Matcha lovers are turning against each other over global shortage

Mint

09-07-2025

MatchaTok is green with envy these days.
The online community for matcha lovers, which helped propel the bright green powdered tea's worldwide popularity, is usually a place where enthusiasts share their golden matcha-to-milk ratio for concocting lattes at home, review different brands and detail their drink-making process, which involves special tools like a mixing bowl, sifter and bamboo whisk.
But what's brewing on MatchaTok lately is trouble.
'It's kind of gotten bad in places," said Kimi Jayasiri, a 27-year-old content creator.
Matcha's meteoric rise in popularity, along with a proliferation of resellers who buy large quantities of the tea from the small number of Japanese vendors who produce it each year, has triggered a global shortage and a steep jump in prices. The market turmoil has spurred a fierce debate among the matcha faithful about who exactly is responsible for the dwindling supply—and who deserves to drink it.
They have taken to policing how many grams of matcha is acceptable to use in a latte. People who keep multiple tins in their collections are criticized by matchaholics who point out matcha's limited shelf life. Those who don't take care to use every last bit of powder, such as by gently opening the tin over a bowl so that wayward powder doesn't fly into the air, are scorned for wasting money.
Jayasiri, who posts videos of herself making matcha, rating brands and cafes and offering updates on the shortage from vendors, says people often accuse her of hoarding tea or even causing the shortage. After she posted a TikTok showing a suitcase overflowing with matcha and matcha-infused foods she bought in Japan during her honeymoon, the comments were scathing. 'This is the greed they talk about in the Bible," one read.
She knew they would be. 'I know I'm gonna get hate for this haul," she wrote in the video caption. 'I make matcha for so many people every week, and I'm not the only one consuming matcha in my household."
Ermis Vassilopoulos, a matcha purist, is so disgruntled by the tea's climbing prices that he switched to more abundant Japanese teas like hojicha, a roasted green tea. The 35-year-old, who owns a small business in Greece, has also taken to spilling his frustrations on Reddit.
When one user posted a photo touting their large matcha stash, he commented: 'Bro is responsible for the shortage."
'I really am against gatekeeping in general, but I think that there's some merit in not allowing these people to just ruin the whole culture of it," said Vassilopoulos.
Prices for popular Japanese vendor Marukyu Koyamaen's matcha are expected to jump 80%, according to Sazen Tea, a Kyoto-based tea seller.
The other Reddit user, a self-proclaimed 'matcha addict" since 2014, responded that most of the tins were a gift from family who visited Japan.
Accumulating that many tins in Japan has become a competitive sport. In Uji, the matcha capital of the world, some locals are now vying with tourists for the tea.
When travel agent Michi Sato visited Uji earlier this year, she saw people flitting from store to store carrying bulging bags filled with tea. Her family in Japan, meanwhile, have had trouble procuring matcha for their tea ceremonies.
Many shops had set limits of two tins per customer, she said. Her family told her that has since been changed to one—while supplies last.
'It's a little bit insane that you'd see these tourists just come and buy so much that they'll carry big bags of 50 or more tins of matcha," said Sato, 28. Many are store-hopping to circumvent the tin limits.
Marukyu Koyamaen, which has been producing matcha in the Uji region since 1704, said in November that it will no longer sell matcha powder at its shop in the JR Kyoto Isetan department store because of 'a congestion at the opening hours with customers hurrying into the store."
Eljieleen Turingan, a dietitian in Manila, Philippines, managed to snag a 100 gram bag of Marukyu Koyamaen's coveted Wako matcha earlier this year to split with two friends.
They paid 3,000 Philippine pesos, or more than $50 U.S. dollars, for the bag. Now, she says the same product costs about 6,000 pesos. Last year, it sold for a third of that price.
'I'm very happy that matcha is getting the recognition that it deserves," said Turingan, 23. 'At the same time, it's too expensive for a daily drink."
She finds it stressful to think about buying more so has started rationing her supply, using the Wako on weekends and opting to use local brands on weekdays. She also now scoops only three or four grams of the powder into her lattes instead of the generous five grams she once used.
Still, some matcha buffs are happy the tea is going mainstream.
Laura Pippig, a 28-year-old tech journalist in Munich, says matcha is so popular that even Germany—a coffee-loving country that she views as being typically resistant to trends and foreign foods—serves the tea at many of its cafes and restaurants.
While she doesn't support those who hoard matcha, when it comes to fighting over the tea, Pippig believes it's just a tempest in a teapot for most matcha lovers.
'Japanese people have been drinking it for centuries. They are the only ones, basically, who are allowed to be mad," she said.