An article at NewScientist, “Matcha is under threat from climate change – can genomics save it?” claims that climate change is causing green tea to suffer low yields and taste worse. This is false for multiple reasons. While hot weather can cause tea to be bitter, Japan has not been seeing significantly higher temperatures, and yields are actually improving over time.
NewScientist claims that warming weather in Japan is “reducing yields and impacting the plant’s distinct umami flavour,” but that tea growers can use genetic selection to grow more heat tolerant plants, though it takes some time.
It is true that temperature can cause some plants like tea to produce more bitter flavored compounds, but it seems suspect that temperatures have changed enough in Japan to impact them permanently, or in a widespread way. NewScientist says that during the spring growing season, daytime temperatures are usually around 20-25°C, but spring temperatures in the region tea is grown for matcha have risen “by roughly 0.6 to 1 Celsius over the past 100 years.”
That means that the new range, logically, might be more like 20.6 or 21°C to 26°C, a change so minimal that it would be unlikely impact the plants all that much, especially since they experience much larger swings in temperature from day to day. And that change has occurred gradually over a hundred years, not instantaneously.
Current matcha tea must not taste all that bad. Over the past decade, (the time with allegedly the highest ever temperatures) matcha, a ground powder form of green tea, has exploded in popularity worldwide.
Tatler Asia reported last year that “matcha production has increased from 1,471 tons to 4,176 tons between 2010 and 2023, or around a 185 per cent increase. In other words, the global demand for the tea powder has increased by almost threefold in thirteen years. The ministry also stated that more than half of the matcha produced in Japan was now exported internationally—including Hong Kong.”
One issue that is not addressed in the article is where those temperatures are recorded. We are given a region, but temperature stations are not evenly spaced out everywhere. They are often located near urban centers, which suffer from an Urban Heat Island Effect, as discussed a multitude of times at Climate Realism, which boost nighttime lows, especially.
The article claims that yields are suffering due to climate change. But data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization show there are ups and downs in yield from year to year, as is the case with any agricultural product. The overall trend in tea yields show an increase, not a decrease. The most recent all-time record for Japanese tea yields occurred in 2018, the second highest in 2024. (See figure below)
This data are for tea in general, but all types of tea come from the same plant. Green tea from which matcha is made is simply harvested when the leaves are still fresh and green, while black tea is harvested much later.
Selective tea breeding takes time and the article admits it has been going on for as long as commercial tea growing has existed. Growers have always carefully selected their plants for tolerance to a wide variety of conditions and for certain traits. Genomic selection can accomplish this much faster. Another option would be to plant or harvest tea earlier, when temperatures are more in line with what producers want.
By the way, although the article treats Japan as the only source of matcha, it is not. China is a major grower and exporter of matcha, exceeding Japan in exports for the first time in 2025. One report says that China is likely to produce 70 percent of the world’s matcha in 2026. The same report forecasts a 50 percent growth in matcha production from 2025 to 2026, to meet fast growing global demand. The latest data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show that green tea production (matcha being ground up shade grown green tea) in China increased by more than 142 percent from 2010 to 2023. (see the figure, below)
So, modest warming has not seemed to have hampered matcha production in either Japan or China.
False news stories are published almost daily that try to scare people into taking action on climate change by claiming some luxury product they enjoy is disappearing because of it. What’s true of those stories is true of this one as well. There is plenty to be skeptical about claims that matcha is being threatened by climate change. Temperature does impact the taste of tea, but warming has not been extreme in Japan, and modern agriculture technology offers a workaround. Yields and production of green tea and tea in general have increased amid modest warming, with no warming induced production slowdown in evidence.
I used to read New Scientist 50 years ago. It wasn’t a great science magazine even then but it was readable with a number of interesting articles in each issue. It gradually got worse over time and I stopped reading it. The last time I read an issue was in a dentist’s waiting area and I was appalled at the quality of the articles and the blatant politicisation. In the issue I read, there were numerous scientific errors. It looks as if the downward spiral has continued. It is just a joke now.
Luckily, there’s lots of good science channels on YouTube that avoid politics.
Are the matcha plantations also suffering twice the rate of warming than the rest of the world, the way all the rest of the world is suffering twice the rate of warming than the rest of the world?
Climate alarmists don’t seem to have a problem with this since all the climate alarmists I know don’t seem to understand arithmetic.
Or basic common sense. 🙂
I think greet tea is disgusting, but for the enthusiasts the quickest way to adapt to slow very small temperature increases would be to plant more bushes higher up the hills or start plantations on an island closer to the North Pole.
There are so many variables affecting matcha yields and flavor to fixate on one variable indicates monomania.
From the article:”Another option would be to plant or harvest tea earlier, when temperatures are more in line with what producers want.”
This certainly opens up the possibility that producers are altering their processing in order to meet the increased demand. It certainly is possible that this is is happening, and is changing the flavor of the tea. This seems far more likely than some fractional change in global temperatures would be the cause.
Bingo! Why should matcha be immune from the nearly universal balance between quality and quantity?
One thing that is definitely getting scarcer with climate change is the msm’s credibility.
Reportage of growing urban violent crimes attributable to religious & ideology clashes gets toned down because they aren’t the sort of scary stories politicians need to keep us all constantly alarmed, but natural weather events stories that get ascribed to the deaded climate change incite calls for “more, more” from politicians.
Basically, “climate change” is not my cup of tea. 😉
I’ve been blessed to travel to Japan many times over the years, and seen the Macha Tea Fields, and the tiny little grandmas, slowing going from one tree to the next, very cool and serene.
My wife took Tea Ceremony lessons, so she from time to time, puts on a kimono, and does makes us tea. But, we both hate the taste! lol It’s so awful.
For some reason, I like tea at an Asian restaurant. Anywhere else, can’t stand it. Prefer coffee- all day every day.
“Green tea from which matcha is made is simply harvested when the leaves are still fresh and green, while black tea is harvested much later.”
Being tea-ignorant, I did a searchup on “matcha”. I learned two things: it is powdered tea leaves, and the leaves come from plants grown in shade.
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“fresh and green” seems likely, too.
Small correction to “Green tea from which matcha is made is simply harvested when the leaves are still fresh and green, while black tea is harvested much later.”
The difference is not when they are harvested, but in how they are treated after harvest. Green tea is processed immediately after harvest while black tea is left to oxidize, turning darker colors. A farmer could divide a single days harvest into two lots and make green from one and black from the other.
For example, first flush spring harvest is highly prized, and both green and black teas are made from it.
There are numerous variations in between the unprocessed green and the fully oxidized black (e.g. oolong), and entirely different processing methods, like the fermented pu’erh.