Did you miss Part 1? Catch up before starting on Part 2! And if you're interested in matcha, don't miss Noli Ergas' session at World Tea Expo, "Much Ado About Matcha."
Most including those whose input was sought for this article have attributed a significant element of the matcha shortage to social media – a wave which hasn’t seemed to have crested yet – even in 2026. As we’ll see, the craze is an ironic development placed in the context of the history of the beverage.
Emily Morrison, co-founder of The Steeping Room attributes a substantial element of the demand spike to TikTok: “In terms of what factors I think have caused this imbalance in supply and demand - gosh, most people just declare it to be TikTok's fault (aka MatchaTok). I don't really know for sure, but I am certain that it's had a huge impact.”
“A lot of people will have seen Matcha online before they've ever interacted with it in another way,” says David Lavecchia, co-founder of Tezumi tea, adding: “I think on both sides of the spectrum, if you're more traditionally minded or if you're more milk drink-minded, it looks aesthetically beautiful in all of its settings. It's a vibrant green color that looks great against, you know, ceramic balls on tatami mats, but also looks beautiful when it's being, you know, mixed with milk in an ice drink. And all of those are incredibly visually appealing – and I think you also mentioned that it looks healthy – it's green, and, as you know, it’s not a new thing that, matcha is being promoted for its health benefits.”
That said, not all matcha is certified organic. The intense green color of the beverage can be misleading. Leaves that are not organic and used to make matcha may well carry contaminants — including residue from urea, heavy metals, pesticides, and fluoride — from the soil in which the plant grows. By consuming matcha powder, one ingests the whole tea leaf along with everything it contains. Contamination levels in the leaves and soil aren’t considered more dangerous than non-organic produce sold in Japan as found by a study done by the Japanese National Research Institute of Tea, which concluded that – “Zinc and copper contents in tea leaf are nearly equal to those in beans, cereals and sea weeds. Lead and cadmium contents in tea leaf were also same as those in other normal, non-polluted, foodstuffs. Generally, it is said that the made tea contains slightly high concentration of trace metals,” – testing hasn’t been done on the actual matcha powder. Just as claims that matcha powder being composed of the whole leaf, concentrates antioxidants, so too could it be claimed that matcha concentrates toxic chemicals when it is not organic. One simply doesn’t know what concentration of these contaminants are released by the grinding process of so many whole leaves in the production of matcha powder. And, just as the highly sought after young leaves are the most flavorful, they also retain a higher proportion of chemicals than more mature leaves.
In terms of social media, other teas don’t form such a connection with people in online demonstrations because brewing doesn’t compare to the action of whisking – and the colors of the infused liquid can’t visually communicate their taste value. For instance, white tea, invariably expensive for its sweet, fruity and floral character may appear on video as off-colored hot water – a rather bland contrast to the vibrant green of matcha. Yet white teas are highly sought after by connoisseurs who are willing to pay top dollar for them. (Our article, Darjeeling Tea Master Sells Record Breaking Tea was a former Darjeeling garden owner making an off-season white tea, which sold for $5,000/kg or five times more than very high quality ‘ceremonial grade’ matcha.)
Amy Aed, founder of Eisa Tea Co., which sells a range of specialty teas, contends that: “Social media has played a major role in popularising matcha, particularly platforms such as TikTok and Instagram,” She also asserts that younger consumers are drawn to its “gentle caffeine release, the ‘health benefits’ from antioxidants and other compounds.”
Noli Ergas, formerly of Sugimoto USA (the US subsidiary of Sugimoto Tea in Japan) and currently director of product for Two Leaves and a Bud, was astounded at the power that influencers wield on consumers, not being an avid user of social media. “My understanding is that, yeah, there's just certain people, influencers, who, posting about matcha; one brand in particular got spotlighted. And that brand was Marukyu Koyamaen,” Ergas contends. “And so they were the first to just… Start going out of stock, and then a lot of other matcha producers in Uji.” (Uji, which is part of Kyoto Prefecture is known for the quality of its matcha.)
Marukyu Koyamaen recently announced yet another price hike in matcha coming within a month, but this development hasn’t deterred wholesalers from lining up to place orders. It makes sense, economically: the price of Tencha has soared 170% at the Kyoto auction from 2024 to 2025 to record highs. Last year matcha accounted for 50% of total Japanese tea exports with three quarters going to the United States. This year, despite having lower yield (but a higher quality crop) the total value of exports is poised to rise with many producers already having sold out.
“With Uji producers being hit, that took us until the end of last year. and then it just started to become just anybody who made matcha!” Ergas exclaims. He mentions, “stockouts, difficulty maintaining inventory, inability to produce fast enough. So, it started affecting us. I would say very early, this year. And it's just been a struggle since, and it seems that matcha just keeps on… keeps on being crazy popular!”
“Ceremonial grade matcha sold by Sugimoto used to be priced at around a dollar a gram. Now a 30g tin cost forty to fifty dollars. Some companies are selling at even higher prices,” claims Ergas. For those who drink matcha the traditional way, that amounts to around 30 cups. That said, to make a matcha latte requires 2-5 grams of the powder. So, for some ‘Matcha Maniacs’, a fifty-dollar stock of matcha bought for home-use as opposed to ordering at a café, where premium prices are expected, may only go as far as five to six lattes!
Matcha Tourism, Hoarding, and Scalping
Sourcing matcha has been identified as a major factor in the record-breaking tourism levels, which Japan experienced in 2024 amounting to almost 37 million tourists – an increase of 47% from the prior year despite two earthquakes occurring that might nave normally been a deterrent to vacationing in Japan. To put this in perspective, this is 20-fold higher (at the very least) compared to each of the four times during which the Olympics were held Japan since 1968.
Lavecchia has also observed the phenomenon: “I want to say, mostly last year, but also at the beginning of this year: people going to Japan, buying huge amounts of tea at the retail shops, and then selling it online for whatever markup they want, because that was the sort of situation we were in.” He says scalping of matcha became a big thing in 2024.
Indeed, Ippodo Tea, issued this statement addressing the matter:
“We are very grateful for the increased interest in matcha, but we have noticed that some parties have been attempting to buy up matcha and resell it. Therefore, in order to help ensure that as many people as possible can purchase Ippodo matcha, we are setting certain limits on how much matcha we sell to each customer.”
Most if not all retail outlets in Japan have followed suit.
“As sort of a swing back from that, I'm seeing a lot more people being aware of how much they're using, because … now they realize that this is a relatively limited supply of relatively expensive tea, so being a little more precious with how they use it, instead of, you know, drinking this many matcha lattes a week, they'll cut it down a bit,” Lavecchia observes.
Demand Aside, Match Remains a Mystery
Despite the unprecedented interest in matcha, it is still much misunderstood according to Lavechhia. “Ceremonial and culinary grades aren’t terms that are used in Japan,” he says. These are more like marketing terms used to set prices and establish use in Western markets.
Lavecchia prefers to think in terms of quality. The delicate new leaves, which must be handpicked produce the highest quality tea. Hence, according to Lavecchia, the price of handpicked tea went up by 200% in 2025. This not only represents the impact of the shortage but also consumption trends. The demand for the highest quality matcha, while perhaps being too expensive for some, seems to be finding new buyers.
However, Lavecchia is careful to point out that quality doesn’t necessarily follow usage. “If you're buying tea that was meant to be consumed as Koicha, which is the super thick, twice as strong as regular matcha, that doesn't actually fare well in a latte,” he says, explaining: “because it's designed to be mellow and quite smooth; when that gets mixed with milk and sugar, it completely gets lost and washed out.”
So, in this Tsunami in search of Umami, many are simply just misusing the tea, crushing very ‘tea treasures’ they strive to attain.
Options to Meet Demand
One observer who asked not to be named asserts that due to increased demand, producers are importing Tencha from China. According to Lavecchia, this is unlikely. “It's theoretically possible, but what I've seen, at least in Japan, is that even outside of the traditional matcha growing regions, the knowledge and experience just isn't there to produce Tencha to the same level [as a seasoned producer],” he says. That said, Aed is looking for matcha and “matcha-like” options in places like Taiwan where she was located at the time of writing this article. She really feels the future of matcha lies in developing growth of Tencha outside Japan.
Ergas says that farmers are increasingly switching from cultivating Sencha to Matcha due to international demand.
Still, it’s not so simple to hike up production. According to Ippodo tea, “The traditional stone mill can only grind around 40g per hour, per mill. These and other specialised machines used for matcha production are limited in number, so the speed of production is impossible to adjust.”
Morrison says the matcha shortage is compounded by a dearth of labor. “I think people underestimate how much of a labor crisis there is in Japan right now. It's not easy for Japanese matcha producers to just hire more people,” she says. “It's not easy or necessarily appealing to dramatically scale-up when you've been a respected matcha producer for many generations,” Morrison explains.
Climate Change and Barriers to Entry
Aed and Lavecchia both say climate change has been a factor in the shortage of tea that shouldn’t be ignored – not only in terms of temperature rises but also in bringing unpredictable weather. For instance, a flash frost in the spring of this year, damaged many tea plants and led to a decrease in yield in 2025. Then unseasonal heat and drought were experienced during the summer – two factors that also deter growth.
Historically, the optimum timeframe to harvest matcha is on the 88th day after the start of spring in the traditional Japanese calendar, which is called hachijuhachiya, generally in early May – most say the 2nd of May but the actual day varies.
“Warmer temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and increasingly severe weather events like typhoons have started affecting yields. The quality can also be impacted,” says Aed. Like other regions, the pattern of the growing season is being adversely affected by the unpredictability of weather events.
American tariffs are also infuriating tea importers in the USA. “US tariffs have really affected my ability to move product efficiently, and there are general delays and container shortages on top of that. Ensuring quality while dealing with these logistical problems has been a balancing act,” remarks Aed.
Morrison, too, says her business has been hampered by such barriers: “Of course the issue of tariffs and somewhat ‘iffy’ [sic.] transport has been a real drag. The tariffs, the import fees, the increased cost of transport (especially since EMS is no longer shipping to the US), the soft US dollar - all of these makes [sic.] ordering any large amount of tea from Japan quite expensive. I do often reflect on how difficult this would be if you're a new business just starting out without much cashflow. Often, we order several thousand dollars’ worth of matcha and it may not arrive for a couple of months. That's a lot of money to be tied up like that!”
What is most infuriating is that matcha is not grown or made in the USA. Hence, those involved in the matcha trade don’t understand underlying logic. They ask: “What domestic industry is being protected by the tariffs on matcha?” It’s consumers who ultimately bear the brunt of it in increased prices. “Definitely some people have been priced out of the matcha that they used to buy,” says Lavecchia, “especially in the US, with the compounding of the increase in [cost of] matcha and the unstable tariff situation.”
A Brief History of Matcha
The Zen Buddhist monk, Myōan Eisai, who brought tea seeds from the Song Dynasty in China to Japan in 1191 planting them on temple grounds at Kyoto on the propety of Kamakura Shogun, during the emergence of the Samurai empire in Japan, could never have imagined that his addition to Japanese culture, would create such a worldwide sensation in the future.
Esai’s introduction of matcha to Japan occurred during his second trip to China, which shared a bond then of Buddhism with Japan. There, he studied the Song dynasty’s Rules of Purity, Chanyuan Qinggui, chronicling this in a book called Kissa Yojo-ki extolling matcha’s health benefits. It soon fashionable among the upper classes of the Shogunate (or rulers).
By the 13th Century, tea gardens growing leaf destined to be made into matcha spread to the Uji area, located on the outskirts of Kyoto. Endowed with a mist called the Uji River Fog and a mild climate they started producing the highest quality tea. The mist not only protected the delicate leaves from the sun and facilitated slower growth releasing desired flavor compounds but also protected the leaves from frost in the winter. Climatically guarded, in a way, by the ethereal veil cast out by the Ujigawa River, Uji became the premier region for producing matcha – and this continues till date.
Understanding the significance of the mist, the Japanese developed a new method for cultivating these plants: hifuku saibai or shading, first with reed blinds made from bamboo and rice straw mats; later more modern materials such as synthetic cloth and plastic were used.
This is a critical phase of matcha cultivation because stressing the plant by sheltering it from sunlight causes the leaves to produce surplus chlorophyl. The higher chlorophyl content of shaded plants results in the brilliant hue of green characterizing the tea.
The process also causes L-Theanine and other amino acids to be synthesized in abundance in the leaves, giving them a savory flavor and strong aroma that is known as Umami, balancing the natural vegetal notes in green tea. It is a flavor that is said to be reminiscent of the ocean. Umami is best described by what it is not – it isn’t sweet, bitter, salty, or sour. Rather, its character is deep and lingering as though aged.
L-Theanine is among the amino acids responsible for the moderate release of caffeine in matcha resulting in the relaxing alertness of drinking it and one of the reasons why it’s so popular especially among young people.
Leaves are steamed to stop oxidation as close to plucking time, keeping the bright green color intact. While this is analogous to regular green tea, matcha requires steam in short 15-20 second bursts to preserve the chlorophyl content. Stems and veins are removed from the leaf, the younger the leaf the better. The leaves are then dried and stored in a cool place.
While original matcha brought from China was essentially caked tea requiring mashing, the Japanese developed a granite milling process to grind Tencha. This too must be done deliberately and carefully so as not to generate heat from friction causing oxidation and resulting color and flavor loss. Mills grind the Tencha very slowly into matcha powder. So, perish the thought that making matcha is simply a matter of putting dried green tea in a blender!
The matcha powder is sifted first to prevent clumping, and ultimately whisked in warm water, making a fresh cup of matcha tea. Depending on whisking technique, it could be a strong, punchy, cup of thin pond-like matcha of the Omotesenke ceremonial school or the smoother, thick, and frothy cup made from the vigorous whisking of Urasenke style. Both benefit from the youngest, sweetest, greenest leaves, preferably picked by that expert machine for plucking tea: the human hand.
Outlook for the Future
Most retailers agree that what we’ve been seeing over the past year isn’t a passing fad – that demand will continue to rise. Either prices will soar to limit access, making it even more of a luxury item like caviar, or we will see more conversion of traditional green tea zones to areas of Tencha cultivation and cultivation outside Japan supplement the market. It all depends on how willing Japanese producers are to mentor others – and how much other planters are willing to put into the endeavor in money, care, and effort. It takes vision to realize that promoting matcha production worldwide will only broaden the customer base, even if it does even out prices. The question is: who has that vision and is willing to risk putting some sweat behind it?
While Ergas does believe that more matcha will be produced, he notes that matcha is today what chai tea lattes were to the ‘90s and early 2000s, for at no time in history are things changing so quickly as in the present age. It is entirely possible that the next ‘matcha’ like revolution might well be with white tea or another beverage altogether. One thing is certain: if and when that boom occurs, it’ll take us by storm just as matcha has already done.
To book your sponsorship or exhibit space at World Tea Expo, or to inquire about advertising and sponsorship opportunities at World Tea News, contact:
Ellainy Karaboitis-Christopoulos, Business Development Manager, Questex
Phone: +1-212-895-8493; Email: [email protected]
Looking for professional tea education, certifications, and more? Visit World Tea Academy and register for courses today!
Also, be sure to stay connected with World Tea Expo on social media for details and insights about the event. Follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.