“Not my cup of tea,” these judgy girls say.
As the current global matcha shortage still looms, the drink’s devotees are turning against one another.
The latest tactic to try to curb the tea’s traction? Ridiculing its newer fans, who are mostly men.
Some ladies, who suspect that these men are adopting habits like matcha drinking to appeal to single women, have taken their teasing to TikTok.
Several women have shared snaps of unsuspecting men sipping a matcha while reading a novel. They claim these “performative” and “woke” males are merely posing in an attempt to pick up ladies who are passing by.
“I can’t even drink matcha anymore without being called performative,” one fella forlornly declared.
“I grew up with this s–t. What’s the next drink you’re going to ruin, hojicha?”
“I’ve liked matcha for years and I’m not stopping because of internet weirdos,” declared one dedicated drinker in the comments.
It’s not just the tasty tea that’s “performative” when men enjoy it, though.
Some TikTok users are even labelling habits and hobbies like reading as insincere.
“Might as well have matcha and a Clairo vinyl with you,” joked one reply, referring to yet another “performative” male habit — using wired headphones, carrying tote bags and listening to the singer Clairo are also potential targets.
However, others didn’t find it as amusing.
“The fact that someone’s thirst for knowledge is now deemed as performative is so incredibly concerning. We have strayed so far from the plot. Read in public, king!! It’s fun to read with a busy atmosphere around you,” wrote one chilled commenter, while another said: “Anti-intellectualism is on the rise and it’s pressuring all the smart people to stop reading.”
While much of the discourse surrounding the subject tends to focus on how the cheeky trend is more indicative of contemporary culture — particularly where declining reading rates and rampant technology use are concerned — others simply said: “It’s not that deep.”
A scant few are simply curious how much reading these literature-loving lads actually get done in busy public places, though.
“How long was he on that page for?” wondered one user, but another eagle-eyed analyst noted: “Honestly, he’s like halfway through the book, if he was like at the beginning, then I’d say yeah he’s performing, but I think he’s just genuinely a nerd.”
At the same festival, one sneaky shutterbug noticed a man with a matcha in the pocket of his cargo pants, sparking plenty of snarky comments from women scrolling through the app, but perhaps the most succinct, sincere explanation for the male matcha craze comes from this man in the comments: “cus matcha tastes good.”
Partially driven by a global matcha craze, Japan saw a massive uptick in tourism for 2024 — with estimations hovering around 36 million visitors.
Now, the island nation is reportedly attempting to combat tourism, but unlike other countries, locals aren’t spraying tourists with water guns. Instead, officials are planning to meet global travel demands, and expect to be able to accommodate double the amount of visitors for a massive total of 60 million by 2030.
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