A Journey Into Rare Matcha – An Interview with Breakaway Matcha

Matcha tea has gained much popularity in recent years, but Breakaway Matcha isn’t your average matcha company. Founded by Eric Gower, a matcha enthusiast with a mission to make it more accessible and enjoyable, Breakaway Matcha ranks first in high-quality tea. Alongside innovative brewing methods, it has a variety of attractive ceramics and teaware to enjoy your tea in!

Today, we have Eric with us to scrabble about the vibrant world of the Breakaway Matcha!

Greetings Eric! Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m originally from Northeastern Pennsylvania, a small town called Sayre. I’ve worn a lot of hats prior to starting Breakaway Matcha, including cookbook author, ghostwriter, editor, newspaper columnist, private chef…

When did you come to Japan and what made you decide to come?

I first went to Japan in 1985, for a summer of wonderful hitchhiking around the country. I was a junior at UC Berkeley, majoring in modern Japanese literature. I used to sit zazen in a working zen monastery in southern CA called Mt. Baldy Zen Center. The main teacher there was a Japanese man named Joshu Sasaki; a most interesting teacher, but his English was not great, so I started studying Japanese on my own so that I could talk with him. Probably hubris on my part! I made good progress but never reached beyond the basic stage back then. It was also at MBZC that I had my first taste of matcha.

But I did learn enough to know I wanted to study more, so moved to Berkeley to do that. I wound up going to Kyoto a few weeks after graduation, and stayed, on and off, for the next 17 years or so.

When and why did you decide to create Breakaway Matcha? What was your main inspiration behind it? Were you matcha-obsessed before?

I followed the classic “scratch your own itch” school of entrepreneurship – I moved back to California and couldn’t find any good matcha; so, I started bringing the good stuff back in suitcases, mainly for my own consumption, but also to have plenty on hand to serve to friends, many of whom were in the food world in one way or another. I really like good matcha as an epicurean experience – I do enjoy ceremonies but I like drinking it casually and in a style that horrifies the purists: I use a handheld milk foaming wand, with which you can get incredible crema. I like it thick and full-bodied, but am quite particular about quality and temperature and ceramics. I only use water – good matcha doesn’t need milk or alt milk, let alone sweetener or anything else.

Where do you get your Matcha from?

Most of it comes from Uji, just outside Kyoto. Uji is famous for its high-quality matcha and green tea. It is by far one of the best places in Japan, if not the world, for great matcha.

Uji is also the location of our Matcha Kyoto Green Tea Tour, so if you want to try some straight from the source, be sure to check it out!

How do you ensure its quality?

By working with people with incredible integrity (having a 500-year history helps). It’s very important to make meaningful connections with trustworthy, consistently great partners, and the green tea industry is so well established in Japan over hundreds of years that there are many to choose from, so I’m proud to work with the people, shops, and companies that I do.

But your online shop is not only about Matcha. You also offer Houjicha and ceramics. Is Matcha your most popular product?

Yes, matcha is by far the most popular product. Everything else is just supportive of the matcha. We recently added powdered hojicha to our lineup. I love it for many reasons, but the main ones are its subtle yet beautiful smokiness, the satisfaction of using the entire tea plant and not just the leaves, and the fact that it’s caffeine-free so I can drink it at night.

Can people from all around the world order your products online?

Yes! We have customers from all over the world.

Matcha is popular overseas, however, sometimes people find it difficult to drink because of its bitterness. Do you have any recommendations for them?

If it’s bitter, it’s not great quality. Really the only thing you can do with bitter matcha is to mask it by adding fat and sweetener to it (everything tastes pretty good as a milkshake!). I hope this doesn’t sound off-putting, but the recommendation is to find better quality matcha, which lacks bitterness.

Lastly, is there anything you would like to share with our readers?

Yes, two things:

1) Matcha is better when you share it. I drink a ton of matcha solo, but it’s always better when I make it for someone and we commune over it, and

2) Matcha can be a seriously valuable tool for the wonderful practice of the conscious pause. Pausing one or twice during the day is an excellent way to become present! You pause to start the kettle, noticing as much as you can, you pause to sift the tea into a favourite ceramic cup or bowl, (many things to notice there), pour the water in, whisk it, take it somewhere, and sit, and sip it. All in it’s like 10 minutes max. They may turn out to be the most delightful 10 minutes of your day!

Thank you so much Eric for taking precious time out of your day for us, answering the questions, and sharing your extraordinary story with us! We really appreciate your insights and we are glad you joined us for this interview.

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Website: https://breakawaymatcha.com/

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Featured Photo Credit: Breakaway Matcha

To try great matcha and green tea, join us on any of our fantastic Green Tea Experiences in Japan!