About 40 identical white cups of matcha were set out on a table, devoid of labels, origins and reputation.

One by one, veteran tea merchants and researchers lifted the cups to their noses, inhaled deeply and let the tea settle on their tongues.

At the blind tasting in late January in a city adjacent to Uji, Japan’s tea capital, centuries of Japanese tea pride were matched up against the fast-rising upstarts from China.

It was an unspoken contest, unfolding in a quiet but taut atmosphere scented with the grassy sweetness of whisked tea.

As the seasoned judges scored roughly 40 matcha samples from different production areas— half from Japan and half from China—they murmured their impressions almost involuntarily.

“This one’s much too astringent.”

“The aroma is nice.”

Each sample was graded on a 10-point scale.

“When we line them up from best to worst, I want to see how far the Chinese ones break into the top ranks,” said one veteran tea merchant.

Tea and the custom of tea‑drinking were already known in Japan earlier, but the Zen monk Eisai (1141-1215) is credited with bringing back refined tea cultivation and Song‑style tea‑drinking customs from China.

Arriving in the early Kamakura Period (1185–1333)—Japan's first era of samurai rule—Eisai’s influence established the foundations of Japanese tea culture.

In the Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1573-1603), when Japan was unified under powerful warlords, a new method of tea cultivation known as shade-growing emerged in Uji, laying the groundwork for modern matcha. It is a tradition Japan has nurtured for more than 500 years.

It is unusual for Japanese tea experts to conduct such a large-scale tasting of Chinese matcha. The exercise reflected both growing interest in—and a rising wariness toward—China’s matcha.

Then the results came in.

All seven samples that received the highest marks—scores of 9 or 10 for aroma and flavor— were Japanese. But once the rankings reached the 8-point range, Chinese matcha began appearing one after another.

A tea merchant from Uji, the undisputed crown jewel of high-grade matcha, could not hide his surprise.

“I had assumed Chinese matcha was inferior, but a few of the top-ranked ones were honestly a shock. They were that good.”

Matcha is now so popular worldwide that some in the industry speak of a “matcha bubble.” Matcha lattes made with milk or coconut milk, along with matcha-flavored sweets, are at the center of the boom.

Unfamiliar styles rarely seen in Japan—such as mixing matcha with coffee—are also spreading.

Driven by the surging global demand for matcha, Japan’s overall green tea exports surpassed 10,000 tons in 2025 for the first time in 71 years. Export value rose 98.2 percent from the previous year to 35.7 billion yen ($223.6 million), the biggest increase among all agricultural and marine products.

The government hopes to capitalize on the global matcha boom to push tea exports even higher.

But Yoriyuki Nakamura, 73, director of the Tea Science Center at the University of Shizuoka, issued a warning.

“Chinese matcha will become a real threat,” he said. “Japan needs to think carefully about how to differentiate its matcha from its Chinese rivals in overseas markets.”

Six years ago, when Nakamura analyzed Chinese matcha, he found that “its color and umami components were inferior—clearly a lower level than Japanese matcha.”

That has changed quickly.

In recent years, Japanese technicians have traveled to China to provide guidance, while China’s matcha industry has expanded rapidly on the back of heavy investment in production facilities.

There are no official statistics, but Nakamura estimates that China now produces more than 5,000 tons of matcha a year.

Chinese output already rivals Japan’s and is certain to surpass it, Nakamura said.

A Kansai-based expert who has spent nearly a decade advising matcha producers in China described the scale of the country’s expansion.

“There are vast tea fields stretching from one end of the mountains to the other, so large you cannot even see the boundaries,” he said. “The government provides strong policy support, investment is on a completely different scale from Japan, and Western companies are coming to China to buy matcha as a raw material for lattes.”

Yasuzo Tsutsumi, 59, director of the “Kyotofu Chagyo Kenkyusho” (Kyoto prefectural tea industry research institute), is also closely watching the rise of Chinese matcha.

Chinese matcha, he said, “still cannot match Japan’s finest tea ceremony-grade products. But when it comes to matcha for lattes or food processing, it is possible that they have already caught us in quality.”

Chinese matcha is also cheap. Some products sell for less than half the price of Japanese matcha.

And while China is rapidly expanding production, fueled by vast farmland and heavy investment, Japan’s matcha industry faces structural constraints, including limited agricultural land and an aging farming population.

Even amid the boom, sharply boosting output is no easy task.

“Japan cannot win if this becomes a price competition with Chinese matcha,” Nakamura said. “We must keep improving tea cultivars and production techniques, and pursue the kind of differentiation that makes the world choose Japanese matcha.”