How a Visit to a Shaman Launched One of The Buzziest Matcha Brands

[Speaker] Rocky by BA, take one.

Common sticks. Mark.

I feel like there's never really anything too large

or too small for me to try and take on.

At the end of the day it's Rocky's Matcha,

and like it does have my name on it.

[bright music]

I'm Jesse Szewczyk, from Bon Appetit,

and I'm here with Rocky Xu, of Rocky's Matcha.

And I'm so excited to chat with you,

because I personally am such a big fan of your matcha,

and I know so many people at BA are as well.

Thank you. Yeah.

Can you tell me kind of about the inception of your company?

Like why did you decide to start it?

What was the inspiration?

Yeah, I mean, to be honest,

it was all a happy accident, you know?

Well, I was a big coffee drinker up until about 2020.

I decided to go and see a shaman,

as you do in the middle of a pandemic.

Sure.

He decided to put me on a 21-day chakra cleanse.

He also suggested that I give up coffee.

And I basically started making matcha every morning.

And I found it to be very therapeutic,

every morning I kind of like knew,

hey, I was starting my day

with just the routine of whisking.

Like the ritual. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I really fell into this hole of trying

to find the best matcha wherever I could.

And I was fortunate enough to go to Japan

before Japan opened its borders back up,

and basically started to develop relationships

with different producers.

We got started by doing popups

at different sort of food festivals and flea markets.

So here we are, four years later.

Yeah, I like it. Yeah.

[Jesse] Yeah. Thank you.

And you're expanding. You're in LA, retail.

New York retail. Yep.

We have about 100 retailers in -

Oh, wow. Like in the US.

Nice!

Between food service and specialty grocery stores.

Sure.

We definitely would love to do something in Japan

at some point, take the company back to

where we ultimately get the majority of our product from.

But outside of that, yeah,

we're just kinda like focused like bit by bit,

cut by cup, like, yeah. Sure.

We'll see where it goes.

Can you tell me about the first time

you traveled to Japan for Rocky's,

and kind of how your relationship to traveling there

has changed?

So it was like 2022.

We got connected with Suji-san,

who's one of our longest tenured farmers and producers.

He's showing us all different parts of the farm,

and he's like, this part could be yours.

And four years later, we're still working with him,

and it's definitely been a blessing.

Yeah. I've been to Japan now,

probably close to 50-some odd times.

Oh, wow.

I don't actually spend that much time in Tokyo anymore.

I'm out in the different tea-producing region.

Sure.

So whether it's Shizuoka, or Kagoshima, or Uji,

or at the end of the day, like the producers, the farmers,

I mean, different folks along the supply chain,

they are the backbone of the business

and we really enjoy building long-lasting relationships

with these producers that we've worked with since day one,

are still the same producers that we're working with.

Oh, nice, yeah.

I went to Uji in February,

and you can smell the tea in the air.

Yeah. It's really beautiful.

Yeah, no, it's amazing.

Uji's, I mean, it's a magical place.

It is really beautiful. Yeah.

Was there ever kind of a turning point

when you called yourself an entrepreneur?

Did it grow to a point where like, this is different now?

I still remember packing up all the packages myself,

and so didn't feel like that long ago.

And I wanna make sure that I'm out there doing and learning

and also just kind of like getting my hands dirty

every step along the way, but- Sure.

Yeah, I don't know if there was like one turning point

where I was like, Hey, I'm an entrepreneur.

Do you ever feel like one?

Or is it still like a weird concept?

It's still somewhat of a weird concept.

I'm just here, for me, at the end of the day,

like I just want to share my kind of passion

[Jesse] for great green tea. Yeah.

With everyone. And so, yeah.

Yeah, I love that, nice. I'm excited to keep watching.

Thank you so much for chatting with me today,

hearing about your journey as an entrepreneur.

This was so cool. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[bright music]