Stop Drinking Matcha
(There’s your eye-catching title — in actuality, I just think you should stop drinking it as frequently, and this is why)
I personally love and have always loved matcha. I make matcha at home and enjoy drinking some from cafes, and of course while I’m in Japan. Because of how popular it has gotten, though, I became curious about the trend’s impacts on the quality of the matcha produced and how it was affecting the tea farmers. I dug and fell into a rabbit hole…so here are some of my findings.
Matcha often contains heavy metals and pesticides.
And you can absorb more of them through matcha than any other type of tea. This is because the tea plants absorb metals from the ground and pesticides which are sprayed on directly — in regular tea, you just steep the whole leaves in water which means only about 10% of the metals and pesticides make it outside of the leaves, whileas with matcha, which is made from the ground up leaves, you are consuming the entire leaf along with all of the toxic compounds present in it.
This is not an issue if you only make your own matcha and make sure you source it from reputable companies that test their own batches, but it is a concern if you go out to get a matcha from cafes who are not open about where they are sourcing them from. Now, this is not a big concern if you’re only consuming matcha on occasion…but if you are a daily drinker, maybe you should save your health and your wallet by learning how to do it yourself.
https://tamararubin.com/2026/05/matcha-chart/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750021001670
Matcha can cause iron deficiency.
As with every claim I make in this zine, this is an issue only if you are consuming matcha every day. For example, some people I know have replaced their coffee consumption with matcha entirely for its health benefits, and that works if you’re maybe a 1-2 cup a day drinker…but we all know folks who are drinking frequently, all throughout the day!
Anyway, some people have developed anemia related to consuming matcha — the catechin and tannins found in matcha can bind to non-heme iron, which can block their absorption into the body. If you are specifically consuming a primarily or exclusively plant-based diet, this is especially bad, because non-heme iron is found only in plants; heme iron (found in meat and fish) is unaffected.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5093162/
Matcha quality is declining.
Due to global demand, there is a major shortage of matcha in Japan that is getting worse. Because of older farmers retiring, there are much fewer tea plantations and producers, and the rising temperatures year after year makes yields spotty at best. It takes a long time to make quality matcha, since tea bushes need to be shaded for weeks before harvest, processed, and then ground to a fine powder using a traditional stone mill.
Because the demand is so high, some plantations have shifted to making a lot more tencha (the type of tea used for matcha production). A shame, in my opinion, since there are so many more types of Japanese tea that are quite good, and they are under appreciated.
Due to the demand for matcha, some countries have started making their own. While it’s great to support local as much as possible, it’s difficult to replicate the quality of Japanese matcha, considering it has had hundreds of years to perfect its cultivation and production. There also is the aforementioned issue of contaminants like pesticides and heavy metals in areas where growing standards are not stringent.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251219/p2a/00m/0li/025000c
https://tokyocheapo.com/lifestyle/matcha-shortage-japan/
Overconsumption is unethical, and also just bad for you.
And that is what everything comes down to — I’m not of the purist opinion that every time matcha is consumed, it has to be prepared by you, carefully, with a bamboo whisk in hand on a tatami mat, while wearing kimono and following the Sado (tea ceremony) traditions. While those traditions are an important part of Japanese culture, I do also believe that matcha should not be something that only the rich could consume.
In Japan, tea ceremonies had become very exclusive and a way for hosts to boast their wealth, until the rise of Sen no Rikyu, known as being perhaps the most influential tea master in Japan in the 1500s. Being staunchly dedicated to Buddhist philosophy, he introduced the use of everyday and simple items to tea ceremony, believing that tea should not just be for wealthy warrior classes to enjoy. Ironically, his legacy over time was warped — because his approach was so popular, the rustic and simple raku-ware pottery he preferred became more sought after and expensive, and it became a status symbol to be able to afford tea lessons and to have a tea room in one’s house. Matcha was very exclusive, too, and up until my parents’ generation, most people were not exposed to it much in their day-to-day. Industrialization led to more efficient tea production methods, and with it came the matcha lattes, matcha flavored sweets, ice cream…
So in a way, matcha became something that could be consumed by everyone. I do love all the matcha flavored things, but as with a lot of things these days in this hyper-consumerist world, it seems like maybe we are oversaturated and about to reach a bubble-bursting moment. Maybe it would do everyone some good by stopping, stepping back and savoring the time spent enjoying the things we are consuming…and also, replacing your next matcha with a nice London Fog instead.