What to Do When a Zen Drink Causes Stress!
I was in the news twice in the past two weeks! Both times were to discuss matcha and the current matcha "shortage." I've been getting emails forwarded to me from other publications talking about the same issue.
I find it funny.
The interviewers will ask me: "how are you feeling about being able to keep up with demand?"
I reply, "we have had to adapt, but I'm feeling alright, I think we'll have enough to ride out the year," with a shrug and the slightest hint of self-doubt, which I apply to everything anyways.
The next day the headline is "Local Matcha Shop Feels the Pressure to Meet Demand," as though the situation is more dire than I made it out to be. I guess that's what sells - no surprise there.
But here I'd like to talk about some of those adaptations that we've been looking into to ensure we're well-stocked throughout the year. These go beyond just buying as much tencha as we can upfront, and into the realm of the more experimental. Consequently, I would love to hear your thoughts on what I share below, as that would help me know what to move forward with!
*This is not matcha
Enter, Diancha
Or as I like to call it, proto-matcha.
Back in the Song Dynasty, the first Japanese Zen monks would travel to China to learn from the established masters there. It was in these monasteries that they first encountered tea - and the form they encountered was referred to as Diancha.
Now, the classifications of tea as we know them today did not exist back then. White, black, green, oolong...those all came later. But, considering that white tea is the simplest to produce, it is presumed that the base tea for Diancha would have been closest to a white tea.
They would mill this tea into a fine powder using a Chinese medicine grinding wheel, and hold competitions to see who could make the frothiest froth this side of the Yangtze.
Diancha is experiencing a bit of a resurgence in China. With the global appetite for Matcha increasing, alongside the growth of Chinese nationalism, there's an element of "hey, we have our own super cool, unique matcha-thing too!." And it's true, it is super cool.
We have tried making it here using basic Shou Mei white tea and the flavor was always good, but it could never get quite as fine as our Matcha, and I always worried about little sticky tea buds making their way into the mill and causing it to gum up - so we stopped milling it. Some customers still ask for it, and I've wanted to bring it back. Given that we now face the possibility of running out of our go-to milled tea (Matcha), I've picked this project back up.
The stars aligned when I saw one of our Chinese tea vendors selling white tea fannings. Fannings are the little bits of leaves that break off during tea processing. This tea is often cheap and turned into tea bags - it is not associated with quality. But, there is one thing fannings typically lack: buds! I ordered some, thinking this might be the answer we were looking for.
Looks a bit like tencha, right? These are the leaf tips of Bai Mu Dan (White Peony) white tea. They are bright, floral, somewhat bitter, citrusy, and bold - they do not have the L-Theanine levels of Tencha, which means the tea milled from them is not as umami-laden and can have a bit more of a stimulating feeling. And here's the real good news: this stuff mills easily into a fine powder without gumming up the stones. It is a little less fine than our matcha - I can feel the particles ever so slightly as I swish it around my mouth, but it's not sandy and unpleasant, just maybe a few microns larger than usual. I mean, it even looks greener than a lot of "real" matchas out there, which, let's be honest, can verge on brown.
So, the history nerd in me is excited. We may just be bringing this 11th Century tea back to life! That's my first question for you: would you try it?
Now, for something perhaps more controversial.
The same vendor who provided the tea fannings above informed me that they also were growing tencha. They were growing two types of Tencha in Fujian, one made from a local Chinese cultivar, the other from the famed Yabukita. This is an organic farm, so it aligns with that aspect of our brand identity - so, I figured, why not try some out?
Turns out, this Tencha is really good! I've ordered some Chinese "Tencha" in the past and found it to be simply old, stale green tea - a scam, in short. This is not that. This is legit, and I would love to offer it for sale. As far as I can tell, it is comparable in quality to our other matcha offerings. Beyond that, knowing that this option exists is why I could answer those interview questions with a degree of calm - I am not worried about China's tea-growing capacity! But, this leaves me at a crossroads.
On the one hand, I in no way wish to undercut or shift away from our Japanese Tencha farmers. Maintaining a close relationship with them is dear to me, and if they could fulfill all of our Tencha needs I would gladly stick with them alone. Meanwhile, I am sensitive to the fact that matcha has become a part of Japan's cultural heritage - so a white Minnesotan milling Chinese Tencha feels a little questionable to me.
On the other hand, Japan would never have invented matcha were it not for cross-cultural exchange with China. The story of tea in general is a story of people going from one country to another and sharing this magical plant, and then that country falls in love with tea and puts their own spin on it. Now, the Western world is falling in love with matcha, but this may necessitate a new wave of cross-cultural exchange and the blurring of boundaries that define "proper" and "improper" matcha. Otherwise, we may simply run out of matcha! And that, of course, is what I am most afraid of.
So, that's my second question for you: would you drink Fujian-grown, American-milled matcha? (And am I overthinking the optics of it all? )
Thanks for reading and happy sipping,
Simon