Matcha boom irks Japan
Reporting in Tagesspiegel says international demand has put matcha ‘everywhere’ and is driving up prices, creating frustration among Japanese tea traditionalists. (tagesspiegel.de) The piece links rising global consumption to price pressure and cultural pushback at home. (tagesspiegel.de)
Japan’s matcha boom has made the powdered tea harder and costlier to buy in Japan, stirring resistance from tea teachers and longtime drinkers. (asahi.com 1) (asahi.com 2) Japan’s green tea exports, including matcha, rose 25% by value to 36.4 billion yen in 2024, while export volume rose 16%, according to the agriculture ministry data cited by Reuters. (asahi.com) The squeeze has shown up in raw material prices. At a June 9, 2025 auction in Kyoto, tencha — the shade-grown leaf milled into matcha — averaged 8,235 yen per kilogram, about 1.7 times the previous year and above the old 2016 record. (ooika.co) Japan has expanded supply for years: tencha output reached a record 5,336 tons in 2024, nearly 2.7 times the level of a decade earlier. Even so, industry groups and buyers said 2025 output was hit by heat stress in Kyoto, the center of high-grade matcha production. (asahi.com) Matcha is not just green tea ground up. Producers first grow the plants in shade, steam and dry the leaves into tencha, remove stems and veins, and then grind the soft leaf tissue into powder, a process that limits how fast premium supply can grow. (marukyu-koyamaen.co.jp) That production chain matters because new tea fields take years to mature. Ippodo said Japanese tea needs at least five years from planting before it can be sold, leaving producers little room to respond quickly to a sudden jump in demand. (global.ippodo-tea.co.jp) The shortage has reached store shelves. Ippodo imposed purchase limits in August 2025 and said resellers were trying to buy up stock, while Marukyu Koyamaen said it had received an “unexpected high volume of orders” and posted notices about limited availability. (global.ippodo-tea.co.jp) (marukyu-koyamaen.co.jp) Tea ceremony practitioners have pushed back at the drink’s new image as a latte or dessert ingredient. In an Associated Press report from August 2025, Tokyo instructor Keiko Kaneko said the ritual use of matcha centers on hospitality and deliberate preparation, not speed or trend. (asahi.com) Others in the trade have welcomed the wider audience even as they worry about supply. Asahi reported in February 2026 that cafes in Tokyo were packed with foreign visitors ordering premium matcha drinks, showing how tourism and exports are now feeding the same market. (asahi.com) So the argument in Japan is no longer about whether matcha is global. It is about who gets the limited powder first — export buyers, tourists, cafes, or the domestic tea culture that built it. (asahi.com) (global.ippodo-tea.co.jp)
