What is the problem with matcha?

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Key takeaways

• Major coffee brands are chasing matcha’s booming popularity.
• Virality is driving over-commercialisation, diluting quality and cultural meaning.
• Japan’s shortage means lower-quality matcha is becoming more widespread.
• Coffee and matcha aren’t rivals; cafés should simply serve matcha well.

Matcha is everywhere. It’s now in iced lattes, cold foams, ready-to-drink (RTD) cans, lemonades, and refreshers, turning countless cafés worldwide vibrant green.

Blank Street’s rebrand is the clearest example of how far the trend has travelled from its Japanese roots. The US$500m chain dropped “Coffee” from its name, softened its signature green to a matcha-latte hue, and rebuilt its identity around non-coffee drinks. 

Inevitably, the commercialisation of matcha has diluted its cultural identity. In the UK alone, Square recorded 1.6 million matcha beverage sales across more than 2,100 retailers in just June and July 2025. At this volume, carefully sieving and hand-whisking each drink to order isn’t feasible. Preparation shortcuts, including pre-batching, have now become essential for busy cafés.

Customised matcha drinks are a lucrative way to attract a younger, more visually driven, and more experimental crowd. For Gen Z, the drink increasingly ties into personal expression. Choosing sweetness levels, milk, toppings, and flavours functions less as indulgence and more as a form of control and identity-building.

Not everyone, however, welcomes matcha’s popularity, and the protests are growing louder. Concerns about supply and sustainability persist, as does the question of whether the craze owes more to clever marketing than to quality.

You may also like our article on whether matcha has lost its cultural identity.

From ritual to viral trend

For centuries, matcha was a Japanese ritual that demanded patience and mindfulness. Social media has since propelled the drink into mainstream Western culture, turning it into a shorthand for wellness, virality, and personalised consumption.

Lifestyle brands, meanwhile, present matcha as more of an accessory than a beverage. It has become a social signifier, and this is often where the problem with matcha begins. Complaints concern not the ingredient itself but how rarely it takes centre stage. Instead, the emphasis falls on customisation: syrups, milks, sweeteners, and whichever seasonal drops will perform well on TikTok or Instagram.

Part of the frustration is that many brands appear to be hopping on the trend to cash in quickly, rather than building considered menus. The same flavours and limited-edition runs have created a race to the bottom to see who can win Gen Z brand loyalty first.

Matcha’s virality means its popularity is often linked to Gen Z, but opinions about the drink vary based on more than age.

“We ran the matcha polarisation question through our Gen Z Intelligence Lab, which also covers older cohorts, gathering responses from more than 60 countries,” says André Eiermann, Global Coffee Product Manager at Melitta Professional, who has been running the Gen Z and Coffee survey. 

“The key insight is that matcha polarisation is driven far more by beverage worldview than by age,” he explains. “People aren’t divided by generation alone, but by how much they embrace cafés as places for exploration, identity, and new beverage experiences.”

The runaway commodification of matcha

Matcha’s mismatch between ritual and retail mirrors coffee’s journey. Once a drink with cultural significance in Latin American, African, and Arabic countries, it has been repackaged for mass consumption worldwide.

Coffee has its own additive and customisation culture, and matcha has simply become the newest, more photogenic vehicle for the same behaviour: stack ingredients, chase virality, and focus less on the base ingredient. In other words, the problem is that the value of matcha lies largely in aesthetics.

The value of the global matcha market will reach over US$7bn by 2030, with the US, Germany, the UK, Taiwan, and Thailand emerging as the biggest importers. The US buys roughly 2,000 tonnes of matcha from Japan every year, while revenue from UK imports totalled around £46 million in 2025 – more than double the previous year.

The commercial pressure this creates is real. Japan’s matcha production nearly tripled between 2010 and 2023, yet record-breaking heatwaves and an ageing farmer population mean supply can’t keep pace with soaring global demand. Countries such as China, Vietnam, and India are stepping in to fill the gap, but matcha grown in these countries often lacks the umami depth that Japan produces.

Matcha already has a naturally grassy, slightly bitter flavour, so another problem is that lower-quality matcha only encourages consumers to add more syrup, milk, and sugar.

With most demand growth at the commodity-grade level, matcha that works well in sweetened lattes bears little resemblance to the product that traditional Japanese manufacturers recognise. 

Similarly, “grades” of matcha, such as “ceremonial” or “culinary”, carry no standardised definition and aren’t used in Japan. Instead, they are marketing categories that Western sellers use to differentiate their products and justify different price points.

Coffee and matcha don’t need to compete

Much of the discourse about matcha has settled into an unfair framing: coffee vs matcha, as though industry professionals and consumers must pick a side. Influencers like Dritan Alsela push this narrative, insisting that “real” coffee drinkers would never drink matcha.

“Roughly three-quarters of respondents are receptive to matcha, but the real divide emerges in how people relate to cafés, discovery, and experimentation,” André says. “Matcha enthusiasts are substantially more open to hybrid drinks, customisation, and cold and layered beverages, and they’re more likely to discover new products through social media and to see cafés as social spaces.

“Rejectors, by contrast, tend to favour familiar coffee rituals, simpler formats and lower levels of experimentation.”

Matcha isn’t a substitute for coffee; it serves a different purpose entirely, and often functions as a gateway drink that introduces new customers to specialty coffee who later order flat whites or cold brew.

The more productive question for cafés is how to source high-quality matcha and serve it properly, rather than debating whether people should be drinking it at all.

This means sourcing carefully, allowing innovation and tradition to coexist. It also means training staff to prepare it to a proper standard, whether that’s hand-whisked to order or carefully batched during busy service, and being transparent about where their matcha comes from.

Matcha is likely to end up where most trends land: an early wave of hype and mass-market dilution, followed by a slower, steadier appreciation for provenance, grade, and preparation. 

Cafés that get ahead of this shift now, by sourcing well and training staff properly, stand to benefit long after the seasonal drops have moved on to the next trend.

Want to grow your sales? Our marketing agency, PDG Media, specialises in helping coffee businesses grow. Get a free marketing audit today.

Matcha FAQs

Why is matcha so popular with Gen Z right now?
Matcha’s vivid green colour, wellness associations, and customisable format appeal to Gen Z’s taste for aesthetic, health-conscious drinks. Brands like Blank Street and Black Sheep have capitalised on this, building entire ranges around matcha rather than treating it as a niche add-on.

What is the problem with the matcha trend?
Many in specialty coffee feel matcha’s quality is being sacrificed for customisation and virality. Matcha also has a grassy, hay-like taste and can quickly turn bitter if not sourced or prepared properly.

Why is there a matcha shortage, and does it affect quality?
Demand has outpaced Japan’s tencha production, which nearly tripled between 2010 and 2023, yet it still can’t meet global demand. This has pushed lower-grade matcha from countries like China and Vietnam into cafés, which often lacks the umami and depth of Japanese matcha.

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