Here’s the tea: matcha is in short supply.
Once easily found in grocery stores and coffee shops, the powdered green tea product is now in short supply thanks to its popularity on social media — and devout drinkers around the world are scrambling to find their fix.
Erica Lee, a content creator who frequently visits Japan, told Eater that her main goal on her most recent trip was to buy a can or two of matcha. Instead, she found empty shelves.
Signs plastered on supermarket shelves warn customers that it is “very difficult” to buy matcha, according to a TikTok clip. At one store, too much product was sold this year and they won’t have any in stock until the new harvest in June 2025, as vendors in Kyoto, Tokyo and other cities in Japan were plagued by the same supply problems, according to the retailer. . .
“POV: girls have caused a matcha shortage in Japan,” reads the caption on the video posted by travel content creator @runawaywithk, who claimed a shop window claimed a customer had bought 25 tins at once.
In #matchatok, TikTokkers have turned simple powdered tea into a viral sensation, with the hashtag boasting more than 40,000 posts dedicated to matchmaking methods, recipes and foods.
The same creators, however, are facing backlash for over-consumption of the products as the shelves run out, as users vow they will “never forgive TikTok” for making the drink so popular.
While proponents of the drink predict it could become as ubiquitous as coffee, matcha sales have reached more than $10 billion in the U.S. over 25 years, Eater reported.
Megumi Kanaike, the manager of Sydney-based tea shop Simply Native, told the Guardian that, over the past six months, matcha sales at her shop have grown a “crazy” 250%. It’s a phenomenon she called a “sudden worldwide boom.”
Marukyu Koyamaen, one of the most popular tea brands, is currently sold out of all of their matcha products offered on the company’s international online store.
“They did roughly six months of sales in a little under a month,” Zach Mangan, the owner of Brooklyn tea company Kettl, who met with the brand’s representatives on a recent trip to Japan, told Eater.
He visited the city of Uji, where according to Mangan “there has been an attack on some matcha producers”. He explained that because tencha, the leaves from which matcha is made, is harvested only once a year in the spring, this limits the amount produced and sold.
“It’s not like it’s growing out there and you can have another harvest very quickly,” he said, adding that “they’re not Amazon products that you just have year-round.”
However, Kanaike argued that not all matcha variations will be affected equally, as some producers still have matcha in stock. Some content creators took to TikTok to prove that there is indeed matcha still in stock at some local homes.
“The brands that have had the most impact are the ones that people overseas like, the ones that have gone viral on social media,” she said.
In the comments of a video posted by Meredith Mao, a creator advertising her giant stash of matcha tins and packets online, viewers called her “greedy and embarrassing”.
“I feel bad for all the people who were excited to buy some and couldn’t because of your overspending,” one person wrote.
“Hey, that’s crazy,” said another.
“With the matcha shortage going on, I think you might be the number one suspect girl,” someone else quipped.
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Image Source : nypost.com