How matcha gelato, cake and coffee could save Japan’s tea industry – and farmers of green tea leaves
- Demand for matcha is growing as customers worldwide can’t get enough of products made from the powdered green tea
- Japanese farmers are catching on, jumping on the bandwagon to grow matcha leaves as domestic consumption of green tea leaves drops
From matcha ice cream to cake and chocolate, producers of traditional Japanese green tea are capitalising on growing global interest in its flavour – even as demand for the drink declines at home.
At Shigehiko Suzuki’s tea shop in central Japan, adorned with a traditional “noren” drape, the customers are flooding in – but more to scoop up gelato or cake than to sip the bright-green tea.
In 1998, Suzuki’s company Marushichi Seicha started making powdered matcha green tea – traditionally made using a bamboo whisk in a tiny room. The firm now exports 30 tonnes of green tea a year to the US, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
“The demand for matcha is rapidly growing in the world … There’s demand for ice cream, desserts and coffee,” says Suzuki at his shop in Fujieda, 170 kilometres (105 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
Japan exported more than 5,000 tonnes of green tea – mainly to the United States – last year, 10 times more than two decades ago. But in Japan, the consumption of green tea leaves for drinking dropped from 1,174 grams (2.6 pounds) per household in 2001 to 844 grams in 2015, according to the latest government data – a trend Suzuki puts down to a more Westernised diet.