Since 1975
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • Home
  • Features
  • Japanese national offers products to promote Matcha in the UAE

Japanese national offers products to promote Matcha in the UAE

Through her initiative, she familiarizes UAE nationals with a quintessential Japanese product and practice. (Megumi Matcha)
Through her initiative, she familiarizes UAE nationals with a quintessential Japanese product and practice. (Megumi Matcha)
Through her initiative, she familiarizes UAE nationals with a quintessential Japanese product and practice. (Megumi Matcha)
Through her initiative, she familiarizes UAE nationals with a quintessential Japanese product and practice. (Megumi Matcha)
Short Url:
08 Sep 2022 12:09:39 GMT9
08 Sep 2022 12:09:39 GMT9

Shams El-Mutwalli

DUBAI: Matcha has earned a prominent place in the UAE as restaurants, entrepreneurs and cafes have begun integrating this staple Japanese ingredient into their products—one of which being founder of online matcha shop, Rie Shibata.

Shibata launched Megumi Matcha, an online store selling matcha powder, and related products to customers in the UAE.

“I wanted to make it simple,” she said, expressing how she didn’t want people to come to the shop and face confusion on what tea to choose. The founder only offers Ceremonial Matcha, which is “the highest grade of matcha—very smooth and sweet.”

Customers can also purchase supporting tools like the traditional ‘chasen,’ made from bamboo and resembling a whisk used in the matcha making process.

The tool “is traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies to prepare perfectly smooth matcha. Handcrafted from a single piece of winter-hardened bamboo by specialist chasen artisans in a family workshop that has been crafting these ceremonial masterpieces for generations, each traditional bamboo chasen is truly a unique work of art,” the Megumi Matcha website states.

Customers can also purchase a bamboo ‘chashaku,’ used to help measure and scoop up the right serving of matcha.

“Its elegantly curved shape is specially designed to gracefully hold and dispense the fine powder,” the website shares.

While providing matcha to customers in the UAE is integral to Megumi Matcha’s mission, the small business also takes steps to support other women-owned businesses.’

She sources matcha from a women-owned farm located in Wazuka, Kyoto called Kirokuen.

Aside from selling products, Shibata also holds workshops at coffee shops to spread awareness about the benefits of matcha, “people know about matcha but they don’t really know” the traditional way to make it, she shared.

topics
Most Popular
Recommended

return to top