|
PRESS
|
Fine Matcha, Crafted in Uji
Material Matcha Uji (MMU) produces insanely good Matcha Green Tea.
Founded by 2 French foodies/expats in Japan, collaborating with traditional tea-masters and using ancient, nearly forgotten blending techniques along with the highest quality leaves from Uji, MMU creates the most exclusive blends of matcha ever offered to the world.
We started MMU because we wanted to reconnect with our true selves: we completely let go of our previous lives and embarked on a journey to find, salvage and re-create the rarest tea making techniques! And we have a thing for Japanese minimalist design.
PRESS RELEASE
|
Material Matcha Uji Brings Rare Craft Matcha Green Tea To Kickstarter
Innovative tea-maker from Japan launches full-scale production of their uniquely designed craft matcha blends.
FOR RELEASE ON September 27th, 2017
Kyoto September 27th, 2017 :
Material Matcha Uji, one of the most disruptive tea companies of recent years, begins worldwide distribution of their unique craft Matcha green teas after a year of patient development and hard work. The brainchild of two French expats in Japan, MMU launches a Kickstarter campaign in order to move to full-scale production.
Today Material Matcha Uji (MMU) launches on crowd-funding site Kickstarter: their blends of superior Craft Matcha green teas are unheard of outside of Japan; rare, hand-picked and maniacally produced; artistically designed, and simply, incredibly disruptive.
Material Matcha Uji is the brainchild of two Frenchmen & longtime expats in Japan, foodies at heart, who after years in finance & IT gave up their big corporate jobs to go on a quest for purity: to find and create the greatest matcha green teas ever.
Etienne Denoual, co-founder at MMU, explains: “It all started from a deep wish to reconnect with nature and authenticity. When I went back to Kyoto, a city I had lived in for years before, it was a revelation. We just had to do it.”
Their matcha blends, the result of more than a year of hard work in the fields and in their workshop, are uncompromising, bold, sophisticated, and probably unlike anything you have ever tasted before. Straying from the very classical image of Japanese tea ceremony, their craft matcha belongs to the realm of guilty pleasures, not unlike artisanal chocolate or micro-distillery whiskey.
“When we decided to create Material Matcha, our tea-making friends in Uji, the cradle of tea culture in Japan, said we were crazy. That it was impossible!” explains Morgan Josset, co-founder. Indeed they faced serious issues: while so-called matcha is booming worldwide (it is often low quality green tea dust), its production has seen a steep decline in Japan. Farmers are facing increasing expenses, weak demand for superior quality matcha, and lower sales value. Even more worrying, the aging tea-making community faces successor problems, endangering its very existence.
The two founders, who willingly admit that two years ago they knew next to nothing about tea-making, and were both rather coffee persons, took a fresh look to the issues and devised an innovative development model: if superior matcha doesn’t work in the domestic market anymore, they would take it abroad for the first time, where foodies are thrilled by Japanese delicacies.
Backed by a devoted community, endorsed by fellow minded Asian branding studio Rice Creative, and now ready for production, they are asking backers to help them buy a whole year of harvest of several plots of land that are especially promising. Providing tea farmers financial stability and peace of mind, they push them to always favor quality over quantity, and hope that younger generations will one day take up the torch!
###
Quick Facts
– Material Matcha Uji launches with 3 rare, craft matcha blends.
– The history of Matcha in Japan dates back to the 12th Century, when Zen monk Eisai brought back tea seeds he had gathered on a study trip to China.
– While in Japan the consumption of matcha is gradually declining, the tea’s popularity is rapidly growing in the West.
– The average age of active farmers in Japan is now more than 66 years old. 515,000 farmers are 75 years or older and only 83,000 are 39 years old or younger.
– Growing tea leaves in the shade boosts their amino acids: because the entire leaf is consumed, matcha also contains about 137 times as many antioxidants as regularly brewed green tea.
– Matcha contains higher levels of antioxidants per gram than goji berries, dark chocolate, pecans, acai berries and even spinach.
Quotes
– “The biggest problems Uji tea-farmers are facing right now is income instability, and finding a successor: our challenge is to provide them stable revenue so they can concentrate on quality. If you can see what the future is made of, young people will take it up.” Morgan Josset
– “Designing three sophisticated yet very distinct and unique blends of matcha was one of the toughest challenge we faced. We chose to keep things simple: aim for maximum purity, use the very best material.” Etienne Denoual
–“Crowdfunding was the obvious way, because it gives us the opportunity to connect with consumers who actually want the product to succeed, and to involve people in a community.” Etienne Denoual
If you are a writer and are looking to do a piece that features Material Matcha Uji 宇治, we’d love to speak with you about our Matcha. Just email us at contact@materialmatcha.com with the subject ‘Press Inquiry’ and we will get back to you ASAP.
