Matcha Shortage, September 2025

Camellia Rd is temporarily sold out of matcha.

We sincerely apologize to everyone who has visited us in the last several weeks trying to get a matcha milk tea. We're currently waiting for the next batch to be prepared, packaged, and shipped to us and will update as soon as we're back in stock and making matcha milk teas again. Thank you for your patience.

Unfortunately, when it does return, we will have to raise prices and we are not sure how long we will be able to keep our matcha milk tea in stock but we'll update everyone as soon as possible. Global demand, production costs, and inflation have caused our supplier to raise the prices of matcha and to even limit sales of it so that it's not all purchased by any one single customer.

If you'd like to read more about matcha and our experience with the supply chain for this specific ingredient, read more below.

What is matcha?

Matcha is a Japanese green tea that is historically made by stone-grinding green tea leaves into a fine powder. It is easily transported and prepared into a drink by suspending the matcha tea powder into a liquid (this can be done by whisking, shaking, blending, or mixing it in your preferred liquid. Here's a link to 5 ways to prepare matcha).

Good quality matcha will have a strong, smooth and bright green tea flavor often with grassy, savory, and umami flavor notes. It's a great morning drink as it has a high concentration of caffeine but doesn't typically cause the "jitters" people get from coffee because matcha also has a high concentration of L-theanine, which is associated with calming effects.

Is all matcha tea the same?

There are different levels of matcha quality. But while you may have heard the terms "culinary grade" or "ceremonial grade", know that these aren't regulated by industry standards. These terms attempt to differentiate the taste and quality of matcha politely.

Culinary grade matcha implies matcha that you would cook or bake with. If you made a batch of matcha green tea cookies for example, the sugar, fats, heat and other mix-ins could mask the flavor of matcha. Ceremonial grade matcha implies matcha you would prepare during a tea ceremony and drink fresh, whisked with just hot water. All the flavors of the matcha tea would come through in this preparation so a naturally smooth and sweet drink is desirable.

Generally speaking, higher quality matcha tea will have a brighter green color and less yellow or brown tints. But at the end of the day, you'll have to taste to know what you like and decide what you're willing to pay for. I've tasted matcha green tea powders that are burnt, oxidized, bitter, or even blended with flavorings like vanilla. I've also had the privilege of tasting incredibly high quality matcha with deep, rich umami that makes me think of a rich soup stock. But neither of these extremes are necessarily what I would want for my daily milk tea drink.

At Camellia Rd Tea Bar, we always want our teas to be the highlight of a drink. Our matcha milk teas will have some of those umami, savory notes and crisp bright green tea flavor that still comes through with milk, sugar, and/or fruit purees.

What factors into matcha quality?

1. growing tea leaves
2. processing tea leaves
3. packaging, transport, drink preparation

Let’s unpack these aspects:

growing tea leaves

Matcha green tea isn't harvested year-round, there are distinct seasons throughout the year (to give the leaves enough time to grow and develop). Green tea leaves destined for matcha will come from special tea leaves that are carefully grown in shade, covered depending on the season and weather. In response to the extra shade, the tea plant signals to its leaves to develop differently then if it was exposed to full sunlight, leading to a naturally brighter green appearance and a brighter flavor profile.

processing tea leaves

Japanese teas use steam as a heat application to stop oxidation of tea leaves (many other tea techniques use dry heat). As a result, Japanese green teas like sencha or gyokuro will look like long flat shards, in contrast to say rolled oolong teas or jasmine green tea pearls. This also leads to more bright, umami, citrus, and vegetal notes than other teas. After the leaves are prepared, it's then ground up. An even grind with low heat is ideal (stone mills are historically used, and friction during grinding can generate heat).

storage and drink preparation

Camellia Rd receives its high quality matcha in special foil lined, heat sealed bags that are air tight and reflect heat to minimize any quality loss during travel. Once at Camellia Rd, we keep our matcha sealed between use to mitigate oxidation.

Camellia Rd's philosophy for our milk teas is to use quality tea that you're able to taste. For our standard matcha milk tea drink, we use about 7 grams of matcha tea per drink. Milk, sugar, or fruit (when we do our specials such as strawberry matcha) serves to complement the bright, full green tea flavor from the high quality matcha we use - never to hide it.

Matcha - a case study on global supply and demand

I had the opportunity to visit Japan last year and speak to someone in the tea industry. We saw a tea factory, farm, and a couple of tea shops. At that time there was already shift in the Japanese tea industry towards matcha due to global popularity and it was impacting the domestic tea industry. Japan has a reputation for hard work and operational efficiency, but there’s still the reality of the limitations for how matcha is made.

Tea leaves can only grow so fast, and can't be harvested infinitely. New tea plants take years after they’re planted to grow and mature enough before they're ready to be used for tea. Then there’s the infrastructure needed to grow matcha-specific leaves (shade canopy systems, grinding equipment).

And as we discussed earlier, not all matcha is the same. By the natural force of supply and demand, higher quality matcha is less available than lower quality grades - a dynamic that's exacerbated by the trendiness of matcha and global demand that doesn't necessarily care about quality.

I believe that our supplier, among other tea farmers, producers, and industry experts are doing all they can to meet this new demand. But this isn't something that can be scaled up overnight, let alone in 1-2 years.

And on a different but related note, there’s the issue of shipment. As I write this, we’ve had an order of hojicha tea that was placed in August and shipped via UPS from our supplier on September 1st - according to UPS it's here in the U.S. but has been stuck in UPS purgatory for the last 10 days.

All these factors are leading to a delay in availability and increased cost. Prices for matcha specifically will be up 30-40% from last year by the time it reaches us.

Why not just use a different matcha or supplier?

At Camellia Rd, we take a lot of time and energy to find new teas and suppliers. Not only do we taste test each and every tea from samples, but there’s also a lot of cost that comes from finding a reliable supplier that we can trust.

While we can and will search for other tea vendors for all our sourcing, we trust that our current supplier is providing us with the lowest price they can and increases are based on costs they are experiencing themselves.

We also don’t want to sacrifice quality by offering a subpar “green tea powder” or changing our recipe to sacrifice taste.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding! Again, we apologize to anyone who has visited us specifically for matcha milk tea these last several weeks, we're doing what we can at this time.

-Ricky