Are Japan’s Tea Farmers Going Matcha?

Matcha-flavored lattes, sweets, and desserts are driving what many describe as an unprecedented matcha boom, yet manufacturers themselves say the situation has reached a level they can only call abnormal. “This year has truly been extraordinary,” one producer said, noting that since spring, large numbers of tourists have been rushing to buy matcha products. During a visit to Kyoto in May, the producer found that not a single packet of matcha remained on store shelves; shop staff explained that because each store limits the daily quantity, everything sells out almost immediately — in some cases disappearing within 15 minutes, from premium tea used in tea ceremonies to small packaged items.

Reporters examining Japan’s broader tea-farming crisis found that the current environment resembles a literal scramble for matcha, with demand so strong that supply cannot keep pace — a situation some have begun calling the matcha crisis.

The people feeling this crisis most acutely are those who rely on matcha daily. With matcha becoming harder to obtain, enthusiasts worry prices may soon rise beyond reach. According to tea-class instructors and students who regularly whisk matcha, prices have already climbed sharply, leaving many feeling the impact directly.

Japan’s tea industry is facing structural challenges that run far deeper than consumer trends. Due to aging farmers and a shortage of successors, total tea production has fallen by 14% over the past 15 years, from 2009 to 2024. Household spending on green tea has also dropped by nearly 20% over the same period. While these figures might suggest Japanese consumers are drifting away from traditional green tea, that is not necessarily the case. Sales of bottled green tea beverages continue to grow, and the market is expected to hit another record high this year. Meanwhile, matcha’s popularity overseas keeps soaring: Japan’s tea exports reached 36.4 billion yen in 2024, more than ten times the level of 15 years ago.

In the United States, the trend is driven partly by rising health consciousness and the sharply increasing cost of coffee beans, prompting major coffee chains like Starbucks to expand non-coffee beverage menus and highlight matcha. The transformation is visible in Japan as well, where many tourists walk through city streets with matcha lattes in hand, and seasonal matcha drinks have become year-round offerings at major café chains. During reporting in New York, one journalist saw matcha cafés gaining traction across Manhattan and even expanding to Los Angeles, where matcha lattes have become a staple for young consumers.

The broader policy trend in Japanese agriculture is to grow exports as domestic production and consumption decline due to demographic change. Tencha, the raw material for matcha, currently accounts for only about 7% of total tea production, but the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is urging farmers to shift from sencha to tencha to capture the export boom. On paper, switching to a more profitable crop sounds straightforward — but farmers in tea-producing regions say the transition is neither simple nor guaranteed to succeed.

Sayama tea, regarded as one of Japan’s three great tea brands, is produced in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture. Here, farmers described not excitement but deep hesitation. Historically, the region never produced matcha, and while requests are pouring in for Sayama growers to start making it, many describe the moment as nothing short of a paradigm shift. As one grower put it, “People aren’t drinking matcha. They’re eating it in desserts.” Matcha culture traditionally centered on drinking meticulously prepared tea, but demand today is driven by lattes, cakes, and sweets — a cultural shift comparable, the farmer said, to seeing Scotch whisky diluted with ice water: unthinkable to purists, yet impossible to criticize outright when global consumers embrace it.

For producers committed to preserving Japan’s tea culture, the challenge is not merely following a boom but maintaining the traditions associated with tea. Sayama once suffered a decline as imported black tea from India and Sri Lanka grew dominant internationally. Now, producers hope to revive the brand for the Reiwa era by exporting “Sayama Matcha” from Yokohama and nurturing new generations of local growers.

But even with demand rising, many farmers are choosing to continue producing sencha rather than switching to tencha. Although the leaves themselves come from the same plant, tencha requires shade-growing under black covers — an added burden for aging farmers forced to work under the intense heat of midsummer. Processing methods also differ completely, requiring entirely new production lines. In Iruma’s Kaneko district, only one experimental matcha-processing line exists, making large-scale conversion unrealistic for most growers.

Farmers also point out that demand for bottled green tea has expanded significantly, giving sencha stable long-term value. For some, staying with sencha makes more economic sense than gambling on a matcha boom whose longevity remains uncertain.

Meanwhile, producers across Japan are working at full capacity despite shrinking numbers of workers. Many growers are elderly, pushing themselves through physically demanding work in extreme heat. Agricultural experts emphasize that switching crops — whether tea, rice, or vegetables — is never as simple as policymakers suggest.

Major beverage companies are also feeling the pressure. Ito En has begun signing contracts to purchase all of a farm’s tea leaves and is using IT technologies to help stabilize production. During reporting in Iruma, Ito En demonstrated an AI-based system designed to determine the optimal tea-harvesting timing — a tool that could reduce reliance on experience and intuition, lowering barriers to entry for new farmers.

One of the most striking realities highlighted by farmers is the rapid growth of abandoned farmland. Without intervention, more land will fall out of cultivation each year. To counter this, Saitama Prefecture has stepped in by leasing land from farmers who can no longer manage it and then subleasing it to organizations like Agri-Farm. This approach helps consolidate land that individual farmers could never assemble on their own and reflects the key role local governments must play.

Specialists with financial backgrounds are also entering agriculture, bringing cost-management and business planning skills that farmers say strengthen the industry. Still, Japan’s tea-growing population is declining sharply. Many are aging out of the profession, and the number of growers leaving the fields has not slowed. Protecting tea fields and preserving Japan’s tea culture for future generations has become one of the industry’s most urgent long-term challenges.

Source: Kyodo

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