HeyJaredSpecialty Matcha Podcast
The Specialty Matcha Podcast is hosted by Ryan Ahn and Zongjun Li, cofounders of Sanko Matcha Products. We discuss the growth in popularity of matcha, innovation, and matcha science.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 10
- Latest publication
- Sep 10, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 9, 2026
Latest episodes
Interview with Lorela Lohan, WanderlusTea (opens the original)
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https://www.wanderlustea.com/ In this episode, Ryan talks with Lorela Lohan, founder of WanderlusTea, a Brussels-based consultancy for specialty tea businesses in Europe. Lorela has spent five years advising small and mid-sized tea brands on market research, margins, and positioning, has tasted over a hundred matchas in cafes from Amsterdam to Lisbon, and has published more than ninety interviews with tea founders on her site. Topics range from why matcha outran loose leaf tea in Europe, to what
Largest *Matcha Factory in the World (opens the original)
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*If you consider matcha produced from shaded Chinese-grown tencha as matcha. In this episode, cohosts Ryan and Zongjun (Sam) report from Tongren, Guizhou, after touring Guicha and driving another hour into the mountains to see the tea fields. Topics range from EU compliance testing and poverty alleviation economics, to high mountain matcha grown above 1,000 meters, to the made-up choreography of Song dynasty diancha and the 70:30 foam to liquid ratio their host insisted on. They also get into wh
Interview with Maren Fichter, Tea Educator and Writer (opens the original)
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In this episode, cohosts Ryan and Zongjun (Sam) talk with Maren Fichter, a tea educator and writer whose Substack Tea & all the rest covers farming, heritage, tourism, and education in specialty tea. She has worked with tea in Japan, China, the US, and the UK, develops and teaches the Matcha Power unit on the UK Tea Academy's Tea Sommelier course, and is currently based in Wazuka, Kyoto, where she works at Obubu Tea Farms. Maren thinks about tea knowledge as a web, where a term only means someth
Interview with Jeff Fuchs, Tea Explorer (opens the original)
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https://www.jefffuchs.com/ In this episode, cohosts Ryan and Zongjun (Sam) are joined by Jeff Fuchs, author of The Ancient Tea Horse Road and the first documented westerner to trek both main trunks of the route, fresh off filming with tea producers in Kyoto Prefecture. Topics range from the precision of herring meal fertilization, to whether shaded teas are terroir driven at all, the hijacking of the word ceremonial, old trees and zairai in Japan versus gushu in Yunnan, and what happened when Je
Opinion: Where is all the perspective? (opens the original)
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https://open.spotify.com/episode/4uIvpxzwyVbQRTeRrnrlvW?si=KqUfE4DJQFmM0Tw6Cue9Lg Ryan and Zongjun (Sam) discuss the lack of unique perspective in contemporary matcha branding. Topics range from the emerging specialty matcha playbook, to chanoyu as a source of inspiration and a trap, the equipment and access barriers that limit experimentation, and why taking a risk in this industry is so expensive.
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