Behind the Matcha Shortage - What the Tea Industry is Facing
In recent years, the love for matcha has grown beyond anything we could have imagined. From traditional tea preparation to lattes, smoothies, and baked goods, matcha has found its way into the daily lives of people around the world. As a Japanese tea producer, we’re grateful for the enthusiasm and appreciation for this vibrant tea.
At the same time, we’ve been facing new challenges behind the scenes—challenges we feel it’s important to share with you.
What’s Behind the Shortage?
Rising demand, especially for high-quality ceremonial matcha, is one of the main reasons behind the current shortage. Ceremonial matcha is a delicate product, crafted from tender tea leaves that are shaded and hand-picked once a year in the spring. Because of this, there’s only a limited amount that can be produced each year, regardless of how high demand becomes.
An aging farming population:
Japan’s tea industry faces a serious generational shift. Many tea farmers today are in their 60s, 70s, or even older. With fewer young people choosing farming as a career, there are not enough new farmers to take over tea fields or expand production. As a result, even as demand rises, the number of active tea farms continues to decline.
Climate impacts:
Tea farming is highly sensitive to weather conditions. Irregular rainfall, unexpected frost, and shifting temperature patterns, made worse by climate change, can damage delicate tea leaves or disrupt the timing of harvests. A single frost during the shading period, for example, can ruin an entire year's crop of matcha-grade leaves.
Limited tea fields and slow expansion:
Expanding matcha production is not as simple as planting more tea bushes. It takes about five years for a new tea plant to mature enough to produce high-quality leaves suitable for matcha. Even with government initiatives encouraging new planting, real increases in supply will take years to materialize, not months.
In short, even with growing excitement around matcha, the natural and careful way it's produced places real limits on how much is available.
How Sugimoto Tea Is Responding
At Sugimoto Tea, our mission has always been rooted in sustainability, quality, and supporting the farmers who grow the tea we proudly share. To adapt to these new challenges, we are taking several important steps:
Working closely with partner farms: Careful forecasting helps farmers plan harvests and avoid waste.
Building relationships with new farmers: Expanding our partnerships ensures a stable future for tea production.
Hiring new staff for our factory: Like many rural industries, finding workers can be difficult, but we are investing in training new team members.
Building a new factory: Currently under planning, this will help us better support growing needs in the years ahead.
While these efforts won’t solve the shortage overnight, we believe they are critical to ensuring the long-term sustainability of high-quality Japanese tea.
What Customers Can Expect (and How You Can Help)
As the matcha landscape shifts, we want to share what to expect moving forward, and how you, as a tea lover, can make a difference:
Seasonality: High-quality ceremonial matcha is harvested only once a year, during the spring first flush. Because of the limited harvest window and the careful processing required, ceremonial matcha may increasingly become a seasonal product, primarily available after each new spring harvest. After the initial release, availability may decrease throughout the year until the next harvest season.
Exploring other teas: Japan produces a wide variety of green teas beyond matcha, each with its own unique character. When ceremonial matcha is limited, it’s a perfect opportunity to explore teas like sencha, a refreshing steamed green tea, or genmaicha, a comforting blend of green tea and roasted rice. These teas also reflect the seasonality and craftsmanship of Japanese tea and can offer new favorites to enjoy throughout the year.
Choosing the right matcha for the right use: Ceremonial matcha is carefully crafted for traditional preparation, where its delicate sweetness, umami, and smooth finish can be fully appreciated with just water. For matcha lattes, smoothies, or baking, culinary-grade matcha is better suited. These matcha types are crafted with a stronger, more robust flavor profile that holds up well even when combined with milk, sweetener, or other ingredients. Understanding the distinctions between ceremonial matcha and culinary matcha helps preserve the experience while helping protect the limited supply of ceremonial matcha for traditional preparation.
Out of transparency, we also want to mention that the cost of matcha may rise in the future. Factors like farming challenges, limited supply, and potential tariffs could lead to price increases. We are doing everything we can to manage this thoughtfully, but we feel it is important to keep you informed.
Our Commitment
We are deeply grateful for your support and understanding during this time. Every cup of tea you enjoy helps us sustain our farmers, protect traditional tea-making methods, and continue producing matcha with integrity and care.
At Sugimoto Tea, we will never sacrifice quality for quantity. Even if it means certain products may be temporarily unavailable, we are committed to upholding the standards and traditions that make Japanese tea so special.
Thank you for being part of this journey with us. Together, we can help preserve the future of matcha for generations to come.
