Matcha and Meaning

Kit Kats, Kardashians and samurai—how the culture around Japan’s most traditional green tea is shifting with the times.

WORDS Anna Lee C. Iijima
IMAGES Yoko Baum

Matcha is seemingly everywhere in America today.

In latte form, the frothy, jade-hued sips are every social-media influencer’s favorite alternative to morning coffee. Matcha is that eyepopping burst of green in everything from Kit Kats and wellness smoothies to face masks and martinis. It’s a superfood that may prevent cancer and reduce stress all the while improving skin tone and boosting metabolism too.

Indeed, far more than its utility as a beverage, matcha has a multifaceted appeal with a broad range of American consumers. And more than just a passing trend, the green tea’s sales in the U.S. surpassed $10 billion in the past 25 years.

As a Japanese American, I feel a bit of pride for this hometown kid’s success. Who could have predicted that in a single generation, matcha would become a household term in America?

But to be honest, America’s frenzy for everything and anything matcha feels a bit peculiar too. Americans adore the stuff, but few have any awareness of its deeper historical, cultural and spiritual significance.

Matcha is the finely ground powder of leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant. It’s the same plant that produces most caffeinated tea leaves. Uniquely, however, matcha is made from plants cultivated largely in the shade to boost the development of chlorophyll and amino acids that give the drink its distinct deep-green hue, characteristic sweetness and richness.

And unlike teas brewed by steeping whole leaves in water, matcha is made from whole leaves ground into a chalky powder and whisked into hot water. The tea is lustrous and creamy, with a pleasantly grassy tone and subtle bitterness. In contrast to the electric rush and jitters of coffee, matcha can offer the clarity and focus of caffeine with an anchoring sense of calm, often­ attributed to the high amounts of L-theanine in the leaves.

For most Japanese, matcha is fundamentally more than just tea, explains Yoshitsugu Nagano, a master of the Ueda Soko School, practitioners of traditional samurai tea rituals that date back 400 years. Surprisingly to most Americans, matcha is rarely whisked up casually and served at home in Japan.

“It’s not something you’d drink when you’re thirsty, or something you’d sip with friends over a bustling conversation,” says Nagano.

Rather, matcha is the cornerstone of one of Japan’s most historic cultural practices: the ceremonial preparation and presentation of tea known as chanoyu or sado.

MATCHA ORIGINS

Matcha originated more than 1,000 years ago in China as a part of ritual­ tea ceremonies practiced by Chan Buddhist priests. It arrived in Japan alongside Zen Buddhism, which was adopted from Chan Buddhism, in the 12th century and later proliferated in Japanese monasteries.

The tea was incorporated into the practice of Zen Buddhism in part because of its medicinal properties. Zen meditation requires intense physical and mental focus over extended lengths of time.

“Matcha was a fortifying drink that helped monks to concentrate and recover—a function not dissimilar to modern-day energy drinks or supplements,” says Nagano.

By the 16th century, chanoyu had also become ritual practice among Japan’s warrior class, or samurai, the modern-day equivalent of soldiers. Nagano explains that in times of war and amid the constant threat of mortality, samurai found salvation in the mindfulness and meditation of matcha.

Generations later, while matcha and chanoyu spread among ordinary citizens, matcha is still regarded by most Japanese as a component of a highly rarified practice. Chanoyu is a revered tradition still taught by ancient houses tracing their lineage to Japan’s founding tea masters. It’s an artform that often requires years, if not decades, to master.

There’s an “inherited sense that matcha is something elevated and distinct from other teas—sacred even,” Nagano explains.

CULTURAL SHIFT

In America, glimmers of matcha’s spiritual and meditative history—generic references to nameless monks and tea masters, or buzzwords like enlightenment and Zen—tend to pepper the lexicon of contemporary matcha marketing. Kourtney Kardashian, whose passion for matcha lattes is broadcasted regularly to millions of Americans, sells “Purity Powder” for “spiritual balance” and a “higher state of consciousness” via Poosh, her popular e-commerce site.

All of this adds an attractive haze of exoticism to matcha that feels authentic enough to many American consumers without burdening them with the weight of the tea’s historical and spiritual significance.

Matcha in America tends to “exist in this bubble of health and wellness,” suggests Zach Mangan, the CEO and cofounder of Kettl, a Brooklyn-based importer of Japanese teas. It’s caught on as an alternative for people who don’t drink coffee, and in turn, spawned an entirely new culture of Instagrammable morning-matcha smoothies, overnight-matcha oatmeal, gummy supplements and their ilk.

Like many Asian Americans, I feel inordinately protective about things that I fundamentally associate with my cultural heritage. And it’s often difficult to navigate America’s unbridled enthusiasm for everything matcha without feeling some level of distrust and unease.

But Tomoko Honda, head of global operations for Ippodo Tea, a Japanese company founded in 1717 in Kyoto, sees things in a very different, overwhelmingly positive light.

How Americans enjoy their matcha is often surprising from a Japanese perspective, she says—the gobs of honey or maple syrup sweeteners, the endlessly customizable range of plant-based milks and fruity add-ins, or those hand-held electric whisks used in American cafes, for example.

Personally, “if Americans would learn to enjoy matcha straight, I would be happier,” she says cheerily, but fundamentally, she’s “very glad that Americans are inventing their own unique ways to enjoy matcha.”

Afterall, “matcha was born in China,” she reminds me. “As Japanese, we can’t really claim that it’s ours.”

Despite matcha’s cultural significance, it’s also inherently a commodity meant to be marketed and consumed. In the same way that Honda doesn’t always think about coffee’s origins, history or cultural context while drinking coffee, she explains, “I don’t think it’s necessary for Americans to think about Japan whenever they drink matcha.”

Nagano, too, expresses excitement for the evolution of a unique matcha culture in the United States, regardless of whatever new and unexpected form it takes.

“Culture is not static,” he says. “It’s meant to adapt and evolve as it spreads to different places and people.”

He adds that not only did Japan adopt matcha from China, but the Japanese fundamentally changed the culture of matcha, incorporated it into a uniquely Japanese style of tea ceremonies­ and, in recent gene­rations, popularized matcha as flavorings­ for ice creams, lattes and Kit Kats. Americans whizzing matcha into caramel macchiatos­ or matcha steak rubs is hardly any different.

“The Japanese don’t have the right to tell people in other countries, ‘no, you’re doing it wrong,’ ” says Nagano. Moreover, if we want the Japanese way of enjoying matcha to be protected, it’s our job as Japanese to do that—the responsibility isn’t on anyone else, he suggests.

MOVING FORWARD, WITH TRADITION

Indeed, the preservation of Japan’s traditional matcha culture is a critical challenge for teaists today. Chanoyu is venerated in Japan, but in modern times, it’s a practice estimated to be enjoyed by less than one percent of Japan’s population. Disproportionately elderly as a demographic, the number of practitioners has dwindled down to a third of what was claimed just thirty years ago.

Many teaists feel that restricting access to the culture of matcha or insisting on notions of ownership or authenticity­ are only likely to en­danger its survival.

“A century or two from now, no one knows if Japan will still be central to the culture of matcha, or whether chanoyu­ will even survive,” says Nagano.

The explosive popularity of matcha in America gives Nagano hope that tenets of chanoyu may thrive outside of Japan, even if they evolve into­ something completely different. Nagano relocated from Japan to New York City in 2019 specifically to expand the warrior tradition of chanoyu in America.

“New Yorkers may not confront their mortality each day like the samurai,­ but it’s clear that the amount of pressure and stress they endure is enormous,” he says. Elements of chanoyu, he thinks, may not only resonate with American matcha enthusiasts, but provide much needed healing—even salvation—to Americans too.

Thus far, Nagano has found Americans to be strikingly open and curious in their exploration of matcha. He notes that Americans might try the green tea for the first time at Starbucks or hear about it on social media, but they don’t hesitate to buy their own matcha bowl and whisk on Amazon and then teach themselves to make matcha at home by looking up a video on YouTube.

“This kind of natural progression doesn’t occur as easily in Japan because matcha is still perceived as such a significant or formal, even intimidating, thing,” says Nagano.

The establishment of exceptionally quality-focused American matcha purveyors like Kettl also point to a new growth stage for matcha in America. Kettl, established in 2016 by Mangan and his wife Minami, focuses on the direct import of a wide range of small-production teas from throughout Japan—the kind of matcha, sencha, hojicha and the like that rarely found their way outside the Japanese market before.

The brand’s marketing is refreshingly void of hollow references to monks or generic health and wellness hype. Instead, it’s focused squarely on educating matcha consumers about the diverse origins and production methods of tea, as well as the farmers and purveyors it sources from.

Overall, the culture of matcha in America, along with its marketplace, is still so nascent, suggests Mangan.

“People may start at these sensationalized places—the Kardashians or whatever,” he says. “They may start with a very low-grade matcha from Amazon or something they tried in a café. But what’s unique about this marketplace is that as people gain more experience and the opportunity to taste better product, they tend to stick with that. Not every matcha drinker will necessarily end up as our customer, but the Kardashian door is a huge door and you’d be surprised how quickly people can go from the Kardashian level to being a Kettl customer.”