September 2026 Stories

01

September 2026: EU Organic Certification, System Upgrades, and Looking Ahead to Our Winter US West Coast Pop-Up

Daiki T.

Founder & CEO

September 2026 was an action-packed month for d:matcha as we prepared to kick off several exciting new initiatives. Here is a look at what we've been working on and what's coming up next!

1. A major step into Europe: Skal organic certification & a better customer experience

We are thrilled to announce that our newly established European entity, D-matcha EU B.V., has officially received organic certification as an importer from Skal, the official organic inspection body in the Netherlands!

To maintain organic status, every link in the supply chain—from cultivation and processing to exporting, importing, and final fulfillment—must be strictly managed under organic standards. Fortunately, equivalency agreements exist between Japan, the EU, and the US, meaning Japanese tea certified under Organic JAS can be sold as organic in Europe, provided the proper export clearance is obtained.

However, displaying the EURO Leaf (the official EU organic logo) on our products requires additional qualifications, such as "Foreign Exporter Organic Certification," along with importer and distributor certifications in Europe. Navigating these cross-border regulations can be quite complex, but thanks to the kind guidance of the certification authorities at every step, we successfully completed the process.

Upgrading our system for EU customers

In addition, with the European Union updating its de minimis customs rules in November 2026, we took this opportunity to overhaul our shipping procedures to ensure a smoother purchasing experience. Now that our EU entity is fully operational, handling Value Added Tax (VAT) will be much simpler and more seamless for our customers in Europe.

2. Winter pop-up events on the US West Coast!

We have always wanted to maintain a strong connection with guests who visit us for our tea tours and farm stays in Wazuka, Kyoto. While we welcome visitors from all over the world, our largest community of international guests comes from the US West Coast—particularly California.

February is my designated time each year for overseas business trips (this past February, I visited the Middle East and Germany). For February 2027, I am eager to return to the US West Coast for the first time in nearly 10 years!

During this trip, we plan to host pop-up events across several locations in California to connect with you in person. It is also a valuable opportunity to visit our local partner shops currently serving d:matcha tea and gain first-hand insights into the local market.

Target timing: February 2027 (dates and locations currently being finalized)

While details are still being arranged, we will keep you updated as soon as everything is confirmed. We cannot wait to see many of you in person!

02

Who Made Your Matcha?

Emma C.

Marketing & Web

For matcha lovers, opening a new tin is always an exciting moment. A fine green haze rises from the powder as the lid comes off, carrying its aroma with it. That vibrant green powder is often the only part of the journey a consumer ever sees. And yet matcha has one of the longest and most fragmented value chains in the food and beverage industry. Between the tea field and your cup, a single batch of matcha can pass through the hands of many different people and companies, often without any of them knowing each other. Let's break it down.

Step 1: The farm

Most matcha starts on small, individual farms. The farmer grows the tea, shades the plants before harvest, and picks the fresh leaves in spring. But for most farmers, that's where their part ends. Fresh tea leaves start to oxidize within hours, and very few farmers own the specialized machinery to process them. So on harvest day, the raw leaves leave the farmer's hands almost immediately.

Step 2: The cooperative factory

The leaves usually go to a factory run by a farming cooperative, shared by many farmers in the area. There the leaves are steamed, cooled, and dried into crude tencha, the unrefined leaf that matcha is made from.

Step 3: The auction

The crude tencha is then sold, most often at auction, to buyers on the wholesale side of the industry. This is the point where a farmer's tea usually stops being "their" tea. Once sold, it becomes a lot in someone else's inventory.

Step 4: The wholesale side

Who buys at auction? Several different kinds of wholesalers:

• Heritage makers: long-established tea houses, some with centuries of history. Good examples are Ippodo or Marukyu Koyamaen.
• Wholesalers: traders who buy, process, and sell tea on to other businesses.
• Large integrators: big companies that handle large volumes across many stages of the chain.

This is where some of the most skilled people in the industry work. Evaluators taste and grade each lot, crude tencha is refined by removing stems and veins, and master blenders combine tencha from different farms, and often different regions, to achieve a consistent flavor, color, and price year after year. Blending is a real craft. But it is also where the link between a tea and the field it came from usually disappears.

Step 5: Aging, milling, and packing

The tencha is aged, traditionally for at least six months, then milled into the fine powder we know as matcha, and packed. At this point the matcha is a finished product, but it still has a long way to go.

Step 6: Export and import

Much of the matcha sold abroad is handed to exporters, then to importers in other countries. From there it branches out in three main directions:

• Direct-to-consumer brands, many of which buy matcha in bulk and white label it, putting their own name and packaging on powder made by someone else.
• Cafés, which serve it in drinks.
• Large aggregators, which distribute it to both consumers and businesses.

Step 7: You

By the time matcha reaches you, it may have passed through a farmer, a cooperative factory, an auction, a wholesaler, evaluators and blenders, a mill, an exporter, an importer, and a brand or café. Different farms, different factories, many buyers, many retailers. It's no wonder that so few people can answer a simple question: who actually made my matcha?

The value chain at d:matcha

Our chain looks very different, because every step happens with us.

• Our tea fields. We cultivate and harvest our own tea here in Wazuka, Kyoto. The raw leaves never leave our hands.
• Our tencha factory. We steam, cool, and dry the leaves in our own factory, so we control how each harvest is processed from the moment it's picked.
• Refining. We refine our own crude tencha into tencha. We also do not blend our tencha, because we want the nuances of our terroir and cultivars to shine through. Our matcha stays fully traceable to where it was grown.
• Our headquarters. We age, mill, and pack our matcha ourselves.
• Shipping, straight to you. From our farm, we ship directly to you through dmatcha.com, dmatcha.us, and starting November 2026, dmatcha.eu.

The same people grow, harvest, process, mill, pack, and ship your matcha. It is made entirely in house, on our family farm in Kyoto.

So next time you open a tin and see that green haze rise, we hope you'll think of everyone it took to get there, and know that with d:matcha, you can trace it all the way back to the field.

03

Matcha Sweets: Japanese Style vs. Western Style

Sora N.

Confectionery & Farming

Hello everyone!

As October begins, the weather is starting to turn a bit chilly. In September, my main tasks were applying fertilizer and making sweets.

Fertilizing is a job I often do in collaboration with our interns. Since the exact amount of fertilizer per field is roughly set, strong communication with those around me is essential. However, because many of our interns aren't fully fluent in Japanese, communication hasn't always been easy. A year or two ago, miscommunications sometimes led to over-fertilizing certain plots early on, leaving us short on fertilizer toward the end of the project.

Fortunately, as I've grown more experienced with the routine, running out of fertilizer has almost entirely become a thing of the past. I feel like I've gotten much better at communicating step-by-step with interns by using simple English and hand gestures. Moving forward, clear communication with our interns will be even more vital to raising the overall quality of our work. My English is still far from fluent, but I'm eager to keep practicing so I can use it effectively on the job!

Two ways to enjoy matcha in sweets

Even though both use green tea, traditional Japanese sweets (wagashi) and Western-style desserts highlight matcha in completely different ways.

Traditional Japanese sweets are often crafted to showcase the pure aroma and characteristic light bitterness of matcha itself. Think matcha yokan (sweet bean jelly), matcha manju (steamed buns), or fresh seasonal namagashi. By pairing matcha with long-beloved Japanese ingredients like sweet red bean paste (anko), soft rice cake dough (gyuhi), or agar-agar (kanten), you get a wonderful balance between the sweetness of the bean paste and the pleasant bitterness of the tea. What makes traditional sweets particularly delightful is how a rich, satisfying sweetness leads into a lingering matcha finish.

In Western-style baking, on the other hand, matcha is usually blended with cream, chocolate, butter, eggs, and dairy. You'll find it in everything from matcha roll cakes and gâteau au chocolat to cheesecakes and cookies. Combining the richness of dairy or chocolate with the fragrant tea creates a deep, indulgent flavor distinct from traditional sweets.

It's fascinating how the perception of matcha transforms based on what you pair it with. Traditional sweets let you enjoy matcha's crisp profile simply alongside bean paste or mochi, whereas Western desserts use its aroma and gentle bitterness as a vibrant accent against rich cream and chocolate.

Both traditions offer uniquely delicious ways to appreciate matcha. Enjoying it in time-honored traditional treats is wonderful, but unlocking new dimensions of flavor through Western pairings with dairy and chocolate is equally exciting. Because matcha can dramatically change character depending on the ingredients and methods used, it remains such a versatile favorite across both classic and modern pastry making.

04

Nagori: The Bittersweet Finale of the Tea Ceremony Year

Seiya (Alan) H.

Hospitality & Tea Production

For those of us who practice Japanese Tea Ceremony (Chado), October is essentially our New Year's Eve.

To give you a quick picture of the annual tea calendar: November 1st marks Robiraki (the opening of the sunken hearth). In the tea room, a special floor mat with a square cutout is fitted into the center, and a recessed hearth called a ro is filled with fresh ashes for the winter. At the same time, we open the stoneware jars storing the new tea leaves harvested back in spring, which have been aging for nearly six months. It's a special moment where we savor the year's first shincha (new-crop tea).

The cold-weather ro season runs for six months from November through April. In May, we transition to the Furo (portable brazier) season. The ashes are removed from the central hearth, the floor mat is replaced with a standard one, and the charcoal heat source is moved to a portable brazier tucked away in the corner of the room. This furo season continues from May through October.

In short: during the chilly ro months, the warm charcoal fire is placed closer to the guests, whereas during the hot furo months, the fire is moved as far away from the guests as possible.

This brings us to October, known in Tea Ceremony as Nagori—a term that captures the poignant feeling of clinging to a departing season. At this point, the tea harvested the previous year is down to its last handfuls, and we cherish every last drop as we bid it farewell.

The aesthetics of imperfection

During Nagori, hosts favor utensils that bear subtle signs of age and wear—perhaps a small chip or a trace of weather-worn patina. Rather than showcasing pristine, flawless pieces, this season celebrates imperfection as an expression of wabi, the aesthetic appreciation of rustic simplicity and natural transience. Utensils mended using kintsugi (the art of repairing cracked ceramics with lacquer dusted with gold) are particularly beloved. While authentic antique utensils are traditionally used, it has become common in recent years to see newly made ceramics crafted with intentional imperfections or pre-designed kintsugi motifs.

Autumn adjustments & sweet delights

When performing the tea ceremony ritual (otemae), we shift to a style called Nakaoki (center placement). As October brings crisp, cooler air, the portable brazier is moved out from the corner to the center of the mat, bringing the heat just a bit closer to the guests.

As for tea sweets (wagashi), while seasonal motifs are always important, understated and simple treats are preferred over flashy ones during Nagori. Chestnut-flavored sweets are enormously popular this time of year—though as someone who isn't particularly fond of chestnuts, it's not quite my favorite! I once attended a multi-stage tea gathering where every single sweet served across three separate rooms was packed with chestnuts. I remember inwardly sighing, "This would be absolute perfection if only there weren't chestnuts!"

A time for quiet reflection

In summary, October is not a month for grand displays. Instead, it offers a gentle, muted atmosphere—a time to reflect on the past year while quietly soaking in the change of seasons.

Looking back, when I served as the host for a formal tea gathering back in my student days during October, I wanted to capture this quiet spirit of Nagori. I chose to perform the thick tea service using a small ceramic tea caddy (chaire) that I had saved up my own pocket money to buy. It remains a fond memory of a truly special season.

05

Field Work: Skiffing & Pruning (Seishi)

Hiroki A.

Farm Lead & Head Pâtissier

Deep pruning (Nakagari)

Every five years or so in tea field management, we perform a deep pruning technique called nakagari. This involves heavily cutting back tea bushes that have grown too tall or have developed too many dense, branching shoots. Over successive harvests, the constant branching gradually saps the plant's natural vigor. Nakagari resets the bushes and gives them a fresh start.

This heavy pruning takes place right after the first tea harvest (ichibancha). Once pruned, all the fine twigs are removed, leaving only the thick main branches. Because these thick branches have dense bark and few existing growth points, new shoots primarily emerge from newly differentiated growth points in the cambium layer. For tea fields that haven't undergone nakagari in many years, this process is particularly dramatic, and it takes a considerable amount of time for new shoots to emerge.

These new shoots must reach a sufficient level of maturity before winter sets in. If the plants enter winter dormancy without enough photosynthetic capacity, the quality and yield of the following year's first harvest will suffer. This is why nakagari must be carried out as early as possible immediately after the first harvest.

Evening out the canopy (Seishi)

This brings us to light pruning and skiffing (seishi), which literally translates to "arranging the branches."

After deep pruning, the newly emerging shoots sprout at different times and locations, causing them to grow unevenly. The early, robust shoots grow quickly and block sunlight from the slower, later-emerging shoots beneath them, further delaying their growth. If a tea field is left with a mix of overgrown shoots and stunted ones, next year's first harvest will yield equally inconsistent shoots. This leads to lower overall yields and makes primary processing much more challenging.

Seishi solves this problem. Once the new growth reaches a certain stage after nakagari, we use pruning shears to clip off only the overgrown top shoots. This allows sunlight to reach the lower shoots so they can perform photosynthesis, leveling out the canopy across the entire field. Later on, autumn pruning is done at a level slightly lower than this skiffing line, resulting in a uniform, well-structured tea bush.

Because the popular Yabukita cultivar is especially prone to uneven shoot growth, I find proactive skiffing to be an absolute necessity after deep pruning.

06

Tokoname Teapots

Nicolas D.

Fields & Operations

This month, I have been reading about Tokoname teapots and found some interesting information that I thought was worth sharing!

First off, Tokoname is the name of a town in Japan. The clay from there is very famous for being very suited to brewing Japanese green teas. There are other famous clays and other materials to make teapots in Japan, but since I own a Tokoname kyusu (teapot), and it is the clay type I see the most in Japan, I decided to take a deeper dive into ware from that specific area.

Tokoname potters express their creativity through the clay. There are so many different sizes and shapes of tea ware. The handle is sometimes on the side, or on the back, or on the top of the pot. Some brewing vessels do not have a handle at all (hōhin and shiboridashi).

To simplify, the ones I see most commonly are the round, ball-shaped kyusu with a side handle (Marugata Kyusu), the round and flat kyusu with a side handle (Hiragata Kyusu), and the Hōhin.

I personally own a black Tokoname clay Marugata Kyusu. I use it for all types of Japanese green teas. But my very first experience of Japanese green tea was a Gyokuro brewed in a flat Tokoname shiboridashi (no handle). I was told that the flatter shape is very good for the long and delicate leaves of Gyokuro teas to slowly and evenly open while brewing. It is best not to pile them up in a round pot, since it would prevent many of the leaves from opening and releasing their flavor. Gyokuro teas are best brewed at lower temperatures (often around 40–60°C), so the wide flat shape helps that purpose too. The cooler the temperature, the longer it takes the tea leaves to open.

It sure made a delicious brew, and I love the aesthetic of it the most. If I start drinking more Gyokuro, I'll definitely get one of these! A flat Hiragata Kyusu would also serve the same purpose, being flat, but I just like the shiboridashi style better.

Since other senchas are brewed at slightly higher temperatures than Gyokuro (frequently around 70–80°C), the leaves open more rapidly and therefore the flat shape is less important. A round pot with a side handle allows the water to flow evenly through the leaves while pouring and to flow out of the pot rapidly when serving the tea. This enables more precision in brewing, which is important because green teas can easily get too bitter if brewed for too long.

There are many other variables to consider, including personal aesthetic preference, the size of the group drinking tea together, the need to pack and transport the teaware often… be sure there is a pot for each circumstance! This is what makes shopping for teaware fun and interesting.

Knowing the function of the shapes enables you to be a bit more technical in brewing tea. Brewing is a skill and every little detail matters… I wish everyone many joyful tea sessions!

07

Tea Culture in Japan, from the Perspective of a Tourist

Nils G.

Hospitality

This summer, I travelled all over Japan and had the chance to try a wide variety of different teas. One thing that surprisingly stood out to me was the lack of "tea cafés" in comparison to regular cafés. Previously, I had imagined that specialty tea would be easy to find almost everywhere, given the abundance of loose leaf tea you can buy.

There are countless specialty coffee shops, yet I rarely found one that offered tea alongside its coffee. The same was true for regular cafés. You can usually find at least some Sencha or a Matcha Latte there, but the selection is often rather limited. Of course, these spaces do exist, but in my experience, they tend to be concentrated around busy shopping streets or large malls. And if you want to find a place that truly stands out, you need a bit of luck.

Another thing that surprised me was the type of tea served in restaurants. Many restaurants that offered tea on their menu served Oolong or black tea (sometimes even Earl Grey), while Sencha was surprisingly uncommon.

That being said, when you do find a good place, the variety of teas and flavours throughout Japan is very interesting. Different regions have their own terroir, climate, processing methods, or cultivars, all of which contribute to remarkably different teas. I will explore these regional differences in more detail in a later newsletter, as I have yet to taste them all side by side. Even without a proper side-by-side comparison, however, I could already taste clear differences between teas from different regions.

I also came across some very local and distinctive teas. In Okinawa, for example, I tried Bukubukucha, a traditional tea topped with a thick foam made from rice water. Then there was Hokkaido Milk Tea, made with black tea and Hokkaido milk, or a Kamairicha from Miyagi Prefecture. While all of these were fun to try, to me, they felt more like regional curiosities.

All in all, I was surprised by how tea is treated in Japan. Not necessarily as a specialty product, but often simply as an everyday drink that you can pick up at a konbini.

At the same time, I was very happy to discover the regional differences in the teas I did try, which gave me a broader perspective of Japan's different tea-growing regions.