The bitter truth about our sugary matcha habit

In I was prom-posed to with a matcha lemonade It s true During my high school years my favorite afternoon drink was a venti version of the drink with two scoops of dried strawberries from Starbucks I don t know exactly how matcha came across my desk but I knew I loved the earthy tea taste mixed with the sugary sweetness of the lemonade I especially loved eating all the strawberries out of the cup after they had soaked up the sweet matcha drink My family and friends didn t get the hype They would say things like What is that It looks moldy Well look who s guffawing now Related To Gen Z Obama-era nostalgia tastes like froyo Unless you ve spent the summer off-grid with monks in Japan you know matcha has taken over Search interest hit peak popularity on Google Trends If matcha in any and all forms isn t flooding your FYP and explore pages I m jealous I can t escape it I m trapped in an endless cycle of whisks cafes cheesecakes cookies cloud foams and flavored lattes Matcha is painting the town green but the iced matcha latte is the true social star usually with oat or almond milk and particular pastel pop of color like strawberry or blueberry syrup I ve outgrown my DIY strawberry matcha latte phase but it was my gateway Now matcha s everywhere from tiny caf s to specialty spots popping up all over Why How Is matcha the next big food trend And is a strawberry matcha just strawberry milk for adults a sugary dressed-up version of something originally meant to be healthy Matcha may be trending but what we re drinking in the U S barely resembles the sacred tradition from which it originated We need your help to stay independent Subscribe the present day to encouragement Salon s progressive journalism What even is matcha True matcha capital-M Matcha is a highly concentrated antioxidant-rich green tea made through a labor-intensive process of shading harvesting and grinding It s so specialized that real matcha can t be mass-produced without losing its quality And yet the attempt is being made everywhere It s the only tea beverage really where you consume the whole leaf says Peter Goggi president of the Tea Association of the U S A You re getting of the benefits it s not like whatever gets extracted into the cup from a tea bag Goggi spent decades working as a research chemist at Lipton before becoming president of the Tea Association He says matcha first really started showing up in American markets in the s a time that is widely considered to be the first American fitness wave From there it was picked up by creative marketers as a wellness buzzword and morphed into powders lattes potential drinks and more Industry Records Forecast expects the North American matcha domain to be worth billion by The flavored matcha sub-segment strawberry vanilla even peanut butter is growing nearly annually largely because it appeals to younger consumers But that same overview also highlights an uncomfortable truth a growing number of imported matcha powders have been exposed to contain fillers artificial colors and low-grade green tea dust Goggi s Tea Association has had to send out guidelines for what qualifies as matcha So what s really in your cup Goggi doesn t sugarcoat it Green tea in general does not really fit the Western palate It s bitter grass-like All drivers of taste that people don t really enjoy The driver of liking for any beverage in America is sweetness Matcha drinks here often come packed with syrups and sweeteners A -ounce iced matcha latte from Starbucks has grams of sugar Dunkin s version has grams It doesn t taste anything like matcha Goggi says It s green it s frothy but that s about it Starbucks says its matcha powder is unsweetened but the default three pumps of syrup in each -ounce drink tell a different story I tried to trace where major chains source their matcha from After hours of searching I gave up If they re hiding the distributor that hard it s presumably not Uji Internet commodification is causing a shortage Matcha might be going mainstream but capital M matcha is not Japan is experiencing a matcha shortage Weather shifts aging farmers fewer tea farms and surging global demand are all part of the squeeze Producers in China and Vietnam are now making their own versions but it s not the same as the prized matcha from Uji and other Japanese regions If real matcha is upwards of an ounce what s in the cup you re buying for at a drive-thru And you don t need me to tell you that the way Americans are largely consuming matcha is a far cry from the traditional Japanese tea ceremony Trend vs history and heritage In Japan matcha farming is a delicate art passed down through generations It s a reminder of centuries of tradition monastic practices and skilled farmers shading tea fields by hand But now we ve turned it into a pastel backdrop There s a dissonance between that depth and what s trending online We ve stopped treating matcha like a tea and started treating it like a syrup something to be manipulated Matcha isn t a canvas type of ingredient It has a very distinct flavor says Micheline Maynard a business journalist and author of the Substack Culinary Woman I think the fact that we re manipulating it so much says a lot about the practices right now Maynard says Gwyneth Paltrow actress and owner of the infamous luxury lifestyle brand Goop helped popularize the modern matcha latte in the U S about ten years ago But now it s in cookies croissants KitKats and cakes People don t have a clue that what they re consuming is like the Cadillac of green tea says Maynard We re seeing the strawberry matcha lattes everywhere and that s taking it even further from tea Matcha as a canvas Boba Guys a bubble tea chain in San Francisco are widely credited with inventing the strawberry matcha latte around after sampling strawberry and matcha-flavored KitKats from Japan Despite its origins the drink has spread internationally I m fascinated that people took something that s fairly humble in Japan and turned it into an everyday drink and now into this dressed-up viral beverage says Maynard I think about these seventh or eighth generation matcha farmers precisely shading these tea leaves and then someone turns it into a blueberry matcha latte I m not sure that s what all these families ever conceived of happening with their matcha She points out that matcha has become expected at American coffee shops alongside lattes and cold brew It s become a canvas for these drink developers she says They ll post photos on Instagram of like variations of the matcha latte But she also worries I think about these seventh or eighth generation matcha farmers attentively shading these tea leaves and then someone turns it into a blueberry matcha latte I m not sure that s what all these families ever conceived of happening with their matcha she says Reinvention or respect Matcha is very personal to the traditional Japanese farmers like wine it has a sort of terroir The real matcha farmers don t mess around and they definitely don t cut corners But with an impending shortage the international matcha arena is at a high point of tension I m concerned that as this whole thing snowballs the banana cream matcha latte that somebody gets is just getting farther and farther away from the matcha that you would have in a tea ceremony says Maynard Matcha has not peaked There s plenty of space for matcha to expand in popularity the only question will be Is there going to be enough matcha Robert Hellyer author of Green with Milk and Sugar says this isn t the first time Americans have commodified Japanese tea America was the biggest consumer of Japanese green tea in the late th century he says People would pay more for it because they sought to look sophisticated That cool factor is still at play But Hellyer isn t convinced that these new matcha drinkers are conflating status with the quality of what they re drinking For a lot of people a beverage is just to quench the thirst or get an ability boost with caffeine so yeah maybe the tea behind it isn t really that pivotal for them We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in the current era to encouragement Salon s progressive journalism Specific caf s like Matcha in New York are trying to change that They highlight origin stories farmer relationships and build brand loyalty through tuition and storytelling Still Hellyer says the matcha trend has progressed to the point where the two Matcha and matcha almost can t even be considered the same drink There isn t and we don t really need to look for those connections between new flavored lattes and traditional tea ceremony Tea ceremony is about the practice of being with people and preparing tea it s less about the consumption of tea he says He thinks this splintering is inevitable You might see something like Uji-style matcha the same way you see Kobe-style beef he says Tea with terroir That kind of commodification is what chef and wellness author Candice Kumai has spent her career trying to prevent If we were going to introduce matcha to the world we had to do it the right way she says Kumai has been an ambassador for Ito En a legacy Japanese tea company for years It s major to learn from the largest part credible sources she says someone who works directly with the farmers in Japan In Ito En signed Shohei Ohtani as a global ambassador which led to a larger partnership between Ito En and the MLB in both Japan and the United States But for Kumai visibility isn t enough She likens matcha to wine a product of place care and society People are claiming This is my matcha when in other industries you would say I m a salesperson I work in collaboration with the tea farmers in Japan Kumai s first experience with matcha was in kindergarten through sweets the way plenty of Japanese children are introduced She studied tea s history and tradition for years learning about th-century master Sen no Rikyu credited with making matcha more accessible to the community Nowadays Kumai runs Matcha Masterclass a traveling workshop series and regularly posts Matcha Mondays on Instagram In a fresh video she revealed Japan is not a theme park calling out the trend of cherry-picking aesthetic elements while discarding cultural context I don t want to be the matcha police I want to be the matcha educator I don t want to be the matcha police she says I want to be the matcha educator But Kumai is also cautious We must not forget that with the things we enjoy there was struggle suffering war turmoil between these two countries Trends come and go she says but beliefs is meant to last There s a deep responsibility that comes with sharing these trends I think there s a sweet spot where we can pay homage to Japan while still enjoying parts of the values It s essential for people to learn about the individuals who helped make matcha what it is the present day Go to the tea schools in Japan learn from the monks So how do we keep the trend from snowballing into something unrecognizable If we can t book a flight to Kyoto how do we protect the farmers the tea the truth of the tradition I do see matcha as a new wine or cheese Kumai says I see it like a product from a DOC where it matters deeply where you re sourcing it from Sure let s sip our strawberry matcha lattes they are delicious But maybe while we re sipping we can remember the farmers who picked the leaves And the monks who first whisked them into something more Read more about this topic Caffeine is everywhere Is it truly harmless Matcha is having a moment What are the soundness benefits of this green tea drink Here are techniques to spice up your morning cup of tea The post The bitter truth about our sugary matcha habit appeared first on Salon com