How London turned green: the relentless rise of matcha

Have you noticed that instead of oat flat whites, everyone is clutching lurid, acid green drinks these days? They look like something out of Shrek, or a nameless beverage packed with e-numbers that you’d buy from the corner shop after school and down before your parents caught you. Popularly served over ice, the drink du jour sometimes comes in whacky flavours, like peanut butter jelly or lavender – and while it might sound childish, its vegetal, bitter flavour means that grown-ups, not kids, are slurping on these viridescent brews. Welcome to the era of matcha. 

Up until a few of years ago, the leafy hued drink made from ground green tea leaves was generally seen as a strange-tasting refreshment favoured by health fanatics, aesthetics-obsessed influencers and foodies with superior taste buds. It’s been consumed across China and Japan for hundreds of years, but it’s taken a while for us Brits to catch on. Fast forward to 2023, when matcha drinks saw a 202 percent increase in sales in the UK, according to a report from Orion Market Research. And this summer? Matcha has London in a green-tinged chokehold. 

Matcha drinks saw a 202 percent increase in sales in the UK

The first time I tried a matcha latte, I thought it was disgusting. It tasted acerbic and earthy; the steamed milk was an off-putting snot colour which reminded me of the BFG’s frobscottle. But then I tried a properly nice matcha and realised how wrong I was. Served iced with oat milk and a dash of honey (or agave, if you’re feeling fancy), a matcha latte is the perfect caffeinated pick-me-up: not cloying, with a distinctive grassy flavour, it’s like a sophisticated milkshake for adults. Now, I too have become addicted to a little iced matcha with oat milk. How did we all get obsessed with sipping on bright green drinks? 

Originating in China, matcha’s beginnings can be traced all the way back to the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century. It’s thought the plant was brought to Japan by a Zen Buddhist monk in the 1100s, where it was used during tea ceremonies. That’s why the highest quality matcha is called ‘ceremonial grade’, which must be shade grown, giving it its concentrated bright green colour.

Green tea arrived on UK shores in the seventeenth century, but it would still be hundreds of years before matcha became popular. ‘Matcha has only really been consumed at a mainstream level here in the UK for the last nine plus years,’ says food trends consultant Alex Hayes. ‘It’s [popularity in the UK] can be traced back, like with a lot of health trends, to LA and the circa-2015 Gwyneth Paltrow ‘‘Goop’’ effect,’ an era of Hollywood-fronted pseudoscience and wellness culture promoting everything from raw goat milk cleanses to vagina eggs. 

The supposed health benefits are what got people interested in the green stuff in the first place. It’s not just some newfangled wellness trend, though. Matcha is packed full of polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that are currently being studied for their ability to inhibit the propagation of cancer cells, and are also found in dark chocolate, red wine and extra virgin olive oil. The stuff is energising, too. Unlike coffee, the caffeine in green tea powder is released slowly, so the drink offers an appealing alternative to an espresso: alertness, without the anxious jitters. 

Influencers like US coffee mogul Emma Chamberlain have been hot on promoting matcha’s mellow but long-lasting energising effects. Soon, the drink trickled down from the health-obsessed Angelenos to British creators, who’d brighten up their grid with posed pics sipping on the iced-up green brews. It wasn’t long before the general public caught on and matcha cafés like Jenki opened up in the UK to ‘take matcha to the next level’, according to Hayes. 

When Jenki opened its first matcha bar in the capital in 2021, ‘the awareness of matcha was just not there’, says Jenki marketing manager Tania Richardson. Now, you can get matcha in most coffee chains, including Pret and Starbucks, the latter of which uses a sweetened ground green tea blend (in other words: a far cry from the ceremonial stuff). Brooklyn-founded Blank Street Coffee, now with more than 30 branches in London, has various matcha offerings, including a mango passionfruit matcha special and a hugely popular iced blueberry matcha latte. It’s even launched a limited edition matcha nail varnish in collaboration with Shoreditch Nails.

These days, we also have the TikTok-addicted youth to thank for our matcha obsession: Orion’s report highlights that the drink is ‘highly adopted by the young population across the globe.’ But Gen Z are interested in matcha for reasons beyond health or a smooth caffeine pick-me-up. A huge draw of the drink is (you guessed it) aesthetics. ‘Vibrant green matcha attracted a lot of attention via colour alone,’ says Hayes. And alongside bright green’s suggestion of health and nature, it’s also very trendy. 

Matcha, Lime bikes, spicy margaritas: it’s not just the grassy drink that is responsible for making bright green a viral hit this summer. According to colour analyst Sandy Lancaster, green is associated with energy, optimism, nature and growth, while its boldness inspires excitement and confidence. The colour has trickled down from popular culture, too: it’s no coincidence that bright green matcha has become its own aesthetic at the same time as brat, the Charli XCX album responsible for ‘brat summer’. The data speaks for itself: figures from Google search trends reveal that the brat green hex code (the unique code for a colour on a computer) was the fifth most searched colour code in the UK over the past month, while lime green was the eighth most searched.

We can’t talk about the popularity of bright green matcha without referencing ‘brat’

Naturally, social-savvy cafés are jumping on the brat bandwagon. Type ‘brat’ and ‘matcha’ into Instagram and a flood of results will appear showing cafés that are selling matcha lattes with ‘brat’ stamped across them. While the Buddhist monks of the twelfth century would probably be horrified to hear about the ‘bratcha’ that’s being flogged at coffee shops like London’s Axe Coffee Co, they might be able to get on board with what it represents, which, according to Lancaster, is ‘a symbol of youthful defiance and creativity.’ 

Richardson says matcha’s popularity is rising ‘every day’ – but could it lead to shortages of the green powder? ‘There is an increasing demand worldwide for matcha,’ says Richardson. ‘Japan is the biggest producer of the ingredient and the process of growing quality matcha requires a lot of labour and know-how.’ It’s thought that the best ceremonial matcha is single origin from Uji, a city near Kyoto. ‘We’re seeing a lot of poor-quality stuff which is often “ground green tea” and not actually considered matcha, which needs to be shade grown,’ she says.

Richardson explains that there have been recent technological advances in the growing of the leaves to help cope with the rising demand, but it often comes at the expense of quality. Starbucks has already faced shortages, and, according to Hayes, some companies have turned to cheaper, low quality, or even ‘fake’ alternatives. ‘While pure matcha is brilliant green and sweet-swelling, cheaper matcha products are often a sweetened blend and duller in colour,’ she says.

And while brat summer will inevitably come to an end – there are already calls saying it’s over after Democratic nominee Kamala Harris referenced it in her presidential campaign – matcha doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Jenki has opened its third bar in Covent Garden and new matcha cafés have also arrived in Chiswick, Euston and Marylebone in the past six months. Who knows? We wouldn’t be surprised to see your dad sipping on the stuff before too long.