Matcha is having a moment — and it's putting pressure on Japan's tea industry

It's the latest beverage du jour — and for radical needing their greeting pick-me-up, matcha tea progressively beats espresso arsenic their caffeine hole of choice.

"I worked connected the barroom a fewer weeks agone and I deliberation past a definite point, you don't conscionable skim milk, you don't propulsion shots. Everything you bash is matcha," said Nadiia Semenichenko, determination manager astatine 10 Dean, a café and barroom successful Toronto.

Demand for the finely powdered tea — usually sourced from Japan and unmistakable for its vivid greenish colour and earthy taste — has gone supernova since the fall, mostly acknowledgment to the legions of influencers swearing by it connected societal media and viral videos that are racking up millions of views, accidental experts who spoke to CBC News.

But that fervour has shaken up matcha's delicate proviso chain, yet starring to a planetary shortage that is putting unit connected Japan's beverage manufacture to ramp up accumulation of the scarce commodity.

Semenichenko's cafe has sought retired caller suppliers to support up with the demand, noting that 1 of them has enactment a headdress connected however overmuch matcha the café could bargain each month.  

"By the extremity of this year, we'll consciousness important terms increases successful matcha, for sure," she said, referring to the café's costs.

And those who travel the Japanese beverage manufacture accidental it's lone a substance of clip earlier customers who emotion the foamy, verdant portion get deed by a superior terms hike.

WATCH | How a matcha frenzy upended a delicate proviso chain: 

A sudden shortage

Matcha is made from crushed tencha, a benignant of greenish beverage leafage that is shade-grown — giving it a much aggravated flavour and a deeper colour — earlier being steamed, dried, destemmed and passed done a milling instrumentality to produce a powder.

The highest-grade mentation of matcha, utilized for Japanese beverage ceremonies, is harvested successful spring. It's passed done a chromatic mill, making it a clip and resource-consuming process that produces lone a small quantity of the last product.

Semenichenko says utilizing ceremonial matcha as a baking constituent oregon successful lattes is similar "if you bargain truly costly whiskey and enactment it successful whisky and Coke."

But when demand for matcha ticked sharply upward past fall, radical were abruptly rushing to bargain the high-grade mentation of the product. "Even beverage ceremonial schools successful Japan abruptly couldn't find the matcha they would usually buy," said Anna Poian, a co-founder of the Global Japanese Tea Association.

Some of the astir fashionable matcha brands successful Japan — including Ippodo Tea, Yamasan and Marukyu Koyamaen — published apology notes to their customers and announced they would person to put limits connected however overmuch and what benignant of matcha products they would merchantability to their buyers. 

At that time, matcha producers "were not truly facing a existent shortage, but they didn't expect truthful overmuch demand," explained Poian.

But the onslaught of matcha-related viral videos combined with record-high tourism to Japan — induced by a weak yen — had radical clamouring for the tea, yet starring to a tally connected existing proviso and a accumulation shortage.

Now, the craze has spurred large java shops and edifice chains to measurement up their matcha offerings truthful they tin currency in, too. 

Most Starbucks locations person served matcha drinks for years, but the java elephantine added a full suite of specialty matcha drinks past summer. Matcha is connected the paper astatine Booster Juice, Tim Hortons and McDonalds, too, though the companies didn't respond erstwhile asked erstwhile they added it.

Big retailers aren't immune to the shortage, either. Second Cup, which added different matcha latte to its paper successful April, has precocious dealt with delays successful receiving its matcha supply, a spokesperson told CBC News.

Changing tides successful Japan's tea-farming industry

The shortage is besides a merchandise of changes successful Japan's home beverage manufacture implicit the past 2 decades.

Within the country, both the consumption and accumulation of beverage person declined, and its tea-farming colonisation is aging with fewer successors to instrumentality over.

"They don't spot overmuch of a aboriginal due to the fact that the Japanese beverage manufacture has been successful diminution for the past 15 to 20 years, owed to the alteration successful section consumption," explained Poian, whose organization publishes monthly reports on the industry.

Conversely, exports of Japanese beverage to different countries are connected the rise. In April 2025, total exports of Japanese beverage were up 85.7 per cent from the aforesaid period the erstwhile year, according to information from an manufacture group. 

Canada's ain intake of greenish beverage from Japan has accrued by 118 per cent since 2015, a spokesperson for Global Affairs told CBC News. 

Compounding the occupation is the fact that matcha makes up conscionable six per cent of Japan's full beverage production, according to Poian. "More farmers are shifting and focusing their accumulation to matcha, but this unluckily is not an casual switch," she said.

Countries similar China and Vietnam nutrient matcha, too, but the Japanese version is considered premium. The Japanese government's farming ministry, successful an effort to ramp up matcha production for the export market, is reportedly recommending that farmers regenerate their sencha — different benignant of greenish beverage leaf — with tencha. 

That displacement isn't easy, adjacent for the industry's experienced workforce, says Jason Eng, caput of concern improvement and partnerships astatine Kametani Tea, a beverage accumulation institution based successful Nara, Japan.

"Many of these farmers don't person the resources to bash that — to upgrade each the machines oregon conscionable alteration the machines altogether. So the concern costs a lot," helium said.

Kametani Tea, which exports astir 25 to 30 per cent of its merchandise to planetary beverage companies, suppliers and wholesalers, volition person to rise prices erstwhile the adjacent harvest is ready. And those terms shocks volition yet trickle down to matcha-loving consumers astatine cafés.

"It's gonna beryllium truly hard to digest, I think, for the consumers astatine the extremity with this immense surge of demand," helium said.

'It conscionable gets sold out'

After processing a sensation for matcha, Cheena Lerum started posting look videos connected her TikTok account. But the Toronto contented creator noticed earlier this twelvemonth that she got much views erstwhile she offered recommendations for wherever to bargain and root matcha.

"You cognize erstwhile bubble beverage became truly celebrated a fewer years ago?" she said, referring to the Taiwanese beverage portion that exploded successful popularity during the mid-2010s. "Matcha's becoming that now."

Lerum, who has astir 30,000 followers connected the platform, said she thinks "all the time" astir whether she's contributing to the matcha shortage. She posts astir the beverage little often connected societal media now, partially due to the fact that she hasn't been capable to find her favourite products.

"They accidental don't gate-keep, but sometimes determination are brands that you similar and past it becomes excessively fashionable and it conscionable gets sold out," Lerum explained. She's besides noticed prices creeping up: a 30-gram tin of matcha powder that she utilized to bargain online for $35 present costs astir $50, she said.

Back astatine the café, a fewer customers are sipping connected matcha lattes. "I conscionable find that it's a overmuch amended alternate to coffee," said Danielle Pineda, who says matcha energizes her without giving her coffee-like jitters. She has her ain matcha whisk and often makes the portion astatine home.

Tommy Tanga, different lawsuit astatine the cafe, said helium finds the existent terms of matcha reasonable — a café bid usually costs astir $5 to $7, depending connected the benignant of drink. It's been his go-to bid ever since helium tried it during a travel to Japan.

"I'm disquieted that it's going to get much expensive," helium said.