News article
Established Tea Maker Shuns Plain Matcha, Launches Fruit Flavors—Overseas Inquiries Surge
Kakegawa Ippondō, a 94-year-old Shizuoka tea manufacturer, has shifted away from selling conventional matcha in favor of fruit-flavored and mixed-category products—including coffee beans roasted in-house and hojicha-coffee blends. The strategy, driven by market-in product development that responds to local customer demand rather than tea-industry convention, has generated a surge of overseas inquiries. The company frames the pivot as a challenge to position Japanese tea produ…
「抹茶なのにイチゴ味?」海外から問い合わせ殺到 「普通の抹茶は売らない」老舗製茶メーカーの挑戦が世界を驚かせた - Yahoo!ニュース
Key points
- Kakegawa Ippondō (est. 1930, Shizuoka) has ceased stocking plain matcha; fruit-flavored matcha variants now dominate its…
- The company roasts coffee beans in-house and produces blended items (hojicha-coffee) alongside tea, treating the categor…
- Market-in approach: products designed around what overseas and local customers want, not tea-industry norms.
- Overseas inquiries have surged in response to the flavored-matcha and mixed-category strategy.
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About this article
The numbers
Year of establishment: 94 years ago
What they said
“Our approach is market-in: we develop product concepts by exploring what local customers actually want, rather than imposing a preset idea.”
弊社が取り組んでいるスタイルというのが、マーケットインといいまして、商品コンセプトが現地のお客さんが欲しいって思えるものを模索しながら作っているという。
“Products people walking past can casually pick up with the thought 'if it's that easy to drink, I'll grab one.' We want to offer that kind of ease as a genuine Japanese product.”
道を歩く人も『そんな簡単に飲めるなら１個買っていこうかしら』というぐらいのノリで買うことができるような商品。そこのところを日本のちゃんとした商品として、我々も提案できたらいいなと思ってます
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