It's hard to walk down the aisles of a Japanese supermarket and not pass an extravagant—at least to an expat American—tea section. Naturally, matcha, Japanese green tea, is at the forefront of the offering. Over recent decades, however, matcha has become noticeably popular in foreign countries as well. Is this the result of pop-culture diplomacy magic by MOFA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or are global citizens indeed recognizing something special?Making matchaMatcha is a type of green tea. It is a powdered tencha, or beverage, made by adding hot water to it and stirring it. As many are aware, the process has been formalized and celebrated. Indeed, tea ceremonies are serene to experience. Readers can see for themselves in the clip below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n