#Aiya matcha tea professional

“Jewish communities have very stringent food regulations. The company has also received kosher certification, which comes in useful when exporting to the American market. After the disaster last March, Aiya paid a German company to carry out thorough tests for radiation on all its tea. That is why we put so much effort into informing the public about our safety and production procedures.”Īiya takes safety seriously. “We offer a product that is affordable and delicious while encapsulating traditional Japanese cultural values. “Consumers overseas tend to have very high standards when it comes to product safety,” notes Sugita. Running checks on color variation, moisture, and particle size is an essential part of ensuring high quality. Giving Customers the Information They Need Many companies never recovered from the blow. The nuclear crisis in Fukushima made consumers around the world wary of Japanese produce, regardless of what part of the country it happened to come from. The triple disaster that hit Tōhoku in March 2011 was particularly devastating for the Japanese food and drink industry. This dedication to detail is an essential part of Aiya’s corporate philosophy, and a core element of what the company president calls “Aiya-ism.”īut no matter how impressive a company’s corporate philosophy may be, there is no way to guard against natural disasters.

I don’t want to cheat our customers by offering counterfeit matcha.”Īiya uses the same rare stone mills and exactly the same production processes in its new undertaking in China as back home in Japan. This spirit of dedication is what supports Japanese craftsmanship. We want to do everything we can to offer a product of outstanding quality.

#Aiya matcha tea professional

“And it’s a golden rule in every business that a professional must never take advantage of an amateur. “When it comes to matcha, we are professionals,” Sugita says.

This is a company that is determined to compete on a global level without compromising the high levels of craftsmanship honed over the course of generations. But the people at Aiya are too proud of their product to cut corners. Like any company, Aiya could shorten the production process and prioritize efficiency over quality and safety. We have excellent standards of sanitation throughout our factory area, too, to make sure that there is no contamination during the production process.” For this reason we keep the matcha in what we call the ‘clean room,’ a sterilized environment where humidity and temperature are kept at a constant level. But this spoils the quality of the leaves. “If there are bacteria in the air, we have to be very stringent about sterilizing everything with heat. With concerns over food safety high among the public, consumers have strict standards when it comes to the use of chemical pesticides and contamination during the production process. Only traditionally trained craftsmen have the skills necessary to maintain the hand mills used to grind the leaves. There are perhaps ten people in the whole of Japan who have the necessary skills to perform upkeep on these mills. Keeping the mills running smoothly is highly skilled work. This takes time-a single mill can produce only around 40 grams of powder an hour. This produces a fine powder with particles that are just micro-millimeters in size. “To bring out these elements to their best advantage, the finest leaves are selected from the bush and ground into a fine powder using a special stone hand mill. “There are three key elements to the matcha experience: color, flavor, and aroma,” says Aiya’s president, Sugita Yoshio. What are the qualities that have enabled Aiya to take a product as distinctively Japanese as matcha tea and transform it into a new global standard?

Recently, the company has expanded far beyond its traditional market, brining the fine bouquet and flavors of matcha tea to new audiences around the world. has been producing and selling tea here for more than 120 years. And the matcha grown in the rich, fertile soil of the Yahagi River valley is the finest of all. Used in the traditional tea ceremony, matcha is generally regarded as the pinnacle of Japanese teas, offering a rich and subtle range of deep, sweet flavors. The Craft that Goes into a Matchless Cup of Matchaīlessed with a mild climate, the city of Nishio in Aichi Prefecture is famous as Japan’s major producer of the finely powdered green tea known as matcha.