Brands like Chotto Matcha are riding a wave of popularity in the powdered green tea overseas.

Japan’s green tea exports reached their highest levels in over 70 years in 2025, driven by an as yet unquenched thirst for matcha among consumers abroad and a weak Japanese yen.

Japan exported 11,331 tons of tea between January and November, up 45.8 percent from the same period the previous year, according to government and industry data. Powdered tea accounted for 69 percent. Exports to the Philippines increased by 7.8 percent over the same period to 144 tons.

But the sisters say they want to grow Chotto Matcha in a sustainable way, creating stable supply chains and empowering tea farmers and others in the long run.

The brand name itself -- a play on the Japanese term “chotto matte,” or wait a minute -- they say is a call for customers to pause and enjoy matcha culture as well as consider where the tea has come from.

The sisters described themselves as student entrepreneurs when they first began pitching their business plan for Chotto Matcha to support programs and contests for entrepreneurs around three years ago.

Sakura was at university in the Philippines while also studying to become a pilot. Misaki was studying at the University of California, Berkeley, following a period of study in Armenia.

Years living abroad, the pair say, helped them to understand the importance of Japanese heritage and values.

Their aim was to support farmers near the home of their grandparents in Fuji, a city at the foot of Mt. Fuji, in Shizuoka Prefecture, whose tea-growing traditions the sisters say face challenges related to depopulation and decreasing domestic demand for tea, among others.

Early support for the brand included from the Acceleration Program in Tokyo for Women, a program run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to support women in starting businesses.

“We were just young and lost,” Sakura said of their early experiences in getting the brand started. 

“It was a case of trial and error. We started one by one, bit by bit. That's how business grew,” Misaki said.

While opening a matcha cafe in Tokyo might appear to be going in reverse order for the brand, the sisters believe that matcha culture from the Philippines has something new to offer the traditions behind tea in Japan.

“When you start a business in a traditional place like Asakusa there is always going to be opposition. But for us to help traditional culture survive in the modern era, we need to refine it,” Sakura said.

“That's what we learned in the Philippines -- that any kind of fusion can be adapted for the local community as long as we listen to what the customers want.”

This article was submitted by a contributing writer for publication on Japan Wire.