As matcha demand soars, Americans speak about helping cultivate the centuries old tea production in Japan
A crisis is brewing for some matcha farms in Japan amid rising popularity of the specialty powder made of the green tea leaves.
ABC News' Juju Chang, co-anchor of "Nightline," traveled 7,000 miles to the mountainous farmland of Wazuka, the epicenter of a growing crisis fueled by immense demand.
Watch the full story on "Nightline" at 12:35 a.m. on Wednesday, June 3, on ABC and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
There are two types of matcha -- mass produced industrial matcha and hand-picked, centuries old higher grade matcha, which is currently under siege.
The vibrant tea drink has become so trendy in the U.S. that sales jumped 86% from 2022 to 2025, according to Nielsen IQ data.
These days, old school organic farmers are struggling to keep up with the influx of consumers.
"It's really better than no demand, for sure," Daiki Tanaka, founder of d:matcha told ABC News. At the same time, he added, "we’re located in the valley so we really can’t be scalable. Really big production site, flat, can introduce gigantic machine, can reduce the cost so much."
Tanaka founded the farm 10 years ago and welcomes interns from around the world, like American Jace Camarillo, to bring awareness and educate about matcha production.
Camarillo explained to ABC News that the matcha crisis, in short, means "low supply, high demand," and said "there's a lot of different factors, like people are wanting Japanese-specific matcha."
"Japan is quite small. It's about the same size as California," Camarillo, who moved from Richmond, Virginia said.
Camarillo helped prepare for the high-grade matcha harvest for weeks, temporarily trading life in the U.S. for "a very strong sense of peace" while working for free in the fields.
"I don't think people really understand the amount of labor and processing that matcha actually goes through to get to that stage," he said.
American and MIT graduate Emma Chabane first joined d:matcha as an intern and fell in love with the lifestyle so much that she now leads the company's digital marketing.
"Everybody was like, 'That is crazy, but that sounds awesome,'" she said of friends and family reactions to her decision to first take the free internship. "There's a lot of things that go into making good matcha, and so it's quite complicated to be able to meet the demand."
As part of the Gen Z generation driving the buzz around the caffeinated craze, Chabane hopes that others learn to appreciate the 800-year-old tradition by slowing down and savoring the moment as you sip the perfect cup.
"In the U.S., oftentimes I was, you know, in school, rushed, always looking at the next thing," she recalled. "But nowadays, especially when it comes to matcha, I've found that I really like to slow it down -- just taking in the moments and appreciating things, little things, just throughout my day."
