Hadong, one of South Korea's oldest tea-growing areas, has passed $1 million in cumulative exports of matcha and matcha-based products over the life of a research project backed by the agriculture ministry and the IPET funding agency. The main target was Mexico, with products reworked to comply with the country's food-labelling rules.
Shipments to Latin America have climbed steeply, from 3.12 tonnes in 2022 to 16.70 tonnes in 2025, while their value rose from $51,000 to $347,000. The breakthrough came from variable shading. Growers used to shade only first-harvest leaves, the raw material for premium matcha; the project extended the method to the second and third harvests, turning lower-value leaf into export-grade material and easing supply shortages.
Alongside the powder itself, Hadong's tea agency has developed probiotic and plant-protein products sold via Amazon Mexico, and it has signed a memorandum with a distributor in Paraguay. It is another sign that global matcha demand is no longer a story about Japan alone.
Source: Seoul Economic Daily