SUPATEA

Our Story

A watercolour of a Japanese tea valley: a woman in a pink kimono on a stone terrace, terraced tea rows running down to a river, timber buildings among the trees and a mountain beyond

Our Story

The first time I tried matcha, I didn't like it.

It was bitter, and it smelled like grass. I finished the cup to be polite and didn't think about it again for a long time.

What changed was a trip to Japan.

I was in Osaka and Kyoto, close to Uji — a town that has been growing green tea for centuries. Tea was everywhere. In the shops, along the streets, in places that had clearly been doing the same thing for a very long time. It was strange to be surrounded by something I was certain I didn't like, and after a few days the strangeness turned into curiosity.

So I started tasting.

That was when I understood what I had missed. Green tea isn't one thing. There are different cultivars, different growing regions, different grades, and they taste nothing alike. What I had written off years earlier wasn't matcha. It was one kind of matcha, made a particular way, and it simply wasn't for me.

I came home and started making it myself. I have made it every day since.

Why This Exists

Finding what I actually liked turned out to be harder than it should have been.

Most of what I could buy told me almost nothing. Not the grade. Not the cultivar. Not when it was harvested, or where it came from. I was buying blind and hoping, and it took a lot of tins to work out what I was looking for.

That is the reason this exists — not because there is any shortage of matcha to buy, but because I wanted the information I couldn't find, and I doubted I was the only one looking for it.

Terraced tea fields with a path leading to a small farmhouse below distant mountains

How We Choose

We work only with producers who can show where the tea actually comes from, who keep their paperwork in order, and who answer questions plainly rather than in marketing language. Every tea we sell arrives with its documentation, and we ask for all of it before we buy anything.

Every tin tells you what is inside it: the cultivar, where it was grown, its lot number and its best-before date. You shouldn't have to guess what you are drinking.

I worked in kitchens before any of this. It taught me to read the paperwork before trusting a supplier, and to keep records I might need later. Most of what quality control actually is, is that habit.

Three Teas

They were chosen to sit in an order, and each name was picked because it matched the tea rather than the other way around.

Hatsukoi

means first love. It is the gentle one, and it is where to start if matcha has disappointed you before.

Hanataba

means a bouquet. It is the fragrant one — floral, and sweeter than most people expect green tea to be.

Kiseki

means miracle. A single cultivar from Uji, and the one I make for myself in the morning.

If you have tried matcha before and decided it wasn't for you, I understand completely. I did too.

I would like you to put the cup down and think: oh — so this is what good matcha tastes like.