Hello everyone! In February 2023, we finally launched the long-awaited Matcha Direct business. Matcha Direct is a service that delivers ultra-fresh matcha directly to customers via air shipping, grinding the tea only after we receive your order.
While our e-commerce site does provide information about us and our products, it's difficult to fully convey everything, so please allow me to introduce our business again in this blog post!
Welcoming Individual Customers
Our e-commerce site is primarily designed for professionals in the cafe and restaurant industry, but individual customers are also welcome to make purchases without any issues. Our product pricing is tailored for businesses, so you'll find our items to be quite a bargain compared to retail products of the same grade. To make it easier for individual customers, we offer a 90g (30gx3) option in our product lineup.
To be frank, when making cross-border purchases as an individual, there are many products with dubious compliance to pesticide residue regulations, excluding organic products. Our site is based on a business catering to food and beverage establishments, so we only use tea leaves that fully with both U.S. and EU regulations. Please feel confident in your purchase.
Our Company's Position in Japan
Our company was founded over 160 years ago in Uji, Kyoto, one of the most famous tea-producing regions in Japan. In Japan, our business activities include:
- Wholesale to tea retailers
- Wholesale to domestic beverage and confectionery manufacturers
- Retail and operation of tea shops
We are a tea company that operates tea shops as well. In the given diagram, the primary focus of the business is not on tea shops, which are considered the final stage of distribution, but on a tea company that has multiple tea production facilities.
We manufacture over 100 tons of matcha per year, in addition to handling various other teas, such as sencha and gyokuro. We are probably one of the most famous matcha brands in Japan.
Tea Leaf Quality and Unique Sales Approach
Within the MatchaDirect business, first and foremost, we exclusively handle first-harvest tea for all our products. The first-harvest tea, which is picked during the initial harvest season in Kyoto from April to May, is characterized by its abundant umami, rich sweetness, and vivid green color due to its high theanine and chlorophyll content. We maintain a system that delivers freshly ground matcha directly to our customers by grinding such high-quality tea leaves only after receiving an order.
As I mentioned earlier, we launched this business at the beginning of this year. Although we have fulfilled export requests from customers, we have not actively pursued export business ourselves. Actually, the sales approach of delivering freshly ground matcha via air shipment is precisely the flip side of the reason why we have not been exporting matcha for a long time.
Matcha has a very large surface area due to its fine grinding (the average size is about 1/100 of 1mm!) and degrades quickly. We have long resisted providing lower-quality matcha to overseas customers after it has aged, but with the recent development of affordable courier services and an improved cross-border e-commerce environment, we have finally established a system that allows us to export matcha in a way that meets our standards. As a tea company with our own manufacturing facilities, we can create such a scheme, unlike retail stores.
Delivery Time
Currently, we can deliver to customers within about a week of receiving an order. While not being able to provide immediate delivery may be a slight drawback, in return, we offer ultra-fresh matcha ground after your order. The matcha that arrives at your doorstep was delicately ground in Kyoto just 2-3 days ago!
*We do not manufacture on weekends, so please note that depending on the timing of your order, it may take longer to ship.
If you're interested in our unique system that allows us to deliver high-quality matcha in top condition, we would be delighted if you gave it a try. We are planning to expand our lineup using this year's first-harvest tea in June to July, so stay tuned!
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