Matcha boom causes tencha prices to more than double, and sencha production to plummet

The wave of the global Matcha boom is hitting Japan. Due to strong inquiries both domestically and internationally, the shipping price of tencha, the raw material for matcha, has more than doubled. Although there is enthusiasm among tea farmers and related companies, there are also voices of concern about the fallout from the bubble-like situation.

Green tea exports soar due to matcha boom, prices soaring, domestic and overseas products also rising

"They only bought what they had in stock." Kenta Ikeda, president of Ikeda Seicha, a long-established tea merchant in Kagoshima Prefecture, describes the popularity of matcha as follows: Last fall, when the boom began, orders flooded in for 30g matcha when people entered ``in stock'' on a sales site. It continued to run out of stock in just a few minutes. Even now that the situation where some customers were buying everything has been resolved, there are still strong inquiries from within Japan and overseas.

According to the Chamber of Tea Industry in Kagoshima Prefecture, which will become Japan's largest producer of crude tea in 2024, the global boom was sparked by the US coffee chain Starbucks' release of the Matcha Latte in 2006. Its healthy image attracted attention, and its popularity grew mainly in the United States. Matcha's popularity exploded last year, with influencers taking to social media to highlight the bright color of matcha as an alternative to coffee, whose prices continue to soar.

According to the National Federation of Tea Producers, an industry group, the average shipping price of tencha has continued to rise for five consecutive years, and last year it reached 8,562 yen per kilogram, 2.6 times higher than the previous year. Business negotiations between overseas buyers and tea-related companies are rapidly increasing in Kagoshima Prefecture. In order to keep up with the boom, tea farmers are accelerating their crop rotation from sencha, the most popular type of Japanese tea, to tencha, which is increasingly popular.

On the other hand, as the matcha shift progressed, the production of sencha tea decreased sharply. As prices have skyrocketed, teapots have become hard to come by, and the act of making tea in a teapot on a daily basis can become a luxury.

Toru Mitsumura, executive director of the Prefectural Chamber of Tea Industry, points out that the soaring prices of sencha are causing customers to lose customers, and that ``Japanese tea shelves in supermarkets are being replaced by other beverages such as barley tea.'' Tea farmers are expressing a sense of crisis, saying that if they lose Japanese tea fans who love drinking Sencha and other teas, they could find themselves in a predicament after the matcha boom fades.