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Updated 8.31pm
COFFEE COULD BE about to lose its centuries-old hold on Western society in favour of a strange green liquid from east Asia.
It doesn’t really sound like something that the Irish would be into. We like a nice cup of tea, maybe a coffee for some, and view strange flavoured blends with suspicion and skepticism, branding them as ‘notions’.
Despite that, and after being mainly relegated to the shelves of health food shops during the recession, a drink dubbed ‘green cocaine’ by food blog Lovin’ Dublin is starting to gain a foothold on the Irish market
Matcha is a strain of high-quality and pricey green tea, grown partially in darkness before it is harvested, and was originally used in tea ceremonies by Zen Buddhist monks who valued its unusual properties.
Energy boost
It provides an energy boost of up to six hours in a similar but less intense way to caffeinated drinks, with less jitters and no crash. As it contains a large amount of an amino acid known as l-theanine, it also focuses and calms the mind.
Because of this ability to energise the body but calm and concentrate the mind, the aforementioned monks were mad for it.
In Japan today, matcha is used as a flavouring in everything from ice cream to Kit Kats, occasionally in traditional tea ceremonies, although natives will stick to more common blends of green tea for day-to-day drinking.
Needless to say, other cultures are getting in on the act, as it was ripe to tap into the busy modern world’s craving for health, fitness, and energy. You can now get matcha lattes in cafes like Starbucks, and is attracting more casual drinkers.
One cafe in Dublin, Kaph on Drury Street, is now selling 300 matcha lattes a week, and occasionally one in 10 drinks sold every morning could be matcha.
“Curiosity factor”
“There’s definitely a curiosity factor involved,” manager Chris Keegan said.
“You have people coming in and seeing a poster about it pinned up beside the counter and saying ‘Hey, I’ve read about this stuff, what is it like?’ We also serve some paleo foods, and that seems to attract a whole group who are also into it.”
Around the corner is health food shop Nutri in George’s Street Arcade, who have seen sales increasing since 2013.
“You also find that people will start on the weakest blend, then come back for the next one up, and so on,” owner Mark Cullen said.
Now, 2014 looks to be matcha’s year.
“Everything is really starting to kick off,” Kevin O’Keeffe told TheJournal.ie.
His 3-man Irish company, Koyu Matcha Tea, first starting selling the tea in 2008, and were one of the few, if not the first, to import it for the UK and Irish market.
Since then, the company has become one of the manufactures of choice for health and fine food shops across the British Isles, and has started exporting to Malta and Kuwait. They even have their sights set on Scandinavia.
Koyu sell the tea in a small tin, advising that it can be drunk with hot water, juice, or milk, and even added as a powder to cereal or yogurt.
“Obsessed”
“I lived in Japan for six years and learned that the Japanese were obsessed with two things: – a brand of insanely good doughnuts, and matcha lattes,” O’Keeffe said.
“Every ex-pat I knew was addicted to the stuff. When I started to look into it, I discovered the health benefits… that blew me away and it was a no-brainer to try to start selling it here.”
Those health effects is what first caused a buzz about the drink. It has risen to popularity since mid-2012 on the back of reports that aside from giving you a calm buzz, it has strikingly high amounts of antioxidants.
One study has put this figure at 137 times the amount found in a cup of regular green tea.
“This may be a good thing, and it may not,” dietitian Orla Walsh from the Dublin Nutrition Clinic explained after taking a look at matcha.
“With all nutrients, you can ingest too much, that is why we have safe upper limits for nutrients. However, there is no set upper or lower limit for EGCG, the antioxidant in this tea, .”
These differences in health benefits between it and normal green tea are thought to be due to it being a powdered green tea leaf – which is consumed – instead of simply a leaf steeped in water.
Nutrition
“This will increase the amount of nutrition you will be getting from your cup of tea,” Walsh said, “including vitamins, mineral and fibre.”
“Four grams of fibre per mug is good considering the aim is for 24 grams of fibre per day. However, a single food won’t supply you with all the nutrition that you require, so variation is still key.”
Others have claimed that the drink results in weight loss, although Walsh said it is unlikely to provide this effect.
The tea is also reportedly a way of reducing stress and anxiety dramatically, something already linked with the amino acid l-thanine found in green tea.
A study published in science journal Biological Psychology found this to have “anti-stress effects” – oh, and by Bressie as well.
TheJournal.ie sampled matcha in a couple of forms. A small amount was whisked in cold water, before being topped up warm water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar, it tasted like a strong green tea, nothing too unpleasant despite its radioactive green appearance.
The latte wasn’t quite to our taste, and was an experience that reminded us of a trip to the seaside – tastes of seaweed, salt water, a bit of sand, but none the less was oddly refreshing and and almost satisfying.
Buzz
Both resulted in a coffee-like buzz, but more calm and focused – similar to a good night’s sleep.
Working out as roughly 80 cent per cup, it is on the dear side, but still cheaper than most take-away drinks.
We survived the experience, but who should be careful?
“It may not be advisable to people who are very sensitive to caffeine, if you have IBS, high blood pressure, anxiety disorders, or are pregnant,” Orla Walsh said.
“I would suggest, if someone wishes to try this tea, to start on half a cup in the morning, and to watch out for any adverse symptoms. I would not recommend having more than one cup per day.”
While this growing for matcha could prove to be a passing fad, it appears as though there is some truth to the drinks health benefits and coffee-like effects.
“People are reporting incredible results to us in testimonials they submit to us,” O’Keeffe said, “Some are even claiming it has changed their life by giving them a lot more energy.
“Some even say it has helped them when recovering from long-term or serious illnesses. Others used is a hangover cure, mixing it with some orange juice before they go to bed.”
Right now, O’Keeffe’s company is working on more variations of matcha. It could be taking a further hold on Irish tea drinkers in the months to come.
Originally published 6.30pm
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Cut to welfare when caught would also be good!
@Paul: What a stupid comment .
Who said it was only people on welfare dumping their s..t around the place.
@Paul: had to make the first comment no matter how stupid it sounded. Congratulations
@Paul: I doubt all those who dump their own rubbish are on welfare.
You also have to go after those who pay peanuts to people to clear out gardens etc. This material is only going to end up in one place.
@Paul: Say your correct with just the welfare class dumping. What’s the solution for those that can’t afford the bin charges? Live with the build up of rubbish and rats or find a way to rid the rubbish!
What has FF FG LIEBOUR done with the USC, PROPERTY TAX? We get zilch. Banks get all. I would suggest your suggestion of taking money from those struggling already will bring about the result a person like you fears. Carful what you wish for ;)
@Willy Malone: ‘we get zilch’ patently false.
@Michael Maher: Guaranteed majority are welfare recipients (spongers)
@Michael Maher: well they are hardly going to pay a fine if they are on the welfare so target the welfare. Like so fines that go unpaid they know the prisons will only hold on to them for an hour or too in leiu
@Willy Malone: who gets zilch??? Those who actively sponge the welfare and bleed it dry and not those genuinely on it get their arses wiped for them by the state. Drive up around shancastle or green fort by liffey Valley. Same crowd just send the kids to rhe field with rubbish to burn knowing Dam well the council will clean it up while the decent people in the area suffer living in a tip
@Gerard Burke: Its the Irish people that are wrong there is a lot of filthy people in all walks of life. Those who buy the most dump the most legal or illegal.Just like our lovely countryside is being destroyed by ignorant urban based drivers who throw their trash out the windows of their cars.
@Gerard Burke: Might be but not them all there is a lot more people working than on welfare.
It’s their culture boss
@Tony Maguire: how is this going to work – a quadcopter drone can only fly for 20 minutes at a time. who is going to fly them?
The government brought this dumping on us by give the bin companies carte blanche… Now huge swathes of people across the country will have to find ways of ridding their rubbish. Privatisation, the FF FG LIEBOUR way has detrimental consequences on our countryside and Drones ain’t gonna fix it.. Naughton you really should not be in government…
@Willy Malone: Of course, no-one ever dumped or littered before private bin companies. The country was spotless in the 80s and 90s…
Big brother FG won’t give anything for LPT like bin service etc
@Willy Malone: you do know that it was county councils that privatised bin collection, not central government.
@Willy Malone: Silly comment. You are making excuses for the rat bags that dump their rubbish all over the place. Its not the governments, council or anyone else’s fault. These people are pure lazy. If they can afford a car or van to bring their rubbish to a secluded area why cant they pay for their bins? But hey according to you its somebody else’s fault.
@Coco86: spending €2m euro on drones and operators is a bit far fetched. Even with evidence it’s hard to get a conviction.
@George Salter: i challenge anyone to try get any bin company to pick up 3 full black bags.
i helped clean up a rental property and we had 3 large black bags to get rid of phoned every company servicing the area. green star. thorntons and panda. none will pick up a once off collection, must have a contract which has standing charge and you must leave a deposit. i asked they said i would have to take 3 bins green brown and general bin fill the general rubbish which doesn’t fit 3 bags so i would have to be there when they arrive to ask to refill the general bin for the second time and then phone them back and cancel the contract and pay the years standing charge. Crazy i know i could go to the dump. but i didn’t want the smelly dirt bags in my car
@David Cullen: True. But I fail to see how this supports or refutes my comment above?
@David Cullen: Aren’t there small skips you can hire on a once-off basis?
When they are caught a years worth of community service cleaning up rubbish would sort this out fairly lively
@Shane Carroll: Great idea, for low impact crimes have those clean up the place too.
Drones my arse, there is a site near me where every month the council collects burnt out cars , burnt out caravans and the rubbish that is stacked on the street just outside the site. The rubbish is stacked under the Garda CCTV camera pole. what more do they want ?
@Ireland Just shoot me: More cameras and more staff to look at them. Blurry ones will suffice.
Hillarious and ludicrous at the same time, are they seriously suggesting €2M will help tackle this scourge, I can just picture the scene, some clown hiding in dark woods trying to use a drone. Just saw the 2 ministers on six one, god almighty is this really the best government has to offer, they appeared to be on a canvassing tour. Buffoons, completely out of their depth
I’d love to know what the return on investment is. Most people caught never get prosecuted. 2m would go a long way to hire people to clean the place up.
quad/octo copter drones with flashing lights are not exactly covert, they’re actually very noisy.
how are they gonna catch anyone? fly tipping is done mostly at night. will they have night vision cameras? will they have a docking station to recharge?
and whats all that satellite jazz? did we finally manage to put a massey ferguson up in space while my back was turned?
what kind of stupidity is that welfare recipients are not the only people dumping They are not dumping waste into rivers that result in huge fish kills. plastics into our oceans or farm waste like the yards of thick black plastic you find blown up the mountains from nearby farms. I was recently on the knockmealdown mountains and somebody tipped a trailer of about 40 tyres on the mountain side.
@Ireland Just shoot me: and font forget the 40 odd urban councils pumping raw sewage into the watercourses up and down the country…..who’s sh!t is that! If you’re going to blatantly try and point the finger at one community, list them all! Our roadsides are full of litter thrown from cars and other vehicles, our beaches are littered every fine summers days with nappies, dog sh!t and even human sh!t! The people who illegally dump are nothing but filthy s€um no matter who they are. Blaming bin charges is one of the pathetic excuses I see on every story regarding it, I grew up in the early 80′s and our bog road was the local dump! There were no bin charges back then and yet people dumped illegally…..dirt breeds dirt and we still have plenty of dirt dumping!
Prosecute the livin jaysus out of the ones they catch, a clip on the ear doesn’t work as a deterrent, minimum €1000.00 fine first offence & yeah, taken out of welfare if need by.
@Rodger 5: The article seems to be saying that people are paying unlicensed operators to take their rubbish away and they’re just dumping it. Individuals aren’t doing this. They’re dumping several bags at once, and ripping people off instead of the service they claimed to provide.
No doubt they’ll waste 50% of The announced budget on Box Ticking red tape by unaccountable civil servants
@Randal McNally: No, they won’t. The staff are already there and paid for. But, sure, why not throw in an uninformed comment for the craic.
Name & Shame the S(um won’t make a difference. It only advertise how easy you can get away with it. I work in a Ind Est in Tallaght. It’s an embarrassment. A company in the Ind Est wittiness this act. When confronting & alerting the Guards. The response was “ Call them, We Don’t Care”.
Big brother FG
Waste Management is too important to be left to the Private Sector!
They are incapable of managing it at a societal level, the result is a risk to public health!
Big brother FG
Why? What is Joan Burton going to do about it?
@Father Hody Commody: Was about to congratulate her for finally coming in useful for something..
@Vigo the Carpathian: Hey Vigo, you’re on the SyFy channel!
Maybe if they made rubbish disposal more affordable for people they wouldn’t need drones.
The majority of dumping is at night.. so how will drones help then.. daft idea..and another waste of money.
A go pro camera doesnt make any noise
Gosh!
Create Open Data on Litter / Dumping / plastic pollution anywhere @ OpenLitterMap.com and “mine” Littercoin
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