Since 2022 content creators Jasmine and Freya Smith in Tokyo have been posting on TikTok about Japanese food and travel, including all things matcha. Dozens of the sisters’ videos feature them at cafes and restaurants stirring matcha lattes, drizzling matcha-flavored syrups and showing off pastries and pancakes tinted the telltale shade of leafy green. But one of their most recent videos came with a warning: “Unfortunately,” Jasmine told their 47,000 followers in January, “there is a matcha shortage in Tokyo right now.”
She was correct. Since last year, a number of prominent Japanese tea makers have limited sales of the green tea powder, leaving shelves bare across Japan and squeezing supplies for beverage makers in other countries. Largely to blame is the world’s growing taste for matcha: In 2024, Japan’s export value of green tea, which includes matcha, reached an all-time high of ¥36.4 billion ($244 million), a roughly 25% increase from the previous year, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan. The surge in demand is a result of social media’s influence as well as a travel boom to Japan driven by a weak yen. Last year, 37 million people visited the country, up 47% from 2023, tourism figures show.
Visitors are flooding social media with their favorite Japanese treats. After appearing in hundreds of matcha-themed TikTok posts, Marukyu Koyamaen Co., a popular tea seller in Kyoto that dates back three centuries, faced a run on its matcha powders, forcing it to impose purchase limits in October. “Influencers on TikTok would use our matcha products in their matcha lattes, so our brand spread naturally, and we were able to reach many people on social media,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Ippodo Tea, another long-established matcha producer, also recently said it would temporarily suspend the sale of certain items. In October it hiked prices of various matcha products because of increased input costs.
Matcha’s delicate supply chain is partly culpable for the shortage. The powder is made from ground-up shade-grown tea leaves that are usually harvested once a year. Exacerbating production woes is Japan’s graying population: The amount of matcha produced in 2023 was only 78% of 2008’s volume, a decline the agriculture ministry attributes to the aging of producers and a lack of successors willing to take over.
Not all matcha cafes and businesses in Japan are out of stock, thanks to long-term relationships and contracts with suppliers. Marukyu Koyamaen says it made the decision to restrict sales to ensure supply for its long-standing customers at temples, shrines and other venues that use matcha for religious or ceremonial purposes. For newer matcha ventures, though, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find tea producers with enough to sell.
“There’s basically a battle unfolding across the country of people trying to secure matcha leaves,” says Chitose Nagao, owner of a cafe called Atelier Matcha, in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district. She’s had to limit sales. Even big wholesalers have to turn down people who want to buy their matcha because “there’s no amount to be sold to new customers,” Nagao says.
Aya Ito, vice president at Sakura Experience Japanese Culture in Kyoto, which runs tea ceremony classes, says her company hasn’t been affected by the shortage yet. It buys matcha through a direct contract with tea fields in Uji, a city in Kyoto prefecture known for the vibrant color of its matcha. Still, Ito says she worries that prices may increase if the situation continues. “It’s becoming difficult for not just foreigners to buy matcha, but also Japanese people who come to Kyoto,” she says.
The craze has spread far beyond Japan. Yukino Matsumoto, owner of Simply Native, a tea shop in Sydney, says matcha sales increased almost five times last year from 2023, forcing her to announce limits on the number of products customers can buy. “Matcha lattes have become a regular menu item at mainstream cafes, not just Japanese-style cafes, over the past year, showing clear signs of a matcha boom,” she said in an email.
Some online influencers are jumping on the trend by creating their own matcha products. YouTuber Emma Chamberlain, with more than 12 million subscribers, sells various flavors of matcha from Shizuoka, a major Japanese matcha-growing prefecture, through her company Chamberlain Coffee Inc. Ashley Alexander, known as “ur mom ashley” on YouTube, where she has 1.8 million subscribers, started a matcha business in 2024. On TikTok, creators show off entire matcha stations complete with whisks, strainers and handle-free mugs for proper preparation. Matcha lovers often talk about the product’s bright color, an indication of high chlorophyll from leaves that were properly shaded during growth.
Nagao of Atelier Matcha says so many foreigners have been coming to her cafe in search of matcha lattes that she recently added oat milk as a nondairy option, a relative rarity in Japan. That’s just one more indication of a lasting craze, she says. “I don’t think the demand for matcha has hit its peak yet.”
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Mia Glass, Bloomberg News
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
