Matcha, a Japanese drink made of finely ground green tea leaves, has been one of Andrews University students’ recent obsessions. If you’ve seen people walking around campus holding cups of this green beverage, you may be wondering where it came from.
Four friends, Natalia Poloche (sophomore, biology), Stephanie Ferreira (junior, marketing), Melannie Ferreira (junior, Spanish and graphic design) and Sarah Aguirre (psychology and Spanish), were sitting around chatting one evening and decided that they should do something about their shared love for matcha. Their idea began as “Matcha 4 U,” an Instagram account with the handle @matcha4uuu.
The account was initially a platform for the four to post about the drinks they were making, but their idea quickly evolved when ARC Vintage, an Andrews student-run online thrift business, reached out to the girls to ask if they would do a pop-up at their flea market at the Campus Center to serve matcha to shoppers. Matcha 4 U agreed, and the event was a huge success.
Soon after, Matcha 4 U was invited to sell at the HYVE Conference, an entrepreneurial event held at the Howard Performing Arts Center. More recently, Matcha 4 U has had pop-up booths at the International Food Fair and at the SASA Cultural Night, and continues to be a huge success.
Matcha is “a beautiful art—the whole process of making it … the history behind it, the whole cultivating and harvesting process is actually really cool too,” said Natalia.
Matcha leaves are grown with the rest of the green tea leaves at first, but around three to four weeks out from their harvest, they are put under shade. This way, the chloroplasts and amino acids begin to concentrate, giving matcha its rich green color. From there, the top third of the leaves are harvested, dried and sent to a mill to be ground into fine powder.
The most popular way to drink matcha in the U.S. is as a latte. First, you take the powder and sift it to ensure there are no clumps that would settle to the bottom of the drink. Then, you whisk it together with some warm water to make a paste, which is then poured over a milk of choice.
Matcha 4 U has been busy crafting new drinks and other matcha flavored snacks. They get inspiration from social media and from ideas given to them by their followers on social media. From there, it's a lot of trial and error.
“We’ve also done things like taste-test parties, like at my house we’ll make X amount of things, whether it's pastries or drinks, and then invite people over and get their honest feedback,” said Natalia.
Their goal is to create a menu that everyone enjoys. So far, that includes drinks with a variety of milk bases and cold foams, cookies, matcha-dipped strawberries and more, but they are continuing to create more options.
Matcha 4 U has big plans for the future as well. Over the summer, you can expect to see more matcha-themed content on their social media, and when classes resume in the fall, they will begin serving matcha at various events again. One of their main goals for the upcoming school year is to have a pop-up of their own.
Each of the co-founders has a particular reason they love being part of Matcha 4 U.
“I love the marketing so much. Creating the content and getting the word out is like my favorite part of this. … It's so fun to see all the people that come, and the feedback they have, and the fact that they love it so much is just so rewarding,” said Stephanie.
Natalia said the best part for her is “being able to make the drink for someone, and hear …‘Oh this actually does taste good!’” She said that many people have bad first experiences with matcha, so to make them a drink they enjoy is especially fun.
The four girls also find it important to incorporate their faith into the business. Matcha 4 U has chosen Psalm 34:8 as their theme verse, which reads, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Even if they are not directly ministering to people, they hope that their character can be a reflection of Christ that their customers will be able to experience.
“At the end of the day,” said Stephanie, “what’s the point of this if we’re not, you know, ministering in some kind of way?”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.