A decade ago in Kyoto, at the very heart of Japanese tea heritage, I set out to redefine the market value of ultra-premium matcha and rebuild the bridge connecting traditional farmers to the consumer. Today, while directing entrepreneurship research at Kobe University — Japan's historic birthplace of management studies and one of its premier business schools — and developing the EA Framework (synthesising Effectuation with Art Thinking, rooted in intrinsic aesthetic sensibility), I look across the tea programmes of over 20 countries with an urgent question:
Beneath every business strategy and organisational purpose lies a deeper driving force: the creator's intrinsic aesthetic sensibility (ART). Rather than passively predicting market data or conforming to inherited labels, true entrepreneurial creation begins by shaping new ecosystems from one's core sense of beauty. This dynamic sits at the core of my research — and it is the exact transformation global tea culture requires today.
At the same time, this inquiry demands a flexible attitude toward the continuous renewal of embodied tacit knowledge through artifacts — such as whisking a bowl of matcha or crafting a latte — and a delicate sensitivity to embrace alterity: welcoming the diverse, unfamiliar perspectives of global players. Rather than fitting ourselves into pre-existing orthodoxies, we must continually update our sensory perception through honest dialogue with materials, while embracing the unique aesthetic sensibilities and terroirs of partners worldwide to co-create emergent ecosystems.
Just as specialty coffee evolved from dark-roast bulk consumption (First Wave) to espresso lattes (Second Wave) and onward to origin-driven terroir (Third Wave), matcha has arrived at its own moment of maturity: the urgent need for a purpose-built, terroir-driven hierarchy.
1 · A Decade Ago: Reclaiming Value in an Industry in Crisis
Around 2015–2016, the Japanese green tea industry was enduring a catastrophic structural decline.
- The collapse of loose-leaf consumption. According to the Family Income and Expenditure Survey by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, annual household spending on green tea leaves plummeted by over 60% — from roughly ¥11,000 in 2000 to around ¥4,000 in 2015. The traditional high-end gifting culture had largely unravelled.
- Depressed farmgate prices and vanishing farms. National raw tea (aracha) prices dropped from over ¥2,000/kg in the early 2000s to lows of ¥1,100–1,200/kg by 2015. Japan's Agricultural Census showed commercial tea-farming entities collapsing by more than half — from roughly 53,000 in 2000 to just 20,000 in 2015 — amid rapid ageing and a lack of successors.
- No market for first-flush ceremonial tea. While demand for cheap industrial powder (for confections and bottled drinks) grew, it relied on low-grade second and third harvests. Hand-picked, shade-grown first-flush leaves (ichibancha) were left without buyers — a devastating paradox in which making the highest-quality tea guaranteed a loss.
Senior executives advised me to stay away from a declining industry. My response was the opposite: this structural failure was precisely why a new venture was necessary.
In 2017, partnering with Kitagawa Hanbee — Kyoto Uji's historic wholesale titan, which commands one of Japan's largest distribution volumes of Uji matcha and holds a record-setting 40+ Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Awards (equivalent to taking the nation's top competitive honour across more than half of modern competitive history) — I established and served as CEO of Gion Kitagawa Hanbee, an experiential luxury café designed to challenge conventions:
- Pure ceremonial thin tea (usucha) using premier competitive lots
- The signature déclinaison dessert plate, showcasing five distinct facets of matcha
- Chayomi, an analytical tasting flight of five Japanese tea categories — matcha, sencha, hojicha, oolong and Japanese black tea
- Uncompromising, full-bodied matcha lattes crafted with first-flush leaves
Defying the orthodoxy that using ultra-premium ceremonial tea in confections and lattes was sacrilege, we invited consumers to taste the uncompromised difference. The café drew sustained queues, reshaped public perception, drove wholesale prices upward, and demonstrated a pathway toward agricultural viability.
Building on that foundation, I became an advisor to Benefitea (a pioneer in cold-extracted bottled luxury teas), Brand Advisor to Gion Tsujiri (the iconic Kyoto house that sparked the "Second Wave" in 1978 by inventing the matcha parfait), CEO of Japan & India Project Design, CEO of ARTERRA, and owner of Matchannel — Japan's largest curated matcha community, uniting over 300,000 enthusiasts.
2 · Fieldwork Across 20 Nations: The Limits of the "Ceremonial" Reflex
In the ten years since, market dynamics have radically inverted. According to Japan's Ministry of Finance trade statistics, green tea exports surged from ¥16 billion in 2015 to ¥36.7 billion in 2024, crossing a ¥72 billion scale in 2025. Domestic production of tencha — the raw leaf for matcha — doubled from roughly 2,700 tonnes in 2015 to 5,336 tonnes in 2024. Yet across café counters in more than 20 countries, this boom has revealed three deep paradoxes.
①The sensory mismatch: diluting a hot-water profile in cold milk
Ceremonial grade is shaded before harvest to maximise theanine — sweet, savoury umami — and was engineered over centuries for one medium: pure hot water. Combined with fatty oat milk, dairy, or acidic strawberry and mango syrups, that delicate theanine is instantly eclipsed. The result is a $10 latte containing an overpriced, flavourless green dye.
②The threat to Japan's agricultural heritage
Spurred by global shortages and record prices, major prefectures such as Kagoshima and Shizuoka are rapidly converting historic sencha fields into shaded tencha orchards. Japan risks destroying its foundational, everyday loose-leaf culture in order to chase short-term export demand.
③Closed orthodoxies and regional complacency
Global cafés routinely buy any bag labelled "Kyoto Uji Ceremonial" as an absolute guarantee, without testing whether its profile stands up to their milk. Meanwhile domestic competitive frameworks remain insular, barring foreign-grown tea from entry. As a result, exceptional gardens in Vietnam or China — cultivating rich soil with state-of-the-art Japanese machinery — are denied a level playing field.
The simplistic binary — "made in Japan equals supreme; foreign-grown equals inferior" — has become the single greatest barrier to the evolution of the craft.
3 · The Next Frontier: A Terroir-Based Hierarchy for Craft Lattes
In specialty coffee, no professional brews espresso, milk drinks and pour-overs with the same bean; varietals, elevations and roasts are chosen with precision. Wine pairs with equal discipline — bold, tannic reds for fat; crisp, mineral whites for delicate fare. Matcha requires the same structural clarity.
Through ARTERRA, we serve as technical advisors to historic high-altitude tea estates in Vietnam, combining Japanese precision machinery with meticulous quality control to co-develop and distribute matcha formulated specifically for lattes.
In Chongqing, China, historic estates stand on land where Kyoto's Kitagawa Hanbee personally transferred Japanese steaming and manufacturing standards beginning around 2018. Having evaluated the raw leaf in those first years, my recent tastings of the 2025 harvests revealed a remarkable leap in quality. The union of rich mountain soil, favourable climate and relentless refinement has unlocked extraordinary potential. ARTERRA is illuminating these diverse Asian terroirs for the global stage.
- Engineering a resilient backbone. Moving past fragile, unshaded umami toward leaves with balanced sunlight, robust catechins and clean roasting (hi-ire) — a structural backbone that cuts cleanly through plant milks, citrus and botanicals.
- A curated portfolio of micro-climates. Rather than positioning origins as adversaries, we curate them by function: an estate in Vietnam for bright fruit pairings, a single origin from Japan for focused flat whites, distinct mountain lots for complex mixology.
- Protecting rare Japanese ceremonial leaves. By letting verified, high-standard international estates shoulder the volume required for lattes and culinary use, we stabilise supply, curb hyper-inflation, and preserve authentic Japanese ceremonial matcha as the contemplative experience it was meant to be.
Transcending Labels to Rediscover Taste and Soil
The era of relying on "ceremonial" as an unquestioned label is over. When creators act from an inner aesthetic compass rather than inherited conventions, they open the door to genuine innovation. By synthesising academic frameworks with over a decade of hands-on tea enterprise, my goal is to dismantle outdated hierarchies and offer the global beverage community a disciplined, honest alternative.
Together with visionary roasters, baristas and hospitality leaders worldwide, we are drafting the next map of global tea culture — not selling a spec sheet, but a new geography of value that stays close to the palate and the everyday.