For many students, waking up at 5 a.m. is reserved for sports practice or a last-minute study session. But for senior Sophia Lee, there is another reason: matcha.
“One time I was trying to buy [matcha] because I really needed a bag … and I literally woke up at 5 a.m. because that’s when [the brand does a] restock,” said Lee. “I was scrolling on the website for it to restock … and I missed it two days in a row because I was too slow, but the third day I got it.”
The matcha industry has been experiencing a shortage since 2024. Matcha is produced in several regions of Japan and is made from green tea leaves called tencha, which are ground into a powder and sold to consumers.
The average price of tencha at the Kyoto wholesale market increased about 170 percent from 2024 to 2025, said David Lavecchia, co-founder of Tezumi, a Japanese tea and teaware company.
More people started traveling to Japan to get their tea, and famous brands that had been producing tea for hundreds of years suddenly went viral on social media, Lavecchia said.
“These producers started running out of tea, which was something that doesn’t happen very often,” Lavecchia said.
Lee bought matcha from a Kyoto brand called Ippodo Tea when she visited Japan for the first time.
“I really liked it,” said Lee. “Then they increased their prices because of the shortage. Now it’s like $100 for a bag, but before it was like $50.”
ALTEA Viet Coffee & Boba, a coffee shop in Mount Prospect, opened around the time the matcha shortage began.
“We personally had to switch [matcha] suppliers three different times [from] our main supplier,” said co-owner Chris Tong.
“We always go back to [our main supplier] once they have a new supply.”
“I feel like not just us, but other cafes as well, have really started to feel the heat recently, where [matcha] is not [as] available anymore as it used to be,” Tong said.
According to Lavecchia, most of the matcha grown in Japan during the past 100 years has been grown by small farmers, primarily for tea ceremony practitioners or tea enthusiasts.
That farming and hand picking which are labor-intensive are not scalable in the way overseas demand needs it to be, Lavecchia said.
According to Lee, she doesn’t see herself abandoning matcha anytime soon.
“I love the taste of matcha, and I especially love how it can be prepared in many different ways, such as usucha [Japanese for thin tea], lattes or even in snacks,” said Lee. “So if I ever get bored of it, I can just try it in a different recipe.”