Introduction to Matcha
What’s the drink of the summer? It’s matcha — in Dallas-Fort Worth at least.
Owner and drink curator Alyx Nguyen sifts matcha at Hyphen Space in Dallas on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
The vibrant green powder made from shade-grown tea leaves reached a five-year peak in interest for local Google searchers. North Texans took to the search engine to learn more about the beverage with origins in Japan and to find places that sell unique takes on it, like banana and strawberry matcha lattes and matcha ice cream.
Residents of D-FW aren’t alone in their passion for the bitter, umami-infused sip. Japan’s green tea exports, including matcha, increased by 16% in 2024, according to Reuters. The production of tencha — the leaf that is ground down to create matcha — has grown 2.7-fold compared to 10 years ago, Reuters reported.
“The most recent, crazy boom — all fingers point toward TikTokers in the summer of last year and social media in general,” according to Noli Ergas, who works for Sugimoto Tea Co., which supplies teas to Texas.
But amid matcha’s heyday, a shortage of the green tea has crept into the global supply chain. Japanese farmers and suppliers are feeling the strain as they work to keep up with demand, buffeted by things outside of their control such as a laborious production process, unwieldy heat and a tariff bump.
Eat Drink D-FW
The shortage has trickled down to mom-and-pop shops in Dallas-Fort Worth that are unable to provide the popular beverage to thirsty customers on a consistent basis.
Shortage Brewing in D-FW
On Aug. 2, JuJu’s Coffee, located in East Dallas, took to social media to share it ran out of matcha. The coffee shop said it expected a shipment to arrive no later than Aug. 11.
A nine-day delay.
While this particular shipment arrived earlier than expected on Aug. 6, this wasn’t the first time it’s happened.
Nick Rocha, co-owner and head roaster of JuJu’s Coffee, said the coffee shop originally ordered about a kilogram of matcha each week, which makes approximately 142 cups of matcha, when it added the green tea to the menu.
The shop started to ramp up its matcha order this summer due to customer interest.
“This summer, around mid-July, we started to ramp up to where we were using like two or three kilograms a week,” Rocha said.
Now, JuJu’s makes close to 300 cups of matcha per week, offering combinations that include “coco-fluff,” a whipped Yugen matcha resting on a pool of coconut water only available for the summer.
Customer requests for matcha first spawned the decision to add the beverage to the menu at JuJu’s, which began in an Airstream trailer before shifting to a brick-and-mortar location near Skillman and Live Oak streets.
“If this is going to be a part of coffee’s future and part of the beverage market,” said Rocha, “we should hop on it.”
What’s the Hold-up?
Sugimoto Tea Co. supplies its products to Texas and has seen the matcha supply woes play out firsthand, Ergas, who is an senior account manager for the company, told The Dallas Morning News.
For perspective, the boom of matcha in Texas has resulted in greater company sales in the Lone Star State than for the entire Midwest, according to Ergas. But keeping up with that demand has been a problem.
Ergas believes the milling process of the tencha leaves, which makes matcha so distinctive in color and flavor, is the bottleneck. Matcha’s preparation isn’t as straightforward as that of many teas. To be considered matcha, tencha leaves must be processed and ground into powder.
Additional problems have cropped up in growing tencha leaves. Farmers in Japan hoped for a bountiful harvest this past spring, Ergas said, but heat waves hampered growth. For instance, a popular matcha-producing region in Japan, Yame, saw a 30% reduction in its growth, according to Ergas.
“This matcha shortage is probably going to continue until next summer,” he said, “but maybe even beyond that.”
Demand for matcha has already resulted in price increases in recent years, which will now be exacerbated by a lousy harvest. Sugimoto anticipates increases anywhere from 20% to 50% on some of its products due to the lackluster spring harvest. And that’s not to mention 15% tariffs on Japanese imports, effective as of Aug. 1.
