Our Story

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Sawasdee Matcha began with a Thai lady who really, really loves matcha.

I have been drinking matcha for over 15 years. Growing up in Bangkok, finding a delicious cup was never difficult — good matcha was always somewhere around the corner.

That changed when I moved to the UK.

I searched café after café for the kind of matcha I loved. Occasionally I found a good one, but often far too far from home. Eventually, I gave up searching and started importing matcha from Japan for myself.

Over the past eight years, I have tasted more than 100 different matcha powders from Japan and Thailand. The more I tasted, the more I learned to recognise different aromas, levels of umami, sweetness, nuttiness, bitterness and texture.

And yes… I became pickier and pickier.

Eventually, I knew exactly what I wanted from my matcha. If it didn't meet my standard, I simply didn't want to drink it.

From My Kitchen to the Markets

I started sharing my favourite matcha with family and friends, and they loved it. Then one night, a thought popped into my head:

Why not share my matcha with everyone else?

I started Sawasdee Matcha with a small market stall close to home. The response was far bigger than I expected, and soon we were travelling to larger markets and food festivals, including Shrewsbury Food Festival, the Great British Food Festival and Nantwich Food Festival.

Everywhere we went, customers kept asking the same thing:

“Can I buy the matcha powder?”

At the same time, I continued searching for something even better. I knew the flavour profile I loved — rich umami, natural sweetness and a warm, nutty character.

After tasting matcha from different farms and producers in Japan, I finally found the ones I loved. But I wanted to know what our customers thought too.

Again and again, we heard:

“This is the best matcha I've ever had.”

That was when I finally felt confident enough to turn my favourite matcha into our own collection.