“There are three key elements to the matcha experience: color, flavor, and aroma,” says Aiya’s president, Sugita Yoshio. “To bring out these elements to their best advantage, the finest leaves are selected from the bush and ground into a fine powder using a special stone hand mill. This produces a fine powder with particles that are just micro-millimeters in size. This takes time—a single mill can produce only around 40 grams of powder an hour. But we insist on quality. Keeping the mills running smoothly is highly skilled work. There are perhaps ten people in the whole of Japan who have the necessary skills to perform upkeep on these mills. And five of them work for us.”
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