How matcha moved from tradition to trend

Matcha has become one of the biggest trending products in 2026. The matcha market is currently worth $5.5 billion in 2026, with experts predicting the market will hit $8.9 billion by 2033. 

A historic Japanese tea, steeped in ceremony and luxury, the product has become a staple in coffee shops, skincare lines and bakeries across the east and west. 

In this post, I take a look at how matcha’s unique branding, pricing and marketing has perfectly intersected with consumer psychology — taking an ancient ingredient from niche luxury to modern necessity.

Matcha is a bright green tea powder, ground from the leaves of shade-grown green tea leaves. Just like other teas, farmers create matcha using the leaves of the tea plant Camellia sinensis. Matcha stands out from other types of green tea because it's grown under the shade of bamboo mats, where the leaves work hard to create extra chloroplasts in order to collect more light. This gives matcha its unique vibrant green shade. 

A brief history

Organic Matcha brand Matchaful notes that the earliest records of matcha can be traced all the way back to the Tang Dynasty in China, which spanned the 7th–10th centuries. Throughout this period, the Tang Dynasty steamed tea leaves and formed them into bricks, making for easy transportation and trade. Traditional preparation involved roasting and breaking down the leaves then mixing the freshly-made powder with water and salt. 

The earliest matcha tea ceremonies arrived during the Song Dynasty, which reigned from the 10th–13th centuries. Following his studies in Buddhist monasteries in China, a Japanese Buddhist Monk, called Eisai, brought green tea leaves to Japan along with the traditional Chinese Buddhist ways of preparing them.

Eisai planted his seeds on the temple grounds in Kyoto, home to Kamakura Shogun. The preparation methods and quality of leaves were considered the best in all of Japan, with Eisai and his fellow monks brewing up the tea in very small quantities — solidifying the matcha's reputation as a luxury status symbol. 

Matcha only became mass-produced during the Muromachi period (1336-1573) with tea farmers across Japan growing the tea in the shade of the bamboo to maximize its health benefits. 

In 1500, the ritual of matcha as we know it was created by Murata Juko. Juko personally brought together the fragmented elements of the traditional Japanese tea-drinking habits and formalized them into an official ritual. This was later popularized by Zen Master Sen-no-Rikyu, the best-known figure of the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

Sen-no-Rikyu identified four basic principles of the Japanese tea-drinking ceremony:

1. Harmony (wa)

2. Respect (kei)

3. Purity (sei)

4. Tranquility (jaku)

This ceremony is formally known as  “Chado” or “Sado,” translated as “The Way of Tea.”

Thanks to international expositions, matcha was adopted in the West in the late 19th century. It later became a global consumer favorite in the 2010s. Starbucks is credited with its early adoption, with the franchise rolling out specialty coffees and teas including their first matcha formulation: the Green Tea Latte, in 2006. 

In 2026, tea revenue is up more than 70% across Starbucks’ coffeehouses — solidifying matcha’s mainstream status. The multi-billion dollar industry now features thousands of global brands from quirky DTC (direct to consumer) brands to big-name retailers, matcha has become a central ingredient across both traditional and unexpected product categories, including snacks and beauty. 

Why now?

Wellness is trending. 79% of global consumers say wellness is important to them, with over 40% making it a top priority. Spending on fitness, supplements and top-tier nutrition is on the rise — crowning the wellness space a $2 trillion industry. 

And this interest is a core part of the growing trend towards functional beverages. McKinsey reports: “This trend has been fueled by the shift toward food as preventative medicine, as consumers are becoming more aware of how food and beverage choices affect their health. Rather than only thinking of healthy food as foods that are free from certain components, such as gluten or sugar, consumers are now looking for foods that include high-value components, such as protein, nootropics, or turmeric.”

For increasingly health-conscious consumers, it’s out with sugar-heavy soda and in with probiotic-fueled, nutrient-rich teas, coffees and sparkling beverages — highlighting why matcha is popular. Consumers are looking for genuine beverage innovation beyond marketing gimmicks.

Outside of innovative functional beverages, consumers are looking for a gentler caffeine hit, with many looking to replace their lattes and black coffees with the calm-inducing buzz of green tea and matcha's L-theanine and caffeine that offer zen-like focus without the sharp drop. 

And consumers want their beverages to be both pretty and functional. The bright green hue of matcha racks up the views and likes on TikTok and Instagram — delivering visuals built around the café chic aesthetic, beverage artistry and wellness-focused Clean Girl cool. 

For many consumers, healthy beverages like matcha have become part of their everyday health rituals,. bBringing comfort, nourishment and status. Whether it's whisking up some bright-green organic matcha powder from a premium brand for their followers on TikTok to quietly investing in full ceremonial-grade Japanese tea tools including a ceramic bowl, bamboo whisk and scoop and iron kama or kettle. 

With 20% of American consumers aged 18-29 keeping matcha in their rotation, here are some of the main reasons for the growing matcha trend. 

The consumer need it fulfills

Matcha has become a social ritual. Go-to Gen Z and millennial coffeehouse Blank Street reports that the daily matcha run serves as a daily social ritual for many consumers. Consumers snap their green-hued teas and lattes with friends and share them across socials. 

Younger consumers love matcha for its cult health and wellbeing-promoting status as much as they do for its social-friendly aesthetic. Stephanie Gravalese, writing for Forbes, says:  "TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are full of videos about matcha that, more often than not, aren't really about matcha. Performative matcha is the idea that drinking or preparing the tea has become less about the beverage itself and more about what it signals. Scroll long enough and you'll catch it — a man at a café in wired headphones, or a soft-spoken creator bent over a bowl of green tea.

In the captions, this drink and what it means are turned into something else. It's a shorthand for taste, sensitivity, and belonging. The posts are tagged with phrases like "matcha boyfriend,' "soft masculinity," and "performative matcha," sometimes admiringly, sometimes with a wink."

Beyond its Instagram-cool status, many consumers genuinely love matcha for the health, energy and wellbeing benefits the tea provides. Matcha perfectly balances consumers’ need for functional nutrition with their desire for an everyday wellness-enhancing indulgence.  

Moving away from “performative matcha,” consumers love the energy and nutrient hit they get from their matcha powders and blends. Typically organic, natural and antioxidant rich, many consumers have replaced their standard morning coffees with matcha for the tea’s added health benefits. 

Matcha also serves a unique energetic need. Unlike coffee, which gives consumers' an energy boost that often comes with jittery-inducing anxiety, matcha relaxes as it energizes thanks to calm-promoting L-theanine. The meditative matcha tea ceremonies popularized across TikTok bring additional wellbeing benefits, allowing consumers to blend meditation with the benefits that come with drinking freshly-brewed matcha.  

The consumer psychology

Many consumers are immediately drawn in by matcha’s visual appeal. Matcha’s bright green shade serves as a visual hook, sparking consumer curiosity — instantly reading as Instagrammable. Whisked-up powders in a bowl made of fine china, a slow-motion pour of a matcha latte over ice or a green-hued batch of cookies: matcha is far more aesthetic than consumers’ standard black tea or coffee. 

Consumers typically have a premium perception of matcha. High-end brands, organic formulas, Japanese lineage —  all of these qualities give weight to consumers’ perceptions of matcha as a premium product, allowing them to easily justify spending upwards of $8.00 for a barista-made blend or $30.00 for a ceremony tea kit for their home matcha brews. 

Matcha enjoys the health halo effect. The health halo effect holds that a food or beverage's health status is overestimated because of one or two core features. In matcha's case, consumers' perceive matcha's antioxidant rich green is a huge signifier of the drink's lasting, holistic health benefits — driving its consumption. 

Matcha is also a status symbol. Cool, health-conscious and intentional: consumers use the drink's popular nutrient-dense green to show friends and followers they take their health seriously. Matcha’s status is further reinforced by its popularity with consumers’ favorite health and wellness creators across socials, with the #matcha racking up over 15 billion views. 

Matcha’s growth can also be tied to its ability to drive habit formation. Research shows that habits built around tactile multi-staged rituals, like the Japanese-inspired tea-making ritual facilitated by bamboo whisk, spoon, and Japanese-style kettle, become more deeply anchored into consumers' habit-adoption. This helps to drive long-term habit adoption and matcha purchasing trends. 

Matcha’s ritual and visual appeal also fuels consumers’ identity formation and self expression. It allows consumers’ to enrich and demonstrate their identities as health-conscious, wellness-focused and chicly on trend. 

Let’s take a look at the unique brand positioning, visual identity, community building and messaging behind matcha’s rising popularity and how these intersect to influence matcha consumer behavior.

Brand positioning

Many matcha brands have leaned into aspirational lifestyle brand positioning to help promote and sell their matcha products. The height of luxury wellness: matcha looks to offer consumers both health and status.  

Matcha combines the functional with the aesthetic. Offering consumers' a paced caffeine buzz and a huge hit of anti-oxidants in one. Not competing with alternative beverages on price or convenience, Matcha brands lean into aspirational lifestyles and aesthetics — justifying their premium price points for beverages, bags and tins.  

Premium craftsmanship is another core part of matcha’s brand positioning. Popular matcha brands mimic the positioning of luxury wine and specialty coffee brands, focusing their messaging on premium ingredients and craftsmanship. Brands' artisanal storytelling highlights traditional shade-growing techniques, dubbed oishta saibai, which grows leaves under shade for up to 30 days or hand-picking the first leaves of the harvest — known as ichibancha.

Premium tea brand GOLDE presents their Pure Matcha powder as, “Ceremonial stone-milled matcha in Uji, Kyoto,” emphasizing the high-end processing, ingredients and origin. 

Their product description reads, "The foundational green superfood for energy, focus, and cellular health for all. Pure Matcha goes beyond Ceremonial Grade: freshly shade-grown and cold-processed in Uji, Japan for maximum antioxidant and amino acid content."

Many brands spotlight the rich heritage of matcha, emphasizing their centuries-old growing and production techniques while still giving their matcha blends and products a modern slant. Founded by YouTuber Emma Chamberlain, Chamberlain Coffee offers organic ceremonial-grade matcha powders in flavors like classic  matcha and vanilla matcha. They also sell flavored cold brews alongside an Instagrammable modern tea ceremony kit that comes with matcha, a glass mason jar, electric whisk and reusable straws. 

Other brands highlight their matcha’s clean, natural ingredients. Drawing in health-conscious consumers with claims on high antioxidant counts, organic practices and additive-free blends. 

GOLDE highlights the unique benefits of their ceremonial-grade matcha, “The foundational green superfood for energy, focus, and cellular health for all. Pure Matcha goes beyond Ceremonial Grade: freshly shade-grown and cold-processed in Uji, Japan for maximum antioxidant and amino acid content.”

Other matcha brands lean into the functional luxury beverage trend. Companies frame matcha as luxurious self-care, matcha teas and tea rituals become an essential part of consumers’ meditative, self-care routines. The mental health and wellbeing benefits, coupled with the physical health benefits, make modern matcha products worth their luxe price to consumers. 

Moon Juice’s beverage branding leans into indulgent self-care focused, matcha-based blends with added cognitive benefits. The brand’s formulas include ingredients like Lion’s Mane and magnesium, alongside matcha, to enhance focus, executive function and memory. The brand’s Cosmic Matcha, labeled an adaptogenic matcha latte, includes vegan collagen and “Beauty Dust,” made of a unique berry and herb blend. 

Visual identity

Many brands package up their matcha in minimalist packaging, putting the focus on their products’ premium ingredients. Packaging Europe says, "Minimalism involves simplifying elements and the stripping back of those elements left. Shapes, forms, illustrations, colours, and types that feel unnecessary or useless are left out. Only the bare minimum is kept that still can convey the brand message.

Luxury minimalism strips back to a minimum, allowing us to concentrate on what is necessary. It is based on the functionality and aesthetic of objects, seeking to enhance them, often by using sought-after materials and innovative technology."

Several matcha brands use earth tones and vibrant greens to mirror the natural hue and inherent health benefits of their products. For consumers, green has implicit associations with freshness, health and nature. While some brands, like Chamberlain Coffee use bright or rich greens and fun imagery for a playful modern look. Other brands, like Clevr Blends, balance sage greens with complementary earthy tones like warm terracottas.

Matcha green makes for a colorful eye-catching instagram feed. Many brands lean into colorful-barista-made blends. Brands like Blank Street coffeehouse and Cha Cha Matcha have built up  cult Instagram followings by sharing their popular layered matcha drinks, such as Cha Cha Matcha’s Iced Strawberry Matcha Latte which layers matcha on top of pink strawberry milk and Purple Matcha Latte — a lavender, ube honey and matcha blend.

Matcha’s healthy green hue naturally lends itself to the cafe aesthetic that’s so popular with Gen Z and millennials, with consumers sharing pictures of their bright green matcha drinks in cool cafes and coffee shops across Instagram. coffeehouse Blank Street says: "Matcha isn't just a drink – it's a lifestyle statement. People order it as much for the aesthetic as for the taste."

Matcha packaging is often luxe. Many high-end brands package up their matcha in bags, tins and boxes that feature premium typography and design. Gold-embossed bags, minimalist tea tins featuring detailed art work and chic, branded mason jars give matcha a premium feel and act as kitchen decor and keepsakes, allowing consumers to justify a product’s higher price points. 

Messaging

Much of matcha’s brand messaging is built around the ingredient’s ability to support core pillars of health — including its high anti-oxidant count, zen-like energy boost and its potential for facilitate mindful living in the form of daily meditative rituals and tea ceremonies. 

Many brands focus on matcha's ability to provide a cleaner, less-anxiety-inducing caffeine hit than coffee, highlighting the calm-inducing effects of L-theanine. L-theanine increases dopamine and serotonin, balancing out caffeine's edge. Matcha tea brand Tenzo positioned their matcha powders as offering, "Caffeine without the crash,” labelling their green tea powder, “A daily dose of zen in a cup.”

The anti-oxidant rich and functional wellness benefits of matcha is another core focus of many brands' messaging with companies’ emphasizing matcha’s EGCG antioxidants and heart, brain and metabolism benefits to hook health-conscious consumers.

From L-theanine content to meditative ceremonial tea rituals, matcha brands frequently emphasize matcha’s ability to support mindful living — appealing to wellness-focused consumers.  

Matcha business SipSpa notes in a recent blog post:

“Meditation is associated with increased alpha wave activity in the brain, a state of relaxed, present-moment awareness, neither drowsy nor agitated. L-theanine, the amino acid found in high concentrations in matcha, has been shown in EEG studies to produce the same alpha wave pattern within 30–40 minutes of ingestion (Nobre, Rao & Owen, 2008). You do not need to meditate for this to happen; the compound shifts the brain towards that state independently. What this means in practice is that drinking matcha before sitting to meditate may make the initial settling easier.”

Brands like GOLDE and Tenzo highlight matcha’s role in supporting everyday healthy rituals and habits, from replacing consumers’ morning coffee to becoming a core part of their daily meditation and mindfulness routines. Statista Consumer Insights found that 19% of consumers who drink matcha specifically choose it as a direct replacement for coffee, suggesting matcha has become a core part of many consumers’ daily routines.

Quality is at the center of the majority of high-end matcha brands’ messaging. While other tea and coffee-based beverages may position themselves as fast, cheap and convenient, matcha brands typically position their products as premium quality. Brands continually refine their messaging to draw in mindful, deliberate, health and wellness-focused consumers.  

Brands looking to validate their premium pricing often highlight authentic sourcing. Famous growing hubs like Uji (Kyoto), Shizuoka or Kagoshima automatically highlight matcha quality. Brands also highlight artisanal processing, emphasizing weeks-long shade-growing techniques and stone-milling that produces a fine powder without degrading matcha's rich anti-oxidant content. 

Community building

Online brands, wellness influencers and creators have built far-reaching communities around drinking, eating and ritualizing matcha. 

Many brands partner with wellness creators to grow their reach and bring matcha to a wider audience of consumers focused on their mental and physical health. When it comes to marketing matcha, brands are frequently partnering with nano and micro influencers with strong cult followings and high levels of audience trust. Whether it’s online mental health advocates promoting matcha for an anxiety-free caffeine kick, yoga teachers or women’s health coaches: matcha brands can choose from influencers across the wellness space. 

Thanks to its unique flavor and nutritional profile, nutrition influencers are another natural fit for many matcha brands. Matcha has verified health benefits including the ability to improve attention, reaction time and memory. Madison Ginsburg, a sophomore at the University of Florida, said, “Influencers drink matcha as if it's part of their lives, so I thought I had to try it at least once.”

Another popular online community for matcha brands is the coffee alternatives community. MatchaBar's founders, brothers Max and Graham Fortgang, started their alternative to a New York coffee bar after their experience as NYU students looking for a cleaner energy hit to coffee, building America's first dedicated matcha café in Brooklyn to serve the need.

Fitness and lifestyle creators are ideal influencers for wellness beverage marketing. Over half of Gen Z consumers say they use social media to help build their health and fitness routines. Fitness and lifestyle creators often partner with matcha brands due to the aesthetic appeal of matcha, featuring matcha blends, powders and lattes in colorful content across TikTok and Instagram. 

Popular coffee house Blank Street went viral for its sage-green decor and blueberry-matcha drinks. The brand's matcha-led creator campaigns led to a 40% jump in app downloads during the franchise's peak summer promos. The WSJ notes the coffeehouses' TikTok-based matcha strategy turned the brand into a Gen Z “accessory brand” to rival brands like Sephora and Stanley.

The popularity of café culture continues to increase matcha products’ reach across the socials. Matcha-runs, coffeeshop recreations and chic coffeeshop decor all inspire millions of pieces of UGC (user generated content) each month, bringing matcha products to a wider audience.

Recipe-based content is another popular format for growing a matcha-brand’s reach and engagement. Matcha-based smoothies, 8am lattes and home-baked goods bring matcha to a wider audience and give consumers new ways to experiment with matcha-based products.

From pricing strategies to business models, let’s explore the economics behind Gen Z’s favorite green tea. 

Pricing strategy

Matcha typically comes at a premium price point compared to coffee. Brands validate luxury pricing by emphasizing unique health benefits and premium sourcing, growing and manufacturing processes behind their products. 

Matcha lattes currently sit at around $6.15, up from $5.84 in 2024. A ceremonial-grade matcha from a known region often brings in upwards of $8.00 per drink. Research shows that consumers are often happy to spend more for a matcha-based drink, seeing it as a wellness purchase rather than a simple source of caffeine.

“In 2026, matcha is no longer a novelty menu addition—it is the single most profitable beverage category a café can launch. At Blank Street Coffee, matcha now accounts for 50% of total orders, with summer volumes overtaking coffee entirely in select stores. Black Sheep Coffee reported a 227% year-over-year lift in its iced category after expanding its matcha lineup. A properly engineered matcha latte delivers an 82.9% gross margin—nearly nine percentage points higher than a caffè latte.” - First Agri

When it comes to matching pricing, products are typically tiered by grade and origin. Let’s take a look at wholesale matcha prices by comparison: 

• Heritage or competition-grade matcha: $450–650+ per kg

• Ceremonial grade: $180–320 per kg

• Premium latte grade: $85–140 per kg

• Culinary grade: $55–80 per kg (Source: First Agri B2B 2026 wholesale pricing tiers, cited in One with Tea, "Best Matcha for Cafes and Restaurants: 2026 Guide," May 2026)

Online retail is the leading distribution channel when it comes to matcha, holding a 41.10% market share in 2025. These retailers typically include specialty tea stores, boutique cafés and premium online supermarkets — meeting consumers’ needs for quality and authenticity. 

Matcha’s vibrant green hue, coupled with its nutritional benefits, makes it easy to upsell across cafes and bakeries. Brands provide unique barista-made blends, green-hued bakes and ceremonial-grade signature teas – drawing in consumers with matcha’s cool aesthetic and nutritional appeal, lifting average transactional values. 

Limited-edition seasonal flavors are also a great way to drive sales by building a sense of exclusivity. Milk Bar x Jade Leaf Matcha launched a limited-edition Strawberry Matcha Cookie, offering the snack up for purchase for just 8 weeks. 

Business model

The global matcha market is valued at $3.91 billion, with matcha moving from specialty product to mainstream menu item — entering onto the menu in places like Jack in the Box and Philz Coffee. 

Matcha-based beverages deliver some of the highest margins. A matcha espresso shot uses just 2-3g of powder, costing an average of $0.30-0.45, whipping up a drink that sells for around $5.35-$7.00 — a margin over 85%. Even at ceremonial-tier matcha boasts a lower per-serving cost than a specialty espresso.

Brands can grow their matcha offerings and their revenue by moving into multiple product categories. Take UK brand Oato's limited-edition matcha oat milk which brought matcha to oat-milk-loving consumers via a modern “milk man” delivery service. 

With so many consumers looking to bring matcha into their daily lives to support their meditation routines and physical health, matcha is a great product for building subscription-based models. Monthly delivery subscriptions allow consumers to enjoy matcha at home without worrying about running out of product.

Cafés and coffeehouses can also grow their revenue by offering their premium matcha in take-home tins. 

A café customer buying a $19.50 tin of matcha powder for their home brews brings in around $16.15 in gross profit per transaction, with zero added labor costs.

Matcha benefits from premium positioning across channels. Consumers are willing to pay more for high-end matcha, prioritizing quality and taste over affordability. The premium matcha market The premium segment of the market is the fastest paced in the category — projected at an 8.5% CAGR from 2026–2033. 

Why consumers are willing to pay more

Why does matcha command such a high price point? Backed by the health halo effect, its rich historical origins and its unique zen-like health and wellness benefits: many consumers see matcha as a premium solution to several of their physical and mental health needs. 

Premium ingredients and product authenticity also drive higher price points, with consumers willing to pay more for “ceremonial grade”, grown in a traditional shade-grown approach and crafted using premium stone-milling techniques. 

Matcha’s ritual value is another draw for consumers. The ease of which matcha can be baked into consumers’ wellness routines continues to drive repeat sales for brands and retailers. Tea meditations and ceremonies make matcha feel like a ritualized aspect of consumers’ day-to-day wellness and self-care practices, encouraging them to spend more. 

Whether it's matcha’s perceived luxe functionality, premium nutrition or ties to zen-like wellness, matcha’s unique lifestyle associations make matcha seem like an everyday necessity for health, wellness and status-conscious consumers.

From family-owned brands selling ceremonial-grade matcha to mainstream coffee chains, here are some of the best matcha advertising strategies.

Social media strategy

Morning routine videos have become some of the most popular types of content for matcha's popularity. Matcha-boosted smoothies, mindful tea ceremonies and matcha-sprinkled granola all make for great, easy-viewing for curious, health-focused consumers. 

Matcha preparation tutorials are another traffic driver. The #matcharecipe hashtag collected over 500 million views in 2024 alone, with whisking and prep videos standing out as a top-performing format. In 2026, the hashtag is currently included in over 93.3k posts. 

Café aesthetics are a great complement to matcha’s visual appeal. Slow pours into glasses, green matcha-dusted ice cream and frothy matcha lattes give matcha its chic health halo, racking up hundreds of millions of views across the socials.

Matcha has become such a trend among Gen Z consumers because it allows them to signal their identity as health and wellness-savvy. Health and wellness content, from antioxidant-rich smoothie recipes to tea-based meditations, allow health-focused younger consumers to easily save, share and recreate matcha content online.  

“Day in the life,” creator content further adds to matcha’s appeal, allowing consumers to recreate the health and wellness routines of their favorite celebs and creators. YouTube creator Emma Chamberlain’s daily matcha lattes became the basis of her successful brand Chamberlain Coffee, showing how recreateable routine-based content is a key driver of product demand. 

Seasonal beverage launches also rack up millions of views and shares on social media. Take note from Café Kitsuné's Spring 2026 menu, which featured a limited-run Sakura Latte blending cherry blossom and matcha. Build up anticipation with consumers with a series of dedicated posts in the run up to a seasonal or limited-edition product drop. 

Creator marketing

Wellness influencers are central to a successful social media strategy. As we’ve seen, Gen Z regularly look to social media to build out their health and fitness routines, looking to TikTok and Instagram for post-workout recipes, energy-boosting breakfast smoothies and alternatives to coffee. Partnering with popular health, fitness and wellness influencers is a great way to bring your matcha products to  health-conscious consumers looking to pay more for high-quality premium matcha products. 

Emma Chamberlain’s previously-mentioned $22 million coffee brand has reportedly sold out of their signature ceremonial-grade matcha more than five times, showing the trust and influence online creators have to drive sales among their online following. Beyond Chamberlain’s influence, café reviewers and food-review creators were an essential part of the brand’s growth with hundreds of video reviews of the brand’s matcha and pastries amplifying reach online. 

Nutrition experts are another effective partner for building trust among health-conscious consumers. Knowledgeable, educated nutritionists and dietitians can inform consumers on the many health benefits of matcha and make trusted product recommendations on their socials. 

Deloitte reports that 61% of consumers say they have a, "High level of trust," in nutritionists and dietitians when it comes to getting reliable information on healthy food and beverages online, making them one of the most trusted health authorities outside of physicians. 

Matcha’s signature green hue and antioxidant properties have also made it a stand-out ingredient in the beauty space. Matcha hair products are growing at an impressive 10.2% annual growth rate. We’re also seeing, “matcha nails,” trending across Pinterest, TikTok and Instagram. This makes unexpected beauty influencer collaborations a great way to grow brand and product awareness: think creators pairing your premium matcha powder with a matcha manicure or homemade matcha facemask recipes. 

Campaigns that worked

Wellness-focused brand partnerships are another popular approach. Wellness resort Six Senses Kyoto partnered with specialist tea brand Ippodo Tea to bring consumers a limited-run Matcha Afternoon Tea. The Arts Shelf shares: 

"Guests begin with Gyokuro “Rinpou”, a cold-brewed tea selected for its rich umami flavour and delicate aroma. From there, the afternoon tea introduces a series of refined sweet and savoury creations that reinterpret classic Japanese ingredients through a contemporary lens.

Matcha and white chocolate scones sit alongside citrus tartlets, amazake verrines and marinated salmon trout wrapped with matcha, while desserts including hojicha cream daifuku and sencha dacquoise explore the depth and complexity of Japanese tea flavours."

Seasonal matcha beverages are one of the most effective ways to increase reach and engagement on social media. Think: summer matcha lemonades, limited-edition strawberry matcha shakes and festive gingerbread blends. 

Milk Bar released a Cereal Milk Matcha Latte for National Matcha Day 2026, inviting matcha-indulging consumers to celebrate the day with an exclusive limited-edition latte. Connecting the rollout to an official matcha holiday, Hachiju Hachiya or the "88th Night,” tea farmers' preferred date to start the matcha spring harvest, helped ensure the brand had max media coverage. 

Product sampling and experiential marketing allows consumers to try out matcha’s distinctive flavor profile before they buy, helping to overcome consumers’ hesitancy. While activations allow consumers to indulge in the matcha buzz before committing to a purchase. 

As a standout in matcha marketing, Method’s Mindful Matcha activation was one of the standouts for Coachella 2026. The activation invited consumers to try out the brand’s icy cryo blast inspired by its cooling matcha products inside a body-wash portal for a zingy festival refresh. If fans enjoyed the scent, they could pick up free samples on their way out of the activation. 

Retail or menu strategy

Matcha’s trending status primes consumers to value quality matcha more than standard menu items.  Tiered menus offering several different grades of matcha — including core, ceremonial-upgrade and seasonal blends — allow cafes and coffeehouses to offer matcha at a premium price point in relation to other coffees on their menus. 

Seasonal specials and limited-edition items are one of the most effective ways to drive more sales. Dunkin’s 2026 summer menu featured several Oreo-themed beverages, including a marshmallow matcha foam and cookie-swirl for their Oreo Matcha drink. Successful menu strategies often combine signature or seasonal beverages with snacks in the same flavor profile like matcha-infused cookies, waffles and cupcakes. 

Ready-to-drink (RTD) products is one of the fastest-growing sub-categories in the space. Experts predict this segment will grow at a 9.7% CAGR from 2026 to 2033. Grand View Research notes RTD matcha's unique convenience and accessibility for consumers, "Product innovation is significantly boosting the growth of the market for matcha tea by introducing diverse flavors and convenient formats that cater to evolving consumer preferences. Manufacturers are expanding their offerings beyond traditional matcha to include ready-to-drink (RTD) options and unique flavor combinations.

Format matters because it makes the functional benefits of matcha more easily accessible. For a busy person, mixing a sachet or grabbing an RTD is far more likely than starting a full tea ritual with bowl and whisk. Thus, format innovation serves adoption, not just packaging."

Experimental flavor profiles continue to successfully draw in new demographics outside of the health-conscious consumer blueprint. Fun sought-after flavors include matcha balanced by raspberry, acai, vanilla, coconut and caramel. 

As Grocery Gazette notes, matcha has quickly moved from niche health products, entering the mainstream FMCG market, as evidenced by matcha being included in popular products like Lindt’s chocolate truffles. While Nestle’s KitKat has expanded their line of popular matcha KitKats outside of Japan, bringing them to European consumers in limited-edition spinoffs. 

Successful retail brands effectively position matcha as a wellness product, highlighting its unique anti-oxidant and zen-inspiring L-theanine content in their displays to help differentiate matcha from standard teas and coffees.

From the power of daily rituals to the importance of price validation, matcha brands’ success offers several lessons for CPG and QSR brands and marketers. 

Lessons for CPG brands

Matcha brands show CPG brands how heritage can become a competitive advantage when modernized thoughtfully. Six Senses Kyoto’s afternoon tea experience with matcha tea company Ippodo Tea blended matcha’s rich heritage and centuries-long premium status with a chic, modernized afternoon tea experience. Successful brands often develop a premium feel around their products by making them feel both timeless and modern, functional and indulgent and established yet innovative. 

Best-selling matcha brands also show how wellness positioning is strongest when supported by a broader lifestyle story. YouTube creator Emma Chamberlain’s five-time sellout matcha shows the power of integrating a personal fitness and wellness backstory into a brand story.

These companies also highlight how premium packaging reinforces premium pricing. Luxe packaging and cool designs help reinstate matcha’s luxurious status for consumers, turning tins, bags and boxes into collectible items. 

Matcha is also proof that a single ingredient can unlock multiple product extensions across categories. As one of the biggest trending ingredients, matcha’s reigning popularity suggests other superfood ingredients could one day have a similar status among consumers. 

Lessons for QSR brands

Daily rituals create repeat purchase behavior. From TikTok content built around morning matcha routines to matcha lunchtime deals, the routinization of matcha continues to drive sales for matcha.

Matcha’s popularity also shows functional beverages can expand beyond coffee with unique flavor and nutritional profiles like matcha often performing better than the standard tea or coffee. 

As we’ve seen exclusive, limited-edition seasonal menu items build anticipation and excitement by creating a sense of scarcity and exclusivity. Seasonal menu innovation keeps established products fresh, turning a habitual matcha habit into something more exciting. 

Premium experiences don’t always require complex ingredients. Matcha is surprisingly affordable, sitting at just $0.30-$0.45 per 2-3g of powder, yet still commanding cult status among Gen Z and millennial consumers. 

Lessons for marketers

One of the biggest takeaways on matcha for marketers is the ingredient’s ability to support consumers’ aspiration fulfillment.

Better mental health, a healthier lifestyle or a way to show off status: matcha helps consumers fulfill a number of aspirations beyond the ingredient’s anti-oxidant and subtle caffeine hit. Marketers should build brands around aspirations, not just product benefits. Use a consumer insights platform like Zappi to test which consumer motivations — wellness, taste, ritual or status — drive purchase intent the most. 

Routine and rituals sell. Use creators to demonstrate products within everyday routines. Partner with micro influencers and educated experts like nutritionists and dietitians to build trust with your audience. 

Price validation is also important. Test price sensitivities and validate premium pricing through consumer research before launch. Find the optimal price point for maximizing revenue with Zappi’s price testing feature. 

Matcha’s success also shows the importance of an appealing aesthetic. From social posts to OOH advertising, invest in visual branding that encourages social sharing and reinforces perceived value.

What does the future of matcha look like? Over the next five years, expect to see the continual expansion of matcha-based functional beverages, from matcha-infused sugar-free sodas to matcha energy drinks. The market will continue to grow with premium ready-to-drink matcha products that offer consumers ease and convenience from artisan ready-to-drink lattes to iced tea. 

Consumers will look to AI-personalized nutritional recommendations to help them figure out how and when to bring matcha into their day-to-day nutrition, using AI to help them build personalized matcha plans that help them fulfill their health, fitness and wellbeing goals. 

Matcha will also become more predominant across the protein, hydration and wellness categories — enhancing products’ flavor and nutritional profiles, giving them a premium edge. 

Both matcha brands and consumers will put a greater emphasis on sustainability, sourcing transparency and ceremonial-quality products — reinforcing matcha’s premium status.