Going beyond matcha mania to soak up lessons in tradition and culture

Reflections on the trend as I journey from buying green tea lattes to making my own

- Sharon Salim

Like many others, I got hooked on the summer drink of the season that is strawberry matcha latte.

It's a wonderful mix of sweet and sour from the fruit, with slight bitterness from the matcha. It's a genius combination, whoever came up with it.

All it took was a cup which I bought from a cosy neighbourhood cafe, before it became a habit of mine to actively hunt for the best ones on weekends. Popular beverage chains like Starbucks and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf were rolling out their own versions of the drink, too. Almost every other bubble tea joint, including one near my flat, was also jumping on the bandwagon, making it available everywhere.

The places I frequented, which sell the iced drink for between $10 and $12.90 a cup, have in my book nailed the most ideal ratio of strawberry puree to matcha to milk.

Social media definitely played a part in driving the obsession. It wasn't long before I started seeing Instagram stories and reels of friends attempting to create their own matcha lattes at home.

Plus, my Instagram Explore page was inundated with matcha-related content, from matcha-pouring videos to how-to posts on matcha fusion recipes.

There are even accounts fully dedicated to the experimentation of coupling matcha with other flavours or ingredients like mango, blueberry, coffee and coconut water. US-based TikTok user @kaitlinzheng is one of them - her most-viewed video on "four things you need to make matcha at home" racked up 2.7 million views on the platform.

About 202 million posts on TikTok and 9.1 million posts on Instagram are tagged to #matcha - yes, that's how photogenic the bright, creamy green is.

I started going down the rabbit hole of watching people make their own drink, from brewing their own Earl Grey syrup as a sweetener to using an electric whisk to blend matcha with hot water. I am sure it was a classic case of Fomo - the fear of missing out - and wanting to join in on the trend.