. They will label all of the coffee by their origin and tell you, you know, a little bit about the background story of all these coffee beans. And, you know, it's it's almost like a a little menu of flavor Atlas of the world.

Ryan · 17:48

Yeah. People can experience and, you know, teleport themselves into all these places. So I pick a a African coffee and Ryan. I was going to do a a aged coffee blend but they said it would take 40 to 50 minutes. To make right.

Zongjun · 18:06

So I ended up picking one of their standard blends, yeah, thinking it was a safe choice. What did you think, Ryan? Wow, From a specialty coffee perspective, let's just say it wasn't terroir driven by when you roast something to a certain point. So you lose a lot of unique characteristics about the inherent agricultural product.

Zongjun · 18:23

Yeah, these coffee are very, very dark roast. But I mean. Like our coffees did taste different from one another. Yeah, probably just because of the roast level. I mean, like these are like very, very high roast coffee. But you know, like they they don't necessarily taste bad, but they just taste so different from the mainstream coffee preference today actually, you know, like a lot of people who grow up with this kind of experience will probably think this coffee tastes delicious like my parents. So they actually really prefer this kind of high roasted, like very caramelized, very strong bitter coffee. And we actually, you know,

Zongjun · 19:01

recently when we were in Uji and one of the farmers told us that these old lady walking to his tea shop and getting served these very delicate honzu shaded Uji tea and being told that this is not matcha because it's not bitter.

Zongjun · 19:16

Like a lot of people actually grew up with this kind of very different preferences that, you know, they, they, they, it's just different things, you know, you know, using a modern kind of a standard to criticize a of thing from the past sometimes can, you know, be unfair. Yeah, so you didn't like the coffee? So I didn't like the coffee.

Ryan · 19:36

That's a long way of saying that Blue Bottle coffee is so much better. So after we left the kissaten, we walked over to the Blue Bottle in Omotesando and we got the same coffee which was a Rwanda, I think it's from either Rwanda or Burundi. Is a Burundi a natural process Burundi coffee. So that means that the coffee cherry was fermented off in a dry way so it imparts some fruity flavors, often under the coffee seed before it's roasted.

Ryan · 20:07

And then they have siphon set up. So they ordered one by siphon and one by their in house Blue Bottle custom made drip dripper. I think it has a name but I don't remember what it is. Compared to taste, they actually tasted pretty different from the siphon was a much cleaner, more acidic cup, and I'd say yours was more complex.

Ryan · 20:27

From the standard drip, yeah, terroir driven, beautiful space. We had a little conversation with the barista about what the options were and what we ordered, and he asked us what our preferences were and it really felt like stepping into the 21st century. And we had a very similar level of hospitality, I think, but completely different product.

Ryan · 20:48

Yeah, very different. Like to be honest I feel like the Blue Bottle service was better. Yeah, it might have been a little better. And I don't know if this kissaten was having an off day or maybe it's become too famous. But I didn't feel taken care of when I was there in the level of my expectation.

Ryan · 21:06

And to put this so I don't sound like someone who's like too entitled. I've been dreaming about going to this kissaten for 10 years and I've been to Tokyo maybe 9 times before and I just never had time and I just never ended up going to this kissaten.

Ryan · 21:22

I've been to a few others and it's been my dream. I've heard this whole myth about these cups and about preheating the saucer and about this experience. And the lady and the person who took our order forgot who ordered what. I touched my saucer when she put the cup down thinking it's it's going to be preheated.

Ryan · 21:46

This is going to be so cool. I touched it ice cold. And they wouldn't let us sit at the bar because we were two people, so we couldn't see everything going on. So I have no idea if this cup was especially selected for me.

Ryan · 21:58

And in a lot of ways, the inner child in me was very, very, very disappointed. And the way that you build up expectations in your own mind. But in a lot of ways, it really represents Ichigo Ichie, or one moment in time, and that sometimes we have experiences that are perspective shifting for us. And this was clearly where James Freeman was at at the time with his experiences.

Zongjun · 22:22

And that place with whoever was working there, had a transformative, formative moment. Yeah, he was. My suspicion is he was probably sitting at the bar. He was. He was. Yeah. So, you know, like because I guess like for people because I did end up having similar kind of services in Café de l'Ambre, which is another very good kissaten, very old kissaten in Ginza.

Zongjun · 22:49

And I was sitting by the counter and I like I felt quite similar of a kind of a, you know, service level at that place at the time. But that was, you know, before COVID, so like late 2019. So it has been a long time. But this time we're sitting in a table.

Zongjun · 23:11

And as I look around myself, like all the other people sitting by the table, there are clearly locals sitting there just want to read a newspaper and to, you know, enjoy their own time. And it's probably, you know, one of the key function of kissaten, you know, back in the days, like, people went there to have a conversation, to read newspaper, to read book. And a lot of these, you know, writers, novelists, philosophers will go there to, you know, bounce off different ideas, talk about, you know, like the current politics and all that. Much like the old Viennese coffee house in Vienna. Yeah, or like Cafe de Fleur in

Zongjun · 23:49

Paris, where all the all of the artists will go. So it's, you know, probably my guess is that, you know, different parts of the kissaten will probably have different functions and will end up having different level of service.

Ryan · 24:05

But that's my guess, yeah. There's not like a quick grab and go Blue Bottle type concept, but I totally see after experiencing this, like parts of what he's talking about, not only from going to this kissaten, but others in just like level of care and presentation and creating space.

Ryan · 24:24

Something that he said recently in a podcast was that he realized pretty early that the experience of drinking coffee is way more than just the liquid that's in the cup. I mean, the same thing is true with dining and with many other things. Presentation absolutely matters and making someone have a feeling and creating a space to have an experience. And he was able to do that in such an effective way that Blue Bottle became this prolific brand. And you know, these places created that space. And when I have sat at the bar and had that level of service, I could feel it.

Ryan · 24:58

But like Ichigo Ichie, maybe it was a bad day for them. Maybe the person who was ordering our coffee was new or had a bad day. Like we just don't know. There's so many external factors. Just like they had no idea that like I've been wanting to eat, come here for 10 years and such a disappointment.

Zongjun · 25:15

Well, they don't know. They don't know. Yeah, exactly. They don't know. You know, like this very spirits. I'm very happy to see that gets carried on in, you know, all of these modern Western cafes and that this idea really is having really a new life in a new format.

Zongjun · 25:35

And I'm very glad too that, you know, this time the the spotlight also shined on coffee. Their intention, actually part of their intention was actually making a very delicious cup of coffee for, you know, to cater the modern preference.

Zongjun · 25:50

Of course. I'm very happy to see that. Yeah, absolutely. So what are some things that the matcha specialty matcha industry can learn from the evolution and presentation of specialty coffee do you think after having these experiences? Well, as we keep talking about MTCH really did a good job in kind of recreating this new, you know, like this new service that you know has been almost perfected by the third wave coffee movement.

Ryan · 26:21

It's really quite an interesting experience to see how smoothly this idea can be relocated into serving matcha for a modern audience. Absolutely, totally worked. Yeah. Totally, completely worked. Just basically lifted so many of these ideas around perfection and intention and presentation and creating spaces that weren't intimidating and training staff to have real conversations about real preferences and could guide people to the right thing, you know, so important. And there's like very different levels of menu design in Japan. And what MTCH has done is give you just the right amount of information to make a decision

Ryan · 27:05

quickly. And so probably something that you'll like. And if you can't, there's someone there to talk you through it. And they're not like trying to upsell you or upcharge you. They're really trying to deliver something that you will enjoy, which is a very similar thing that you can experience in all these different types of the more traditional types of Japanese hospitality. And we actually recently went into a very famous, very Instagrammable coffee place in the Omotesando neighborhood in Tokyo.

Ryan · 27:35

And they have a very large menu of coffee and they're actually a coffee bean store, but they also will do pour overs and have cold brew. And there's this for anyone who hasn't been to Japan that's listening. There is a lot of places that you can go that are menuless.

Ryan · 27:53

And this also exists in Paris too, at a lot of wine bars. I remember walking into a wine bar and there's a very arrogant French guy and I was like, can I have the menu? I am the menu. I've actually heard that more than once, really. And you have a conversation with them, and when it goes well, you get exactly what you want.

Ryan · 28:15

And when it goes really, really well, you got exactly what you didn't know you wanted. And the skill of that curation is very hard. And important. Yeah. And it's very hard in a way that, you know, like, it's really almost risky.

Ryan · 28:32

Like when it didn't go well, you get punished. A thing that you don't like. Yeah. And. They don't tell you the price in the decision matrix. It's not price transparent. So it's really, really trust based system based on a dialogue. And you know, a lot of tea places are like this too, like a lot of the Teavana retail, like I like Teavana as a company in promoting specialty tea, but they were high pressure sales. Like those were really sales people who were having you smell things, having you taste things, trying to push things on you, trying to buy, give you to buy more expensive things. If you go through and read some

Ryan · 29:11

of the criticism of Teavana, this is people's biggest problem with it and and tea sales in general. So anyway, we walk in and they ask us what do you want? And they also asked us, what do you like? And these are two extremely different questions and they're very difficult to answer when you're not prepared. Because if you ask someone what do you want, that's like, what do I want right now?

Ryan · 29:37

And I have to collect. Do I give you flavors? Do I give you origin and like it's if you don't come in with enough knowledge, you're put in a position of less knowledge power. So like you're like like Folgers, I like Blue Bottle, like you just kind of stuck vomiting out information because you have this like pressure and even I felt that there. Yeah.

Zongjun · 29:59

And it's also really a pressure of uncertainty and unknown because like, do you have what I want? Like if I spend the next 10 minutes telling something that you don't really have, then this conversation is not real. I. Don't even know what I want right now. What are the options?

Ryan · 30:17

Yeah, what are the options like really? You know, like starting from the menu. I think would be a much more optimal movement. And then what do you like is an equally dangerous question because it's different than what I might want right now.

Ryan · 30:31

Even though I don't know what I want right now, I could tell you, hey, I generally like things that are fruity. I like things that have a lot of complexity. I like acidity in my coffee. And, you know, let's say that's very true for you, Sam, and it's true for me sometimes.

Ryan · 30:45

But I know, having worked in the coffee industry, that they're gonna point me towards a very naturally processed coffee. Yeah. But what I want right now is something washed that's tea like and floral. But maybe I wasn't ready to articulate that yet.

Ryan · 30:59

It's like and floral. That's exactly what happened. Probably yes. And then they point to the most expensive thing on the menu saying this is for you. It's like literally $15 a cup. This whole experience is actually, you know, a little bit off putting because you have to trust and you might accidentally pigeon hole yourself into options. So like I, we, we have a little conversation with them and I say I want this and they say this one's not available, but this other one tastes very similar and you should get it. And it was literally double the price. It went from ¥1000 to 2000.

Ryan · 31:36

And I felt like telling her, if it's taste the same and it's double the price, why would anyone buy it? Like what is the difference between these two products? And the moment that she up sold me double the price of coffee is the moment that that trust was breached.

Zongjun · 31:56

And then the dialogue, it ends as soon as you lose trust with someone because they're trying to upsell you on a near menu list system, you've breached that level of trust and then you just feel pressured. Yeah, yeah. And then the, the and then the intentionality really changes.

Ryan · 32:14

Like this is also about intentionality. It changed from trying to cater your preference to sell you something that you would like to cater your budget, or trying to upsell you so that they can squeeze the most out of you.

Ryan · 32:30

Or at least this is how you will feel. And this is the problem with top down positioning for matcha sales and matcha branding in description, by telling someone that they should get something because it's rare or authentic or special or traditional or ceremonial grade or super, ultra duper ceremonial grade, whatever is a form in a lot of cases when it's poorly executed of telling someone what they should want and that this is better and it's a reflection on you and your taste. If you don't want this, yeah, you can get the cheaper stuff, but that's what it really looks like and it's not empowering anyone to make a good decision.

Ryan · 33:11

So the top of the mountain is you can have a dialogue with someone and give them exactly what they didn't know they wanted. Very hard, not scalable. Very few people can actually pull that off. There's really just one place in the entire world that can consistently do this and that I've ever been to in my life.

Ryan · 33:29

And otherwise it's a disappointment because the baseline expectation when you're deferring the decision to someone else is that you get exactly what you want, which is already hard. That's the baseline. That's the neutral case versus if you're offloading the decision. But if you're making your own decision, you want to be empowered to make a better decision. And the problem with the way labels are and the way much is communicated and marketed, you're not given enough information to make a high quality decision because you don't know what it is you like, you don't know what results and what kind of flavor profile you

Zongjun · 34:05

know. It's it's other than price, there's not much to go after. Yeah, I mean like. Go off of. The people that don't want a quality diversity, they want a flavor diversity or they don't want a price diversity. So, so to speak, they want to try to experience more flavor, more selections that you know, presumably within the same level of quality and price range so that they can have build up this formative experience, this vocabulary to pick a direction to venture into.

Ryan · 34:37

Yeah, so they can make better, higher quality decisions for themselves. And you know, that's what macho looks like when it's not gate kept. The definition of being gate kept is telling consumers what's good and what they should like, but the better way to do it is to educate consumers on the different flavors available.

Ryan · 34:57

What's out there? What is out there and what is there to appreciate? Doesn't mean you can't hold their hand and say hey this yame matcha. Excellent producer. It has a great example of Hika aroma. You might notice things like chocolate notes or like roasted walnuts.

Ryan · 35:14

It we're going to blend very well with milk or can go totally well on its own and it's a very good choice if you're into that kind of profile. Alternatively, for the same price, I have this other tea from Uji. It's more umami driven. It's very savory, it's very green, much more subtle. You mix it with milk, some of the intensity might get lost, but if you drink it on its own it can be marvelous in the amount of complexity and after taste it brings you in a subtle, not in your face way.

Ryan · 35:43

Here are some 2 great options. And they cut they taste the same. And Uji is a much longer traditional area. This was done using very traditional techniques and farming practices. Well, this one in in yame a little more industrial, but it doesn't really reflective in the overall flavor profile.

Zongjun · 35:59

We don't think it detracts from that in any way. Which one would you like? Right, That's a great conversation to have. Yeah, right. And this one is this cultivar, and this one's this other cultivar. They're both first harvest and done this year and ground on an ishi-usu stone.

Ryan · 36:13

Like if you have that kind of description, frequently consumer will end up trying both. They actually paid more for a better experience, comparative experience. I think that's a much fairer kind of approach towards consumer because like the intention is to want you to learn more, to want you to experience more, to want you to enjoy this experience versus in the earlier coffee case, the intention that at least what you felt, what I felt is they want your money. Yeah, they want your money.

Ryan · 36:47

It's exactly what it feels like when this is done wrong. So very painful. And there's a 10,000 different ways you can do this. You know, like Zhongjun, this one is a Asahi, very old school cultivar, very hard to grow, kind of like Pinot noir. And it was honzu shaded, right?

37:02

This one, Okumidori, usually larger volume, extremely green, but it's a little vegetable and it's also a little cheaper. So it depends on what you want to use it for and what flavors you like and where. This one's more creamy and more umami experience. And that's why usually it has the price premium. It's more labor, it's harder to grow. These types of conversations are so important, and then you can value the more expensive thing and you can make your own judgments so you don't get burned. So anyway, many different types of retail experiences can change consumer perception and education and what Blue Bottle did to create space and describe

Ryan · 37:35

things in a different way and get people interested in coffee. To have these types of conversation with baristas to learn about the flavors and the processing is deeply inspiring and what many other companies have built on this as well.

Ryan · 37:47

The specialty coffee movement went from a tiny, tiny movement in the early 2000s to something that's a $20 billion industry today. That's remarkable for like 25 years run. And hopefully Matcha can do something very similar. But we get to stand on the shoulders of giants because these cafes are already places where people are consuming it. It's just a place where you get something hot caffeinated or on caffeinated to drink.

Ryan · 38:15

There's no reason why these any of these companies can't be great ambassadors for tea as well. That's what people want as well. Yeah. And just like, and just the sheer fact that seeing how, you know, MTCH is, you know, relocalizing all of these coffee practice into matcha and done so smoothly, like there's no way or there's no reason why all of these, you know, cafes, coffee shops out there can do the same. Like the playbook is already established and almost perfected.

Ryan · 38:48

All you need to do is to relocate that and re divert that into matcha. Yeah. And create, you know, a similar experience for people. Yeah, no, absolutely. It can absolutely be done and it is being done. And the examples that we've seen, I think going into MTCH was that perspective changing moment for me thinking, wow, specialty Matcha can absolutely have its own future and how well this is being executed and where they really have much of for everyone and great educational content in a way that is not condescending and really cares about the customer. You can feel it when a business really cares about the customer versus sucking cash out of them.

Ryan · 39:33

It's a huge difference in the feeling when you like explicitly with everything that you're being told and implicitly when you read between the lines at these types of places. And I think specialty coffee did such a good job of that in the United States and in Europe and in other places.

Ryan · 39:49

Explain to people why these products were good and what's different and what can be explored and how you could do it at home, etcetera, etcetera. So, so much to be learned. I'm not sure if there's not an exact coherent thread that we can run through all of this, but these are some of our thoughts after visiting these places. Experience really to to see, you know, like we have been drinking coffee for so many years and now we've been drinking matcha for such a long time and we have seen this global boon of matcha in many, many places.

Ryan · 40:23

You know, like not just MTCH in Bangkok, but you know like Ooika in the United States and even some of the local shops in Japan are doing specialty matcha nowadays. It's quite a interesting, you know, experience to see how these, you know, footprints letting like came from basically like the origin of these footprints with such a such a interesting way or lengths to deal this whole movement.

Ryan · 40:51

What's interesting too, is that MTCH was inspired by Blue Bottle. Jeff, when I talked to him, that was like one of his biggest inspirations was to create a space that specifically didn't look or feel anything like a tea house. Anyone knew so they came in with no expectations and it was very approachable.

Ryan · 41:08

So the pendulum swings again, taking a Japanese product through a Japanese inspired American brand that now is existing in Bangkok and also influencing many other people. Almost like a silk role for a matcha. Pretty interesting the cross cultural transmutations and the evolution of the of this stuff and how everyone's kind of watching everyone now. It's interesting to see the chain of inspiration and how they can completely transform industries. Before we know it, there's going to be an MTCH style place back in Japan and that's going to be something that they've never had before.

Ryan · 41:46

I mean, you have these old traditional tea companies, but, you know, good luck learning anything about their products. If we go inside, sort of suitable for usucha or koicha, bitter sweet. We're talking about very different levels. Yeah, very different.

Zongjun · 42:02

So very exciting future and very. Interesting future. Yeah, very interesting presence. Yeah, and tracking this chain of inspiration first hand was a cool experience. We recommend anyone do. It's not so hard to do this. It takes a plane ticket to go to Japan. And one to Bangkok, but it'd be a fine round the world trip. Ryan, so just an open question for maybe both of us. Do you see this pendulum swing back to coffee in the future, like from Matcha, from all of these new influence and idea coming from serving matcha in a contemporary way, Would that impact how coffee or coffee shops in the future? So another way of phrasing that

Zongjun · 42:45

question I guess would be can Matcha do something that out innovates coffee in a way that could swing back to coffee? Yeah. In terms of consumer experience, I would say. Yeah. Like what can coffee learn from contemporary matcha?

Ryan · 43:01

That's a great question. Well, I mean, there's the concept of a slow bar versus a fast bar where it's quick grab and go or something where you really get a one-on-one experience talking to someone where they're specifically preparing something for you, like a kissaten where everything is made to order. But that concept has existed in coffee for a long time, although it's slowly dying out.

Ryan · 43:22

These slow bars, they used to be really common like 10 years ago. A lot of people are getting rid of them because I guess they're labor's too expensive and it's not profitable. Takes up a lot of real estate. That's where my mind immediately goes. As if these slow bars can be re popularized and that swings back over to coffee, I think.

Ryan · 43:44

I think that Matcha can also be mixed in some pretty interesting and intentional ways to create amazing products. And we invited a Korean tea producer and tea ceremony practitioner to Penn State about 10 years ago, and he did something that was so interesting to me.

Ryan · 44:06

He was using Japanese matcha in sort of the Korean version of matcha whisking ceremony. And he put in ginseng powder. Really high end Korean ginseng powder completely transformed the taste unlike anything I've ever had.

Ryan · 44:20

And there might be some other things, but coffee already has an interesting history of being mixed with other things. Especially when you go to the Middle East. If you ever go to Dubai or Saudi Arabia, the cardamom, cinnamon, saffron. I think sometimes they even put in a pinch of salt with a date on the side.

Ryan · 44:40

Date fruit. Oh my word. Wow, this coffee looks super weird. It kind of comes out looking this weird milky yellow brown. The flavor combo is wild. I am like so shocked in a lot of ways, but no one is trying to replicate this.

Ryan · 44:56

And like Chai is so common and did not that this really tastes like Chai really tastes kind of like its own thing. But I'm surprised that the specialty people haven't picked up on this and using really high quality like cardamom and saffron and other ingredients to make more Arabic style coffee would be really cool to see. But I don't know if that's much influencing one because there you're actually pulling from the earliest parts of coffee culture.

Ryan · 45:21

If you really look at the first adopt, real first adopters of coffee were Arab countries and Arabic culture that spread it like it didn't get to the Europeans until much, much, much later. If you care about doing anything quote UN quote, the traditional way of coffee, it's actually going back to the start. It was first widely cultivated and consumed in like Yemen. Yemeni coffee.

Ryan · 45:45

Discovered in Ethiopia, supposedly, but the first place that it was really cultivated en masse at any scale was in Yemen, and then influenced Arabic coffee culture, which don't exist to this day. So it's not like it's, you know, it's not like it's died out. It's just highly regionalized.

Zongjun · 46:00

And I'm surprised no one has really helped spread it and considering how insanely wildly delicious it is. You know, my suspicion is that, you know, for me at least, I tried the coffee about 10 years ago and at the time it was definitely, AI would say, a quiet taste.

Ryan · 46:19

I like it. I did not like it for the first time because cardamom was really not a very popular spice in Asia. There's not a lot of spice drinks in East Asia. No, not really. Not really. And now I like it, but it was really like after I have a lot of experience of Middle East cuisine that I start to get it. It was just me speaking from probably a group of consumers similar to myself, that this might not be very appealing to a lot of people in the first place. That's an interesting perspective. But to me it was love at first sip. But I was like, wow, I don't know why it was so because to me, I don't know what I grew up

Ryan · 47:02

like. I had spice Chai before these spice hot chocolates like this type of thing didn't or like even pumpkin spice latte in my really early days, I I liked and enjoyed. I think I was a little more actually. Weirdly enough, now that I think about it, the spirit of a pumpkin spice latte might be the closest thing to Arabic style coffee.

Ryan · 47:25

It's very popular. The flavor profile similarity is closer than any other example I can think of for Western consumed beverages other than maybe Chai, but it's pretty different actually. But might actually be a pretty big white space where people are primed to really like it and enjoy it. Who knows.

Zongjun · 47:43

But yeah, no, I don't know. I don't have a very good answer to your question. It's really hard to envision what that future could look like. I mean, the, the modern day matcha is really in it's quite an infancy at this stage. It's kind of hard to tell how it will evolve in the future and what kind of new ideas you can end up creating. But the one thing that I think it's very interesting is that it's not just matcha can be milled into powder. All the other teas like hojicha can be milled into powder and it's also very delicious.

Ryan · 48:13

Very good, agreed. Powder in other teas might be a natural extension if we can master the technology of milling anywhere and everywhere without an ishi-usu or a big large granite stone mill, that's just impossible logistically to ship.

Zongjun · 48:29

Yeah, I don't know. Future is unknown, but we just know at the present that there's something incredibly exciting that's being innovative on and we want to see this everywhere and that's. And it's hopeful that you know that there are group of equally exciting excited people working on something similar afterwards, a similar goal.

Ryan · 48:50

And there is a very large consumer group out there that's willing to enjoy it with you. I think this is a very, very awesome future that we are seeing now, an awesome presence. Yeah, it's only a matter of time before because right now the most innovative parts about matcha in the states that have any scale are online e-commerce companies doing direct to consumer, right. But that will eventually trickle down to the cafes and being presented in a radically different way that allows people to build preferences and that elevates the status of matcha to a specialty product where it's not just this random commodity green powder.

Zongjun · 49:27

And that's going to have to be consumer driven. And so as the technology gets better to mill it fresh or to make it easier to prepare and make it more consistent and to build a flavor profile, appreciations that afford a price premium, then we have a very interesting, exciting specialty industry that has gone from almost nothing 10 years ago. Now many matcha focus businesses and cafes. It's still small, but hopefully not for long. All right, I think that's a good note to end on. So thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoy this, please consider sharing it with a friend or giving us five stars

Ryan · 50:01

and we'll see you in the next one. See you in the next episode.