A 25 -year -old uses a Japanese concept to develop a matcha business

Angel Zheng is based on the Japanese principle of “ikigai” to transform his passion for matcha – a green tea in powdered with a unique taste and the so -called health benefits – to build what she hopes will be an emblematic household brand.

At just 25 years old, Zheng has already owned at least five companies – six, if you count his past as an influencer in social media. His latest efforts can serve as the highest expression to date to date – which is less authority than the Japanese government defines as “a passion that gives value and joy to life. “”

Zheng has launched its first two companies – a brand of clothing for women of electronic commerce and a recording studio – while it still obtained its undergraduate diploma in business of Baruch College in New York. The clothing brand was a branching of her fashion love, while the recording studio was born when she realized that her co-founder, a music producer, only used her space or twice a week.

In the years that followed, Zheng closed his first companies, using the profits to open the bars of Sushi Omakase Moko and Shiso. The two gastronomic places collected Zheng and its co-founder a place on the list of Forbes 30 Under 30 for the food and drinks industry last year.

But despite already waves on the New York gastronomic scene, Zheng is far from over. His latest solo effort is Inshiki Matcha, a coffee dedicated to Matcha located in the middle of the trendy district of East village of Manhattan.

Inshiki Matcha is unpretentious from the outside – sharing the same space as the only other Zheng operating company, Moko, there is no sign now on the window indicating its presence. But, if things take place as Zheng provides, coffee could one day be a zero soil of a sprawling matcha company.

“When you think of the coffee at the moment, you have these names like Lavazza, Illy, the dove. But when you close your eyes and you think of Matcha, it’s a new market that there are not yet heritage brands. And that’s what I want to be,” Zheng told CNBC in an interview.

Popular among young adults

More than an attempt to get on Matcha’s train, Isshiki is emerged from Zheng’s own drink.

Matcha, a powder based on chopped green tea leaves, is from China but has been refined in its current form in Japan. Its popularity has skyrocketed in recent years, especially among millennials and young generations. Japanese matcha production in 2023 amounted to 4,176 tonnes, which is less than three times more than the 1,471 tonnes made in 2010, Japan Times reported, citing data from the Ministry of Agriculture. The same article cited Kametani Tea saying that it had increased its production by around 10% each year since 2019 just to meet demand.

On Instagram, 8.8 million positions are linked to the hashtag #Matcha; On Tiktok, 2 million. Celebrities from Dua Lipa to Gwyneth Paltrow to Jesssica Alba have publicly approved the drink, transforming it into a cornerstone of the health and well-being movement.

Matcha’s popularity has inflated to the point where demand now exceeds supply, leading to a shortage from Matcha. Last fall, two well -known Kyoto tea companies, IPPODO and Marukyu Koyamaen, set strict purchasing limits.

These supply chain problems, combined at recent prices that threaten higher prices on imports, have caused many headaches to Zheng in recent weeks. Nevertheless, she remains firm in her mission to one day make a matcha Isshiki in a familiar name.

Zen and goal

Zheng, a first generation Chinese immigrant, grew up on Matcha and attributes to tea to help him bring his Zen to an otherwise chaotic entrepreneurial calendar.

“Life requires so much of you-school, work, family, relationships, friendships. It is important to have pillars,” she said. “‘Isshiki’ means a pillar. You should have pillars in your day that sinks you – like going to the gymnasium, doing your care routine at night, making sure you spend your time in the morning to make a matcha, or you come here and we do your morning matcha every day for you.”

This last company, explained Zheng, feels different from its previous projects – mainly because it believes that it has finally found its call. And continuing something that really fascinated him, Zheng noticed pieces in place.

“When you pour your love and your heart into something, it’s a very big difference, especially when it is something that you consume as food,” she said. “I have my goal. There is this Japanese philosophy that I take to heart and that I live every day, and it is called” ikigai “. It means finding the thing in which you are best, which will help the most people and will bring you the most joy, will bring the most joy to the world, and everything else will follow – money, success.

Zheng first had the idea of ​​opening a Matcha coffee on the day 2024 of the New Year, reflecting on his resolutions for the year. During a trip to Japan shortly after, she was by chance sitting at the dinner next to the communications chief on a Matcha farm.

Since its beginnings at the beginning of last year, Zheng has expanded the presence of Inshiki Matcha thanks to a careful conservation of events and a digital brand. The online footprint of a brand can do it or break it, she told CNBC, which is why it continues to influence it from time to time.

“It helps a lot with the company,” added Zheng. “I have the impression – with social media and the landscape in which we are now living – having a digital presence and a digital currency is just as precious as having a real presence.”

Inshiki serves between 100 and 300 customers per day between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., Moko officially takes up space from 5 p.m., serving fresh sushi to sometimes up to 150 customers.

A digital and physical presence works in tandem, because Zheng publishes the many events it organizes in Isshiki via its social media. The increase in the visibility of the local Asian community is also important for Zheng, many events of which are free and open to the public. Many brands with which she collaborated has been belonging to the Asian or concentrated origin.

The events she organized recently integrated into the category, including a Lunar New Year Day and a Valentine’s Day with the Application of Asian Yuzu Meetings. Other events have gone special courses Morning Matcha to a rave with a local DJ at the collection of capsule clothing launched in tea tasting lessons. Zheng’s influence in the New York community – online and in person – has led Inshiki to organize or deal with events for brands such as Uniqlo, Mastercard, Puma and Goop.

Fighting with Fomo

Zheng attributes his success to preparation, hard work and luck – who sometimes comes in the form of the right person at the right time.

Earlier this year, Zheng’s next incursion was materialized after the owner of a bottle lemonade company, The Lucky Ox, another Asian drink brand, has entered its cafe to present some of its products for its dinner menu. Zheng expressed interest in entering the ready -to -drink space, and the two quickly collaborated on a new Bottle Matcha lemonade.

While Zheng already sells Powders Matcha roughly, the motivation behind the ready -to -drink version was to create a practical and easily accessible product. Matcha Lemonade, which has just launched a month ago, is already available in 120 stores, said Zheng, and aims to connect Isshiki as closely to Matcha as the Coffee dove.

When part of the prosperous business owner is what you know, Zheng said that it was not necessarily a bad thing to suffer from the fear of missing or Fomo. In the past, she has found brand partnerships through other participants during various events. In fact, she obtained her first internship after meeting the founder of a magazine company by chance. The two stopped to discuss after realizing that they wore the same perfume.

“Literally, your network is your net value. It gives me paralyzing anxiety to miss anything,” said Zheng.

It is also advantageous to jump to unique opportunities when they arise. Last fall, Isshiki Matcha became viral after Zheng managed to import an expedition of the famous chocolate muffins from the Olympic village to American perseverance is also important, as when the Omicron variant of COVID-19 raged in New York City a month after the official opening of Moko.

Now Zheng is at the time of her career when she can inform the entrepreneurs of the beginning, telling them to embody confidence and audacity. This was particularly important as a entrepreneur: believe in your abilities, not to sell short and plead for all the opportunities for which it is on the market, said Zheng. Sometimes Zheng found it useful during the meeting with potential business partners so as not to reveal his age in advance.

“The best part of being Asian is that I can look like the same age of 16 to 50,” she joked. “So you don’t know how old I have, and I have always worn this way.”