The Magnifying of Matcha
It’s difficult to scroll through social media platforms such as Instagram or Tik Tok without encountering the rich, earthy, deep green colored beverage, matcha. While matcha is highly recognized as a trendy and aesthetic product of mainstream popular culture, many are unfamiliar with its origins and rich significance in Japanese society. How did this commodity find its way into Western mainstream pop culture? Ideas of John Storey, Gladwell and Powers, and Adorno and Horkheimer can be applied to explain how matcha became incorporated into mainstream markets and representative of the culture industry.
Matcha has a long history, with its origins dating back to the Tang Dynasty (7th-10th centuries) in China (“The History”). Its popularity rose roughly a century later (during the Song Dynasty) when Eisai, a Japanese Buddhist Monk studied in China and brought the ground green tea leaves back with him to Japan (“The History”). At its introduction to Japanese society, matcha’s limited supply established it as a luxurious status symbol, however, shortly after, Zen Buddhists created a method for cultivating the green tea plant, making it more accessible and widely-available (“The History”). Matcha became known for its health benefits and its role in the Japanese Tea Ceremony, a special ritual grounded in the principles of harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility that was crafted in the 1500s (“The History”).
While matcha was a niche product distinct to Japanese culture, symbolic of wellness and harmony, it made its way to the Western world, similar to products such as chai and curry. Matcha was widely introduced to mass audiences and circulated heavily on the internet and social media platforms, becoming a popular culture staple. According to researcher John Storey and his definitions of popular culture, two definitions explain how matcha can be classified as popular culture (2009). First, matcha is “widely favored” by people (Storey, 2009, p. 6). The matcha market has a 2027 value projection of $5.5 billion (“Matcha Market”). And with 7 billion Instagram posts marked with #matcha, in addition to the phrase “matcha aesthetic” circulating thousands of times on Pinterest, its popularity is clear through its online presence (“Instagram”; “Pinterest”). Secondly, matcha is mass culture, or “hopelessly commercial culture” (Storey, 2009, p. 8). The leaves of matcha have served as the basis for lattes, lemonade, ice cream, cake, and even cream cheese. Stores like Cha Cha Matcha and Tea Master Matcha Cafe & Green Tea Shop with extensive product lines have catapulted to success.
But how did matcha come to be such a prevalent part of popular culture? We can apply Gladwell’s concept of cool hunting found in Powers’ On Trend: The Business of Forecasting the Future (2019). Looking to the margins, cool hunters researched what would become cool and trendy and brought a cultural artifact of niche groups to the mainstream through incorporation (Powers, 2019). Powers introduced the subcultural market doctrine, the idea that subcultural groups are “trendsetters and thus market leaders” (Powers, 2019, p. 65). In the case of matcha, the Western world looked to cultural practices and objects of niche groups to seek out the next up-and-coming piece of popular culture. As matcha became a trend in America, it lost its original significance. No longer is matcha highly valued for its health benefits and its associations with harmony and respect as it was in Japan. The media’s reproduction of matcha in the culture industry, defined by Adorno & Horkheimer, has stripped the product of its history and importance and propagated it as a ‘trendy aesthetic’ for consumers.
Adorno & Horkheimer stress that popular culture churns out standardized cultural goods for mass consumption (1944). Evaluating matcha, the internet has been responsible for the virality and mass-production of the product in the culture industry. As matcha has become swept up into the culture industry, it has lost its Japanese authenticity to capitalism. For example, to mass-produce matcha in various forms efficiently, businesses often rely on powder as opposed to the traditional boiling of tea leaves (Rossi, 2019). Furthermore, due to American’s aversion to bitter tastes, Western world matcha typically relies on sugar-laced matcha powders (Rossi, 2019).
It is also important to note the social value that matcha has taken on since matcha’s exchange value exceeds its use value. It is no longer a product highlighted for its cultural importance or the health/wellness benefits, rather it is a product whose demand is driven by influencers as they share their personal matcha recipes with their fan base since people mindlessly consume information in the culture industry (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944). This influences people to go out and consume matcha-related products, making them feel part of ‘trendy’ society, and inspiring them to share their purchases, furthering the idea of society’s reliance on the social value of items. Companies, such as Sephora who introduced a matcha candle have strived to capitalize on this viral popularity and the online “matcha aesthetic” while in reality, these products are of minimal use-value to consumers (“Replica”).
Social media’s dissemination of matcha has implications for the popular culture item’s racial and class norms. Mainstream matcha has been “embraced by white influencers” and been “appropriated by white individuals, culture, and media” (Rossi, 2019). With popular white celebrities and influencers such as Addison Rae promoting matcha as being trendy, it fuels the idea of the matcha aesthetic being for white individuals (Rossi, 2019). Additionally, as a trendy product, it commands a higher price, thereby becoming a more elite product and no longer the commodity it once was. This leaves the product aimed towards groups of consumers who have the disposable funds to frequent hip and overpriced matcha bars for ‘Instagram-worthy’ matcha treats.
Looking at matcha’s transformation to mainstream popular culture, it’s hard to know whether it will be around for the long-haul or fall by the wayside like the once-trendy cronut….only time will tell.
Works Cited
Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (1944). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 1-12).
Instagram. (2022). https://www.instagram.com/
Matcha market size and share: Industry report 2021 – 2027. Global Market Insights Inc. (2021). https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/matcha-market
Pinterest. (2022). https://www.pinterest.com/
Powers, D. (2019). On Trend: The business of Forecasting the Future. Chapter 3: Cool Hunting. Champaign, IL: Univeristy of Illinois Press.
Replica' matcha meditation candle - maison margiela. Sephora. (2022) https://www.sephora.com/product/replica-matcha-meditation-candle-P501747?country_switch=us&lang=en&skuId=2605012&srsltid=AYJSbAefUBnK4MsA6YHe8SLexumwKnoCc8Mhyai6el4of5Uo_hNtQTMflOI
Rossi, R. (2021). Your matcha isn't actually matcha: The Gentrification & Cultural Appropriation of Japanese matcha. https://www.unpublishedzine.com/activism/your-matcha-isnt-actually-matcha-the-gentrification-amp-cultural-appropriation-of-japanese-matchanbsp
Storey, J. (2009). What is Popular Culture? In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (3rd ed., pp. 1-16). Pearson Prentice Hall.
The history of matcha. Matchaful. https://www.matchaful.com/pages/the-history-of-matcha
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