Trend drink: The Matcha boom: pioneer relies on German tea cultivation

There is currently hardly a drink such a global hype as around Matcha. The bright green Japanese tea is driven by social media in which influencers spread tips for preparing, reviews and recipes for the cult tea. Last year, according to the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, more than half of the approximately 9,000 tons of green teas, which were exported from Japan, spent Matcha – twice as much as ten years ago. But will the star drink soon become scarce?

Although the consumption of green tea and Matcha in Japan has declined in the past decades, the rest of the world drinks more matcha than ever before. In addition, Japan’s tourist boom boasts the hype. Not least thanks to the weak yen, Japan is also a popular travel destination among Germans. The demand for Matcha has risen so much that Japan’s tea industry has recently no longer come after. Some shops often see their shelves bought by tourists shortly after opening the shop. As a result, retailers have introduced restrictions on how many customers can buy.

Experts speak of a crisis. The reasons for this are diverse. Heat waves led to weak yields. Added to this is the rapid aging of Japanese society. According to the government, the number of farmers fell from more than 53,000 in 2000 to around 12,300 within 20 years. Many tea builders in Japan are getting on in years. Often nobody from the younger generation is ready to take over the company, which means that some tea plantations have been abandoned.

The production of the powder is an elaborate process: the leaves, called Tencha, are shaded several weeks before the harvest to concentrate taste and nutrients. Then they are carefully distilled by hand, dried and finely ground in a mill. “It takes years of training to properly produce Matcha,” emphasizes Masahiro Okutomi in the “Japan Times”, whose family business in the Saitama prefecture was already producing tea in the 15th generation. “It is long -term undertaking that requires equipment, workforce and investments.”

German tea building wants to produce Matcha

Antje Kühnle, who has created a tea arm in Germany, wants to benefit from the boom. In Zossen (Teltow-Fläming) in Brandenburg, the 37-year-old has been growing the Teep plant Camellia Sinensis for a good two years. The aim is to plant 6.5 hectares, currently it is almost half.

Kühnle sees herself as a pioneer. “So there was no tea arm in size in Germany – a company that cultivates tea professionally, also on a commercial level and in connection with this agricultural construct of permaculture.” In North Rhine-Westphalia in the Bergisches Land, tea plants have been grown in the “Tschanara Teegard” since 1999.

Kühnles Mission: that Germany will be a tea building nation. “I use seeds that are particularly suitable for green tea and Matcha,” says Kühnle, which originally comes from viticulture. “Most genomes growing in Europe are actually genome that are ideally suited for black tea production,” said the tea farmer. “The fact that we have now chosen these genomes here that are suitable for the green tea is also an additional pioneer factor.”

Matcha is a “supreme discipline”

Kühnles’s goal is to produce high -quality Matcha – that is the “royal discipline” in tea building. There is a lot to consider when cultivation alone: ​​”Tea needs a lot of water. The climate here is relatively dry and the humidity is too low, so I have to create the right climate here,” says Kühnle. For irrigation, it collects rainwater and protects the soil with mulch from evaporation. A greenhouse with underfloor heating, operated by a photovoltaic system, ensures the right environment during the cultivation.

The tea building later puts the plants outside. “I have already been able to transplant 40,000 of my 200,000 breeds.” This works particularly well for a reason in Brandenburg: the plants need a low pH, and the soil in the region is naturally angry due to the many conifers. In order for the plants to survive winter frosts, it uses seeds from the Himalaya and northern China. Kühnle is expected to be the first marketable harvest in spring 2026.

Germany important buyers for Japanese tea

In Germany, the demand for Matcha has increased significantly. “In fact, we notice that Matcha tea is currently experiencing a big trend in Germany,” says Philipp Hennerkes, the managing director of the Federal Association of German Food Trade (BVLH). This not only affects classic consumption as a tea, but also shows itself in a wide variety of product categories-from Matcha chocolate bars to drinks such as Matcha latte.

Between January and August 2024, more than 240 tons of the powdered green tea were delivered to Germany between January and August 2024 – an increase of 240 percent compared to the same period last year. According to the German Tea & herbal tea association, newer numbers are not available. The trend towards healthy nutrition and natural products should continue to drive demand. Rising prices are not excluded. An export stop is currently not recognizable, Germany remains the most important export market for Japanese tea after the United States.

The latter is likely to be at least good news for companies like Keiko. The company imports Tencha from Japan and is mashing it into Diepholz in Lower Saxony in Matcha. “Since we started selling Matcha and Grüneepulver over 30 years ago, the sale has increased continuously and got additional momentum around 2014 through the vegan movement,” said a spokeswoman for the company.

Demand has risen rapidly in the past two years. “There have always been fluctuations in the harvesting conditions, but so far it has always been compensated for,” said the spokeswoman. “Now we are facing the situation for the first time that the increased increased demand exceeds the available harvest.” Due to the resulting scarcity, the purchase prices have also increased extremely, including the prices for customers.