If it feels like everyone's starting a matcha brand these days

If it feels like everyone's starting a matcha brand these days, there's real business logic because this is a $5 billion industry. Matcha actually entered the Starbucks menu in 2019, but it was 2023 when it went viral on TikTok. By 2024, we started seeing global shortages because Japanese tea farms just couldn't keep up. Now, a tin of ceremonial grade matcha actually cost around $10 to make and package, then retails for $30 to $50. It's a very similar markup to premium coffee, but the difference is that coffee has kind of been commoditized, but matcha has a lot of white space and is growing at nearly double the rate of coffee. To understand the economics, you have to understand how it's made. Farmers grow and harvest the leaf, but most of them don't export directly. They sell it to a Japanese wholesaler who blends leaves from hundreds of different farms, mills it into powder, and then handles the export. That wholesaler then sells it to a US importer, which sells to your favourite brand. By the time it reaches the tin, there's around two to three layers of middlemen. Most influencer brands go the white label route. They pick from a U.S. Importer's catalogue, get it packaged in a branded tin, and launch in 30 days. That means different brands can be selling the same matcha from the same wholesaler, and the only difference is really the branding. The second route is working more directly with the wholesaler, you cut out the importer, but you still don't know where the leaves come from. You do get more control over the grade, flavour, and blending. There's a real reason that wholesalers exist. If you want your matcha to taste identical in 2026 as it did in 2024, a single farm can't actually guarantee that. Wholesalers blend different leaves from different sources to maintain that consistency, and that really matters when it comes to scaling. And the hardest route is going direct to farm. You're literally flying to Japan, building relationships with specific farmers and sourcing from a specific region. A good example of a brand that does this is Kettl out of Brooklyn. And this type of sourcing can lead to the best quality and the best story. But one farm's harvest varies season to season, so consistency becomes a problem to be solved. At the end of the day, there's really no right answer. Direct to farm can ensure the best quality, but wholesalers give you consistency and control. Most brands start with white labelling and then try to move up the chain as they grow, but very few make it direct from farm. So next time you see a matcha brand, you know that sourcing is the real differentiator. Follow for more deep dives like this.