Matcha — the new oat flat white for the Gen Z hipster and the performative male. Not that we needed any more options, but it’s certainly diversified the game of over-priced drinks you can buy from a café. In the last year, it feels like matcha has spilled into our lives and is being poured into our cups to no end. But, as matcha becomes a piping hot new commodity, it’s hard to feel that respect and appreciation for its roots have ensued.
As a certified long-term matcha fan (I’m Japanese so yes, I liked it before it got big), part of me has been thrilled by the spread of matcha: no longer am I scouring the top shelves of Asian supermarkets for some of that freshly imported powder — now, I can pop into any café in town and easily buy an overpriced, diluted matcha latte if I want to, just like every other girlie in the Northern Quarter. In fact, matcha is so popular now that Japan’s supplies have been at risk of drying up.
However, whilst it’s somewhat exciting to see one of my favourite drinks become popular and more widespread, it doesn’t mean that matcha has become well-respected; matcha’s ‘high-street-ification’ has stripped it of its historical and cultural connections that provide important context to the drink that we love today.
It’s not that I wanted to gatekeep matcha — I mean, it’s far too late for that anyway. But, part of me has found it hard to enjoy seeing white influencers coming up with “crazy new matcha recipes” that have sparked an overconsumption which entirely ignores matcha’s cultural significance. It might seem dramatic, but I find myself increasingly frustrated when I have conversations with people who adore the drink, and don’t even know that it’s actually Japanese.
To explain, then, matcha is a green powder made from green tea leaves called tencha. These leaves are cultivated in the shade to develop that classic matcha flavour — earthy, umami, and slightly bitter — and are then steamed, dried, and ground into the powder that fill the shelves today.
It is widely believed that the process of steaming, drying, and grinding green tea leaves came from China during the Tang Dynasty and arrived in Japan over a thousand years ago, where matcha was developed — particularly during the Muromachi Era (12th to 16th centuries) — into the popular drink that is now so loved internationally. Over centuries, matcha has played an important spiritual and cultural role in Japan, notably through Japanese tea ceremonies (known as sadō, which means ‘the way of tea’). These ceremonies were formally developed in the 16th century and are tightly intertwined with the key principles of harmony, respect, purity, and tranquillity.
Matcha isn’t just a green drink that you pick up at Blank Street and wear as an accessory. It forms part of a hugely important cultural, spiritual, and historical Japanese institution and has been developed and honed over hundreds of years. Understanding the context of matcha is important to ensure mindful consumption — whilst it might feel like it, matcha didn’t just appear out of nowhere last year thanks to your favourite influencer.
On a personal note, grappling with the commercialisation of matcha has also meant confronting my own feelings about the growing hype and interest surrounding Japan. In school, being Japanese was at times a challenging part of my identity to feel proud of, and watching parts of my culture coming into the Western mainstream is a huge contrast to the environment I grew up in.
It’s obviously a welcome change, but I don’t always feel entirely over the moon about this new ‘love’ for Japan and its food and culture. Like with matcha, and with so many other international examples, parts of a culture are taken out of context and westernised in a way that removes the cultural and historical intricacies, simply reducing something to an ‘exotic’ new trend for the West to ogle over, and then leave behind in the dust. You can’t consume a culture, and you can’t wear a culture as an accessory.
The matcha phenomenon, of course, is a signifier of wider conversations surrounding cultural appropriation and appreciation. This isn’t to say that anyone who drinks matcha is committing a heinous sin of cultural appropriation, and it’s not that all matcha should be consumed in rural Japan in a 16th century-style tea ceremony, but it’s hard to feel that a high-street blueberry-salted-caramel-matcha-latte-extravaganza does justice to the drink’s roots and cultural significance, which is where the problem lies.
This is a reminder to be conscious of what we consume, which can be hard to remember in this age of late stage capitalism and hyper-consumption where everything is reduced to a product that can be bought and sold.
Next time you pick up a matcha, remember that it didn’t just appear in your hand because an influencer told you it’s good for you or because it’s trendy. My matcha is not your costume, so don’t treat it like one.
