Interview: The matcha industry

Sion: Do you enjoy a cup of matcha in the morning? Well, you are not alone. In 2025, the BBC reported that the world’s thirst for matcha was dry sth. upetw. versiegen lassendrying up global suppliesVorrätesupplies. This Japanese tea, which is immediately recognizable due to its bright green colour, became more popular thanks to the increase in tourism to Japan after the Covid-19 pandemic. And online, the hashtag “Matcha Tok” has generated tens of millions of views. These days, the product can be found in everything from pastryBackware; Pastetepastries to drinks.

Business Spotlight editorRedakteur(in)editor Rachel Preece spoke to Katherine Swift, the founder of OMGTea, a business that specializes in top-quality -organic matcha. Swift started the business in 2014, before the beverage was widely known. Her principle interest in the drink was its health benefits. 

Swift’s mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and she wanted to find her an antioxidant-packed, healthy, energizing drink. In this first interview extract, Swift explained her personal connection to the drink. In her response, she mentions “EGCG”, which stands for “epigallocatechin gallate”. Don’t worry, even I found that hard to say — and I don’t expect you to remember it. The chemical compoundVerbindungcompound EGCG has lots of health benefits, ranging from improving your metabolic rate to promoting brain health. She also mentions “L-theanine”, an amino acid found in matcha tea. It’s quite the science class today. Anyway, let’s hear what Katherine said.

Katherine Swift: So, I wanted Mum to drink the green tea with the most EGCG in it. -Matcha has about 140 times the EGCG of regular green tea. So, I just started buying matcha from Japan for personal use for me and Mum. We started drinking it. I’m like, “This stuff’s amazing (ifml.)toll, fantastischamazing.” We’re taking a bit of control back. But it was making us feel really good as well because of this uniqueeinzigartigunique combination of caffeine and L-theanine. And I just thought, “I’ve got to spread the word about this amazing powder.” Because it wasn’t well known at all at that stage.

Sion: Katherine then spoke about the difficulties she had in the early stages of the business.

Katherine: When I first set the business up, I was doing farmers’ markets locally, that type of thing. And, literallybuchstäblichliterally, I would say, 99 per cent of the people had no idea what matcha was. So, there was a massive sort of education piece around it. It was difficult, you know. Most people didn’t know what it was. Mainstream retailerEinzelhändler(in)retailers: it was just so not on their radar. So, my listings initially started with a couple of local health-food storeReformhaushealth-food stores.

Sion: In recent years, matcha has become more popular. Katherine spoke about the impact of this on her business.

Katherine: I won’t say that we’re not seeing issues with supply because we are, because the demand has literally triplesich verdreifachentripled in the last year. There’s only a certain amount of matcha at the moment that Japan can produce. And the global demand is massively outstrip sth.etw. übertreffenoutstripping that. 

We’ve been getting really big demands get sth. off sb. (non-stand.)etw. von jmdm. bekommenoff customers, like, you know, “Have you got ten tonnes?” Literally that amount of matcha. And we’ve had to turn sb. downjmdn. abweisenturn people down because we just can’t. We haven’t got that, you know — particularly the higher gradeGüteklassegrades as well. There’s a finitebegrenztfinite amount of matcha farmers. There’s a finite amount of matcha stone millSteinmühlestone mills. 

And also, with global warming, it’s been like a bit of a perfect stormVerkettung unglücklicher Umständeperfect storm because the harvestErnteharvests have been affectedbetroffenaffected from extreme heat in the summer and then the cold in the winter. So, last year, for example, when obviously this massive growth in demand happened, the harvest was the worst it’d been in like 20 years, and the yieldErtragyield was like 25 per cent less than it would have been. I never thought I’d be in this position where, you know, we’d be stressing about not being able to get enough.

Sion: Katherine then spoke about the producer she works with, Aiya Japan, and how they became an investor in her brand.

Katherine: The producer that I identified as the best quality, that was going to provide me consistentlygleichbleibendconsistently good matcha, was Aiya Japan. They’re the biggest producer of quality matcha in Japan. They’ve been around since 1888. I’ve only ever worked with them. They’re a family-run business. I’ve been on trade missionHandelsreisetrade missions to Japan to try and find, you know, alternative supplierLieferant(in)suppliers if I needed them. And I’ve really struggled to find anybody that was able to provide me the quality and the consistent quality. I knew every harvest that my triple-A grade was going to be triple-A grade the next harvest. The customer was always going to be happy with OMGTea’s offering because that’s so important to us. But anyway, they contacted me in 2023 and said, we’ve watched you grow over the last nine years and we want to get involved. So, they’re now major investors in my business. So, that’s really protecting me from what’s gone on.

Sion: And finally, Katherine spoke about how she envision sth.sich etw. vorstellenenvisions the evolution of the matcha market.

Katherine: Matcha is just going to continue to grow. I think it’s almost a category on its own now. I think this global trend in health and wellbeing is not going away. I think Japan are going to crank sth. upetw. ankurbelncrank up production. I think they need to. You know, they’re implementing new farming techniques. They’re encouraging new farmers into matcha farming. They’re improving the sort of production and processing capabilities. So, it’s going to continue to grow without a doubt.