High quality Japanese tea is hard to come by, and even more so if you do not live in Japan. So, how is Matabay able to offer such high quality tea at such an affordable rate?
Quality Tea at a Low Price
The answer is simple. Matabay Matcha, is produced in our own tea fields, and all of the tea we offer is produced by tea farms owned by family and/or those with close family ties (cousins, relatives, close friends, etc). The tea blenders, refineries, and wholesale that we use are also deeply connected by the same family ties. In short, we, as an extended family, produce what we sell. And this is more important than you think. It is almost impossible for a tea farm to make more than one type of tea.
Tea Produced Differently
Why? The reason is simple. It is because Sencha, Gyokuro, and Matcha are all grown/produced differently, and Hojicha and Genmaicha use a lower-grade Sencha. It would be illogical to use the same Sencha tea leaves that were made for the higher-grade Sencha in the making of Hojicha and Genmaicha, and would be illogical to diversify why type of tea you grow, especially if you are focusing on creating a high-grade tea and want to be commercially viable (remember, land is limited in Japan, most farmers only own what they can handle in their immediate family). So, unless you are one of the few major plantation owners (which usually are big corporations), each farm usually specializes and focuses in a specific type of tea.
Without the family ties it would be virtually impossible to claim, “we make what we ship”, and it would be even harder to be able to secure the best teas needed in order to claim “we have the absolute best teas Uji has to offer”.
Why The Low Price
There are no middlemen domestically and no international resellers that add extra margins. Most importantly, there are no second-class merchants who could/would dilute pure Uji tea with lower grade tea produced elsewhere.
Our goal is simple. Provide the absolute best quality Uji tea to the Japanese tea lovers of the world, wherever they are. We are tired of poor excuses for Japanese tea flooding the market, and would like to set the record straight.
Although we currently do not list all of the teas that we handle (there are other limited, pinnacle grade and above teas, along with some exquisite Japanese teas available upon request), we firmly believe that we are able to provide the absolute best Uji tea in the world. And we welcome you to taste the difference, and be the judge yourself.
