As wellness has become something that you can buy rather than a way to live, the wellness industry has become more of an aesthetic than a lifestyle. And participating in it is the paragon of being a “girl’s girl.” What’s great about this marketing technique (after years spent in beauty and marketing, I would know) is that it can enfold several different personas within it. The “clean girl” with her slicked buns and matching workout sets sells her toned body and matching set as a lifestyle. Then there’s the girl glued to her Stanley cup and Oura ring. Now, it’s the girl always running out to get a matcha latte. And brands are cashing in.
What is the matcha girl aesthetic?
2025 is undeniably the summer of matcha, with the shade matcha green replacing last summer’s debaucherous brat summer. Like coffee was a personality trait to hipsters in the early 2010s, matcha is to the new generation. Matcha is an accessory, like a high heel announcing your presence before you arrive in a room. It’s a signifier of belonging to a community of “girls who get it”. Matcha has taken on a life of its own, that started with viral drinks at specific cafes — the Blank Street blueberry matcha, for example — and has become its own empire. Even if you can’t afford the lifestyle promised by the matcha girls — one filled with high end beauty products and expensive pilates classes — you can approximate it with this sweetened signifier. But these days, esoteric “cores” are over, and vibe-based marketing has usurped microtrends.
But how did a drink become a personality trait? Here’s the secret: matcha is not just popping up on your feed randomly, it’s a decades-long marketing effort that is finally coming to a head. It has tied itself to the wellness community as well as those seeking to prove how cultured they are, both drawing from matcha’s aesthetic of authenticity without retaining any connection to the culture it was taken from.
More than an aesthetic: The real meaning of matcha
From films like Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation to men performatively reading Murakami on the subway, Japanese culture is commonly fetishized by the west while divorced from its roots. Matcha is the latest victim of the extraction culture that is a product of corporatization, global capitalism, and consumerism. This phenomenon isn’t new; Edward Said’s Orientalism dissected how the West presents Asian culture to commercial Western audiences as exotic all the way back in 1978. Now, as we watch friends take trips to Tokyo from our social media feeds and see lines wrapping around the block for specialty matcha lattes, it’s clear that Japanese culture is everywhere and nowhere in the United States.
Matcha in Japan is more than just an aesthetic tea. Not to say that every Japanese person begins their day with a tea ceremony, but the culture acknowledges its roots as it adapts it to the modern day. Matcha is appreciated because it is understood, not commodified and fetishized as a vague social signifier.
Traditionally, a matcha tea ceremony is an intentional ritual that reflects principles of harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility through the considered steps of the process — from the care of the tools and utensils to the actual matcha drinking.
As matcha has been exported, these principles have not. Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries reports that 4,176 tons of matcha were produced in 2023, which is almost three times more than in 2010. At the same time, Japan is receiving a record number of tourists a year — to the point that locals are begging people to slow down and chill out. And with the rapid rate of acceleration, companies are figuring out how to make their own take on the matcha craze instead of how to incorporate its meaning into their brands.
Even the term “ceremonial grade matcha” is not a nod to the actual tea ceremonies in Japan. While the “best,” most potent matcha is the rarest — thanks to how and when matcha leaves are harvested and ground into powder — this label doesn’t actually mean anything. Ceremonial grade matcha is toted around the US with high price tags, though the term is pretty much made up. Meanwhile culinary grade and premium grade matcha are misunderstood — and sometimes looked down upon — even though these are the most appropriate blends for lattes and sweetened drinks.
The dual love and misunderstanding of matcha is an intentional obfuscation by marketers and the wellness industrial complex. But it has consequences. For example: the global matcha shortage. Since ceremonial matcha powders are typically made from the newest leaves of the season, they cannot be mass harvested or produced. There are limited matcha fields, and even if more were to be planted right now, it would take years for them to produce the kinds of matcha powders we buy.
This is part of why matcha is so valued: it is supposed to be experienced scarcely and with intention. However, American culture has no room for that. Its a culture of excess, where hoarding matcha cans (despite their high perishability) and using the highest quality matcha in sugary lattes reigns.
While some matcha brands are profiting off the hype, others are trying to educate and incorporate matcha rituals into their practice. In Los Angeles, a new matcha store opens pretty much every day. There is even a matcha lemonade stand operating in the park near my house. Brands that are social-media friendly and cashing in on the hype often have lines around the door and trendy drink flavors to be the next viral drink. Blank Street is a venture-backed machine toting out artificially sweetened, pale green matcha lattes, and making millions of dollars shilling their watered down (culturally and literally) but commercially viable beverages. Community Goods in Los Angeles (below) routinely has hours-long waits.
Meanwhile, smaller shops like Kettl and Sua Superette (an AAPI focused grocer and coffee shop, pictured below) in Los Angeles put the heritage first. Honoring the Japanese heritage and educating about different types of matcha, they embody the more considered approach to matcha. Kettl even sells and uses its own matcha brand, while Sua uses an AAPI owned matcha brand, Matchaful, that also focuses on education.
The matcha fervor isn’t just about the popularity of a drink, it’s about the divorce of a ritual from a culture and community from our culture. Like Stanley cups and Labubus, matcha marketers use wellness rhetoric, community-focused language, and exoticization of Asian aesthetics without an investment in any of these values — and definitely none of the values of traditional matcha ceremonies.
How to be a mindful matcha consumer
Perhaps the matcha wave, and the subsequent matcha shortage, can be a call to action for consumers. As a matcha drinker, studying the history of the drink illuminated how differently America’s excessively consumerist culture is from the rest of the world — even in the way we think of rituals and wellness. It’s a call to understanding, to do the deeper research instead of believing marketing hype, and to be more slow and intentional in how we consume.
Instead of buying into buzzwords (don’t ask your matcha barista if their matcha is ceremonial if you’re ordering a banana cold cream extra sweet latte, for example), lean into the tactile nature of the ritual. Avoid hyper trendy matcha shops and instead opt for smaller, mindful tea houses — there are more and more every day.
Some LA favorites include:
- Sua Superette (Larchmont Village)
- Kettl Tea (Los Feliz)
- Archives of Us (DTLA)
- Tea Master Matcha & Green Tea Shop (Little Tokyo)
- Damo (Koreatown)
The growing interest in matcha can be an opportunity to step out of our consumer-driven American bubble. You don’t have to perform a matcha tea ceremony every time you make your at-home lattes, but be conscious about how you consume. Have a matcha date with your friends, put your phones down, and resist posting your green drinks in favor of spending time devoting yourself to the moment and the ritual.
