October 16, 2025 • 11 mins
Sometimes we tackle the big economic stories shaking up the nation. But today, we're looking at something that's hitting closer to home: your morning matcha order.
If you've noticed your matcha latte costing significantly more than it used to, brace yourself - global retailers say Japanese matcha prices have jumped between 30% and 75% in 2025 alone. On today’s podcast, we're going to explain why this is happening and whether the great matcha price hike will continue.
Hosts: Sam Koslowski and Billi FitzSimons
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
the seventeenth of October. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm belief. It's Simon's.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Sometimes on this podcast we tackle the big economic stories
that shake the nation, but today we're going to look
at something that's hitting closer to home, and that's your
morning MUCHA order. If you've noticed your much A latte
costing significantly more than it used to, brace yourself. Global
retailers say Japanese Mucha prices have jumped between thirty and
(00:41):
seventy five percent in twenty twenty five alone, and it's
not slowing down. On today's podcast, we're going to explain
why this is happening and whether the great Mucha price
hike is going to continue.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Sam. Before we get into it, I first want to know,
are you a big much A drinker.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I have had a couple of SIPs ever, and that's it.
I am too much of a die hard coffee drinker
to even consider switching allegiances.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You are one of the biggest die hard coffee drinkers
I have ever met and for anyone who doesn't know,
that's actually why our logo is a coffee cup exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And I mean I'm going through at least four coffees
a day at the moment, and that's me harving my
coffee intake from its peak. So I'm way too consumed
with the coffee to think about Macha. But I've seen
more and more of it almost every month around me
here in Australia and around the world. I was in
the US a couple of months ago and it's everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, it's absolutely massive, and it feels like something I
think over the past three years, four years, it has
really just exploded. But for anyone who's not super familiar
with it, do you want to tell us what exactly
is marcha?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So Macha is finally powdered green tea from Japan, or
a variation of green tea. Now, the key difference from
reg tea is that you consume the entire leaf in
powder form, so mucha leaves get crushed up put in
powder form, you put that powder into hot water and
drink it. That's different, obviously from putting a tea bag
into hot water, where you're not actually consuming the tea
(02:14):
leaves themselves. You throw the tea bag away, and that's
what gives Mucha its vibrant green color. But also how
it packs so much caffeine, much more than an average
cup of tea. If you take one milligram of Mucha
and one milligram of coffee, there's actually more caffeine in
Mucha than coffee. But because you need more coffee beans
(02:34):
to make a shot of coffee, coffee still takes out
the award for the most caffeine and a cup that
we would buy from a cafe. But yes, it's this
specific version of tea almost that you'll recognize on the
street for its green striking color.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I feel like again, like I said, it's really
exploded in popularity. Maybe it used to be more of
a niche product than it is now. How big is
this industry now?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So let's take it back to twenty twenty three. The
global Mucha market was worth four point three billion US dollars.
That is a serious beverage market. It's projected to hit
seven point four billion US dollars by twenty thirty, so
we are in the middle of the Mucha explosion. Here
Australian cafes were charging in twenty twenty three five or
(03:19):
six dollars for a cup. That's now seven or eight dollars.
US retail sales have surged eighty six percent in just
three years, and for Japan it's really big business now.
So Japan's exports of mucha were worth one point eight
five billion in twenty twenty four. That went up twenty
percent from just the previous year. Now more than half
of Japan's marcher goes to the US, So the US
(03:42):
are the biggest consumers of mucha. Australia I think comes
in at about fifth. So it's a huge export market,
massive demand. But there's some problems in Japan that I'm
excited to talk about, which is why we're seeing prices
going up.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And so there's clearly now this massive demand. Are they
now just growing more mucher because of how much demand
there is?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, Like if we go back to our fundamentals of economics,
if people want more of something, you should just make
more of it and then you export it and get
heaps of money. Yes, But with march it's not that simple.
So you can't just plant more and solve the problem
straight away. And I've gone deep. I've gone deep. I've
boiled myself a nice cup of coffee, and I went
(04:25):
deep on why this problem is emerging. And there's three
core issues here, three.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Core issues as to why you can't just grow more.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Marcher exactly got it. So the first is time. So
new mucha tea plantations require five years to reach the
point where the leaves are ready to harvest and then sell.
So for much of companies, this translates to this investment
they need to make now that they have to then
wait five years to get a return on. That's a
(04:53):
really long time to waite. They might not have the
ability to actually sustain a business for five years before
materializing that crop. And the second problem is labor though,
and the production process is incredibly intensive. Farmers must place
the tea plants in shade for three to four weeks
before harvest to bring out the flavor, so even before
(05:14):
you harvest them, you have to move them around. After harvesting,
the leaves are steamed, dried, and deveined. And here's the kicker.
After all of that process, only fifty percent of the
original leaf weight becomes usable, much of powder. So because
of the process of going through that steam, and think
about steaming broccoli, for example, it shrinks and it comes.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
No what does that? Kale?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Right? Kale?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
You literally you start with a bunch and you end
up with a spoonful.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Right, So you're doing all of this work and you're
losing half the products. And that brings us to a
broader issue, and that is that much of farming is
a craft and it's steeped in tradition and history. But
with a greater portion of young adults in Japan moving
away from these agricultural regions and towards the big metropolitan centers,
(06:04):
there are actually fewer people carrying on the trade. So
the average mucha grower in Japan is now over seventy
and that's leading to this labor shortage as well. It's
a tough job to begin with, it doesn't make as
much much as you would hope, but actually the number
of people willing to get into the farming of it
is going down.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Interesting, Okay, So the first issue is time, the second
issue is labor. What's the third issue climate change.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So over the past few years, key much of farming
regions in Japan Kyoto is a main center for mucha
have endured some really serious droughts. Now, according to media reports,
some farmers have lost between twenty to thirty percent of
their mucher harvest because of extreme heat.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Wow. Interesting, I feel like that's a conversation, this intersection
between climate change and farming or agriculture and other products.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, that's a.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Topic of conversation that has come up many times before
on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, and take coffee for example. So prices of coffee
beans are up as much as seventy eight percent over
the past three years. Climate experts suggests that by twenty fifty,
up to half of all current coffee growing land may
be unsuitable for production because of climate change. Then you've
got chocolate, which has also had price rises of over
four hundred percent over the past three years. We've talked
(07:23):
about that on TDA before, and that's primarily due to
climate induced disruptions. And even the sacred avocado isn't safe.
Australian avocado production dipped fifteen percent last year due to
adverse weather conditions.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And so do those three issues the time, the labor
and the climate change. Does that mean that they are
not growing more much?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, they are actually growing more, but it's still not
flowing into the market as quickly as the demand necessitates,
so a number of Japanese farmers who had previously grown
another variation of tea switching to meet international demand. According
to the Japanese Tea Production Association, the country now produces
(08:05):
five and a half thousand tons ish of tensa, which
is unground mucha leaves in twenty twenty four and that's
two point seven times the production of the country in
twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I don't know if this is a weird question, but
can other countries start growing much now?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It's not a weird question. I did something weird and
I looked at Google trends around this topic and can
other countries grow much and can I grow mucha? Or
actually two of the most two of the most common
searches here.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So that could be a new daily product.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, it will take five years, which for a while,
I'll see you there. But they can. They can grow mucha.
But many argue though that the nuanced traditions and conditions
required to grow mucha are unique to Japan. A lot
of people say that when you have much that's grown
in another country, it tastes different. So it's to do
with the soil and the conditions and the methods with
(08:56):
which it's farmed. China is actually the large exporter of
marcher in the world, so it is in other places
and it does have an impact on the price. It's
cheaper to grow it outside of Japan. There was an
article that interviewed the heeadfmacha dot com, a great url
to have secured, and he said, what makes Japanese much
(09:17):
are great is eight hundred years of expertise, the ideal
geological environmental growing conditions, and perfection of the equipment and process.
And he went on to say there are regions of
China that are attempting to produce mucha, However they lack
the expertise, equipment, soil conditions, and the right tea plant cultivators,
(09:38):
so the conditions with which great Marcha has grown.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So what does this mean for people who love their
daily marcha? Is now starting to sound weird to me,
but let's keep going with it. What does it mean
for people who love it, people who want to drink
it every day? Will the price of it just keep
going up?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I think if you actually sit down and look at
those three factors that we're identified, there's no world in
which mucha gets cheaper. I mean, from the very existential
of climate change all the way down to the five
year delay of planting new crops, every indicator kind of
suggests that I wouldn't be surprised if this time next
year we're looking at a ten dollar maucher in Australian cafes.
(10:19):
If global demand stays at that level, at that price,
it becomes even more of a lucrative industry. Though, So
I don't see a world where your mucha gets cheaper.
I think we might see more people brewing their own
mucha at home. You can buy it in powdered form
and not pay for the labor of cafes. That might
be a way with you.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You brought a prop into the pod studio.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So I took this from the kitchen of our coworkers.
It's ceremonial grade mucha and it's an interesting way to
describe it there, but it definitely says product of Japan.
So this is straight from the source, and maybe it's
a cheaper way to sustain A. Much addiction is to
start making it at home.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That would have been a better experience for anyone on
YouTube versus listening I'm not sure how that audio which
is which.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You can do. You can watch us now on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You can watch us on YouTube, follow our channel and
we do it today.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It helps us sustain our marcher purchases.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Well, Sam, thank you for spending your day going deep
on Marcha and the economics of machaw our mucha correspondent.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Your absolute pleasure, and thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
So much for listening to this episode of The Daily Os.
We'll be back this afternoon with your evening headlines, but
until then, enjoy your matchers.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Dunda
Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily Os acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
the seventeenth of October. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm belief. It's Simon's.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Sometimes on this podcast we tackle the big economic stories
that shake the nation, but today we're going to look
at something that's hitting closer to home, and that's your
morning MUCHA order. If you've noticed your much A latte
costing significantly more than it used to, brace yourself. Global
retailers say Japanese Mucha prices have jumped between thirty and
(00:41):
seventy five percent in twenty twenty five alone, and it's
not slowing down. On today's podcast, we're going to explain
why this is happening and whether the great Mucha price
hike is going to continue.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Sam. Before we get into it, I first want to know,
are you a big much A drinker.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I have had a couple of SIPs ever, and that's it.
I am too much of a die hard coffee drinker
to even consider switching allegiances.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You are one of the biggest die hard coffee drinkers
I have ever met and for anyone who doesn't know,
that's actually why our logo is a coffee cup exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
And I mean I'm going through at least four coffees
a day at the moment, and that's me harving my
coffee intake from its peak. So I'm way too consumed
with the coffee to think about Macha. But I've seen
more and more of it almost every month around me
here in Australia and around the world. I was in
the US a couple of months ago and it's everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, it's absolutely massive, and it feels like something I
think over the past three years, four years, it has
really just exploded. But for anyone who's not super familiar
with it, do you want to tell us what exactly
is marcha?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So Macha is finally powdered green tea from Japan, or
a variation of green tea. Now, the key difference from
reg tea is that you consume the entire leaf in
powder form, so mucha leaves get crushed up put in
powder form, you put that powder into hot water and
drink it. That's different, obviously from putting a tea bag
into hot water, where you're not actually consuming the tea
(02:14):
leaves themselves. You throw the tea bag away, and that's
what gives Mucha its vibrant green color. But also how
it packs so much caffeine, much more than an average
cup of tea. If you take one milligram of Mucha
and one milligram of coffee, there's actually more caffeine in
Mucha than coffee. But because you need more coffee beans
(02:34):
to make a shot of coffee, coffee still takes out
the award for the most caffeine and a cup that
we would buy from a cafe. But yes, it's this
specific version of tea almost that you'll recognize on the
street for its green striking color.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I feel like again, like I said, it's really
exploded in popularity. Maybe it used to be more of
a niche product than it is now. How big is
this industry now?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So let's take it back to twenty twenty three. The
global Mucha market was worth four point three billion US dollars.
That is a serious beverage market. It's projected to hit
seven point four billion US dollars by twenty thirty, so
we are in the middle of the Mucha explosion. Here
Australian cafes were charging in twenty twenty three five or
(03:19):
six dollars for a cup. That's now seven or eight dollars.
US retail sales have surged eighty six percent in just
three years, and for Japan it's really big business now.
So Japan's exports of mucha were worth one point eight
five billion in twenty twenty four. That went up twenty
percent from just the previous year. Now more than half
of Japan's marcher goes to the US, So the US
(03:42):
are the biggest consumers of mucha. Australia I think comes
in at about fifth. So it's a huge export market,
massive demand. But there's some problems in Japan that I'm
excited to talk about, which is why we're seeing prices
going up.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And so there's clearly now this massive demand. Are they
now just growing more mucher because of how much demand
there is?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, Like if we go back to our fundamentals of economics,
if people want more of something, you should just make
more of it and then you export it and get
heaps of money. Yes, But with march it's not that simple.
So you can't just plant more and solve the problem
straight away. And I've gone deep. I've gone deep. I've
boiled myself a nice cup of coffee, and I went
(04:25):
deep on why this problem is emerging. And there's three
core issues here, three.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Core issues as to why you can't just grow more.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Marcher exactly got it. So the first is time. So
new mucha tea plantations require five years to reach the
point where the leaves are ready to harvest and then sell.
So for much of companies, this translates to this investment
they need to make now that they have to then
wait five years to get a return on. That's a
(04:53):
really long time to waite. They might not have the
ability to actually sustain a business for five years before
materializing that crop. And the second problem is labor though,
and the production process is incredibly intensive. Farmers must place
the tea plants in shade for three to four weeks
before harvest to bring out the flavor, so even before
(05:14):
you harvest them, you have to move them around. After harvesting,
the leaves are steamed, dried, and deveined. And here's the kicker.
After all of that process, only fifty percent of the
original leaf weight becomes usable, much of powder. So because
of the process of going through that steam, and think
about steaming broccoli, for example, it shrinks and it comes.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
No what does that? Kale?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Right? Kale?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
You literally you start with a bunch and you end
up with a spoonful.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Right, So you're doing all of this work and you're
losing half the products. And that brings us to a
broader issue, and that is that much of farming is
a craft and it's steeped in tradition and history. But
with a greater portion of young adults in Japan moving
away from these agricultural regions and towards the big metropolitan centers,
(06:04):
there are actually fewer people carrying on the trade. So
the average mucha grower in Japan is now over seventy
and that's leading to this labor shortage as well. It's
a tough job to begin with, it doesn't make as
much much as you would hope, but actually the number
of people willing to get into the farming of it
is going down.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Interesting, Okay, So the first issue is time, the second
issue is labor. What's the third issue climate change.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So over the past few years, key much of farming
regions in Japan Kyoto is a main center for mucha
have endured some really serious droughts. Now, according to media reports,
some farmers have lost between twenty to thirty percent of
their mucher harvest because of extreme heat.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Wow. Interesting, I feel like that's a conversation, this intersection
between climate change and farming or agriculture and other products.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, that's a.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Topic of conversation that has come up many times before
on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, and take coffee for example. So prices of coffee
beans are up as much as seventy eight percent over
the past three years. Climate experts suggests that by twenty fifty,
up to half of all current coffee growing land may
be unsuitable for production because of climate change. Then you've
got chocolate, which has also had price rises of over
four hundred percent over the past three years. We've talked
(07:23):
about that on TDA before, and that's primarily due to
climate induced disruptions. And even the sacred avocado isn't safe.
Australian avocado production dipped fifteen percent last year due to
adverse weather conditions.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And so do those three issues the time, the labor
and the climate change. Does that mean that they are
not growing more much?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, they are actually growing more, but it's still not
flowing into the market as quickly as the demand necessitates,
so a number of Japanese farmers who had previously grown
another variation of tea switching to meet international demand. According
to the Japanese Tea Production Association, the country now produces
(08:05):
five and a half thousand tons ish of tensa, which
is unground mucha leaves in twenty twenty four and that's
two point seven times the production of the country in
twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I don't know if this is a weird question, but
can other countries start growing much now?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It's not a weird question. I did something weird and
I looked at Google trends around this topic and can
other countries grow much and can I grow mucha? Or
actually two of the most two of the most common
searches here.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So that could be a new daily product.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, it will take five years, which for a while,
I'll see you there. But they can. They can grow mucha.
But many argue though that the nuanced traditions and conditions
required to grow mucha are unique to Japan. A lot
of people say that when you have much that's grown
in another country, it tastes different. So it's to do
with the soil and the conditions and the methods with
(08:56):
which it's farmed. China is actually the large exporter of
marcher in the world, so it is in other places
and it does have an impact on the price. It's
cheaper to grow it outside of Japan. There was an
article that interviewed the heeadfmacha dot com, a great url
to have secured, and he said, what makes Japanese much
(09:17):
are great is eight hundred years of expertise, the ideal
geological environmental growing conditions, and perfection of the equipment and process.
And he went on to say there are regions of
China that are attempting to produce mucha, However they lack
the expertise, equipment, soil conditions, and the right tea plant cultivators,
(09:38):
so the conditions with which great Marcha has grown.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So what does this mean for people who love their
daily marcha? Is now starting to sound weird to me,
but let's keep going with it. What does it mean
for people who love it, people who want to drink
it every day? Will the price of it just keep
going up?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I think if you actually sit down and look at
those three factors that we're identified, there's no world in
which mucha gets cheaper. I mean, from the very existential
of climate change all the way down to the five
year delay of planting new crops, every indicator kind of
suggests that I wouldn't be surprised if this time next
year we're looking at a ten dollar maucher in Australian cafes.
(10:19):
If global demand stays at that level, at that price,
it becomes even more of a lucrative industry. Though, So
I don't see a world where your mucha gets cheaper.
I think we might see more people brewing their own
mucha at home. You can buy it in powdered form
and not pay for the labor of cafes. That might
be a way with you.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You brought a prop into the pod studio.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So I took this from the kitchen of our coworkers.
It's ceremonial grade mucha and it's an interesting way to
describe it there, but it definitely says product of Japan.
So this is straight from the source, and maybe it's
a cheaper way to sustain A. Much addiction is to
start making it at home.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That would have been a better experience for anyone on
YouTube versus listening I'm not sure how that audio which
is which.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You can do. You can watch us now on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You can watch us on YouTube, follow our channel and
we do it today.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It helps us sustain our marcher purchases.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Well, Sam, thank you for spending your day going deep
on Marcha and the economics of machaw our mucha correspondent.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Your absolute pleasure, and thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
So much for listening to this episode of The Daily Os.
We'll be back this afternoon with your evening headlines, but
until then, enjoy your matchers.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Dunda
Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily Os acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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