This is the first installment of our “Tea Series.” We have, of course, written about the beverage from time to time. Interested readers are strongly encouraged to read one of our entries from a number of years ago. The link is here: https://drinkingjapan.org/2020/09/11/totally-tea/.
Okay, they drink tea in Japan. Actually, they’ve been doing it for quite a few centuries, but it seems as if large numbers of foreigners have just developed an interest in it, or a least one variety of Japanese tea. I’m talking about matcha, of course.
The demand for this powder is prodigious and is causing some disruptions in the marketplace. The Financial Times recently reported that at Nakamura Tokichi Honten, located in Uji—the epicenter of teadom, so to speak—queues form early and customers get to walk away with only one small tin of the stuff.1 Demand exceeds supply. One reason for the increased demand is the popularity of matcha as an additive in such things as lattes and chocolate.
It is not surprising that anyone should be fond of matcha lattes or matcha chocolate: they are delicious, of course. What surprises me is that about forty years ago, a major Japanese company introduced matcha chocolate in Japan, and the product flopped. I got the impression that I was one of the few people buying it. In preparation for this blog entry, I visited the Museum of Failure at https://museumoffailure.com/ and had a quick look around to see if I could find anything on that product. I couldn’t, but I did find something called the “UROCLUB: Urinal + Golf Club.” Link: https://museumoffailure.com/exhibition/uroclub-urinal-golf-club. They say every dog has its day and maybe, just maybe, the UROCLUB’s day has not arrived yet. It could, of course, prove useful for those who down a few cups of matcha before a round of golf.
Matcha has its serious side of course, and in subsequent entries, there will be more on the subject.
1Dempsey, H. & Lewis, L., “Japan Buckles under Matcha Mania,” The Financial Times, October 10, 2025.
Drinking Japan 