The Phone Call That Changed Everything

It started maybe seven or eight months ago. My tea wholesale suppliers—the ones I'd relied on for years—delivered news that made my stomach drop: deliveries might take half a year.

Half a year.

Imagine that: a coffee shop without matcha. A Japanese tea café without ceremonial-grade powder. You might as well pull the lights and lock the door. This wasn't a minor inconvenience—this was an existential threat to everything I'd built.

When Necessity Becomes Your Business Plan

So I dug deep into whatever stubborn gene my ancestors left me—the one that says we survive, we adapt, we get shit done. I didn't have a choice, really. When your back's against the wall, you either innovate or you die.

I went down the rabbit hole: online forms, Instagram DMs, LinkedIn stalking, and yes, ChatGPT became my best friend. I started cold calling tea producers in Japan.

Most didn't speak English. Some hung up immediately. Some stayed on the line out of curiosity or politeness. There were awkward Zoom calls with mismatched time zones, pixelated smiles through spotty WiFi, and the shared madness of people who actually care about leaves and powder.

Learning to Import Tea at 3am

Somewhere in that chaos, I became a tea importer. No experience. No plan. No import license ready. Just necessity and caffeine.

The Learning Curve Was Vertical

• Language barriers: Google Translate became my co-pilot. I learned to communicate through photos, videos, and the universal language of desperation.
• Time zones: Kyoto is 8 hours ahead of Hamburg. My "business hours" became 11pm to 3am. My wife thought I'd lost my mind.
• Cultural differences: Japanese business culture requires patience, respect, relationship-building. I'm an American who wants answers yesterday. We had to meet in the middle.
• Import regulations: Germany's food import laws are no joke. Every document had to be perfect. One mistake means customs holds your entire shipment.
• Minimum order quantities: Small farmers can't ship 100 grams. They ship kilograms. I had to commit to volumes I'd never ordered before.

What I Learned About Japanese Tea Regions

Through this forced education, I learned something beautiful: every region in Japan tastes different, like memory filtered through soil.

Kyoto: Aristocratic and Refined

The matcha from Uji, Kyoto has this elegant sweetness—almost creamy umami. It's what people imagine when they think "ceremonial grade." Centuries of cultivation expertise in every sip.

Kagoshima: Bold and Volcanic

Southern Japan's volcanic soil gives tea this robust, almost earthy character. Less refined than Kyoto, but honest. It doesn't apologize for what it is.

Yame: The Hidden Gem

Fukuoka's Yame region produces some of the most complex gyokuro I've ever tasted. Deep, rich, with this lingering sweetness that stays with you.

Shizuoka: Balanced Perfection

The largest tea-producing region. Consistent, reliable, beautifully balanced. This is where volume meets quality.

The Economics of Tea Importing: A Street Fight

Here's what nobody tells you about specialty tea: finding good tea at a fair price is a street fight.

Big corporations buy everything up, flip it for pennies, and call it business. They have the volume, the relationships, the infrastructure. They can afford to warehouse tea for months. They can negotiate prices that would bankrupt a small café.

The rest of us? We hustle. We beg. We stay up until 3 in the morning emailing farmers. We build relationships one awkward video call at a time. We pay more per kilogram because we're buying 10 kilos, not 10 tons.

The Hidden Costs Nobody Warns You About

• Shipping: Air freight from Japan isn't cheap. Sea freight takes forever. You pick your poison.
• Customs clearance: Every shipment needs documentation, inspection, clearance. Each step costs money and time.
• Quality risk: You're buying based on samples and trust. If a shipment arrives and it's not what you expected, you're stuck with it.
• Currency fluctuation: Yen-to-Euro exchange rates can swing 10% in a month. Your profit margins evaporate overnight.
• Storage: Matcha degrades quickly. You can't just warehouse it for six months. Fresh or nothing.

The First Shipment: Pure Terror

I'll never forget the first shipment I arranged directly. I'd wired money to a farmer I'd only spoken to through a translator on Zoom. I had faith, but faith doesn't guarantee customs clearance.

The package tracking showed it leaving Tokyo. Then nothing for a week. Then suddenly: "Held by Hamburg customs for inspection."

My heart stopped. If this shipment got rejected, I'd lose thousands of euros and still have no matcha. I called the customs office. They wanted additional documentation. I scrambled, sent everything, waited.

Three days later: "Released for delivery."

When that box arrived at the café, I opened it like it contained the Holy Grail. The matcha inside was vibrant green, perfectly fresh, exactly what we needed. I literally laughed out loud—half relief, half disbelief that this insane plan had actually worked.

Building Relationships Across 9,000 Kilometers

The most unexpected part of becoming a tea importer? The relationships.

I'm now in regular contact with farmers in Kyoto, Kagoshima, and Shizuoka. We exchange photos of our kids. They ask about Hamburg. I ask about harvest conditions. They send me videos of the shading process. I send them videos of customers enjoying their tea.

There's this one farmer—I'll call him Tanaka-san—who grows Okumidori in the mountains outside Kyoto. He's third generation. His grandfather planted the original tea bushes. We video chat monthly now. He doesn't speak much English. I don't speak much Japanese. We make it work.

Last month, he sent me photos of the spring harvest. The new growth, vibrant and fresh. He was proud. I was grateful. It's not just business anymore—it's connection.

What This Whole Madness Taught Me

1. Crisis Breeds Competence

Six months ago, I couldn't have told you the first thing about import regulations. Now I can navigate German customs paperwork in my sleep. Necessity is a ruthless teacher.

2. Wholesale Isn't Always Better

Conventional wisdom says: use wholesalers, focus on your business. But going direct gave me better quality, better prices, and actual relationships with producers. Sometimes the "hard way" is the better way.

3. Supply Chains Are Fragile

We built a global economy on the assumption that everything flows smoothly. COVID, shipping container shortages, and geopolitical tensions proved that assumption wrong. Diversification isn't optional—it's survival.

4. Small Beats Big on Quality

The farmers I work with now produce better tea than the mass-market suppliers ever did. They care more. They have fewer customers, so each one matters. Big corporations optimize for profit. Small farmers optimize for pride.

5. You Can Learn Anything Under Pressure

I had zero import experience. I figured it out because I had no choice. Most limitations are just comfortable lies we tell ourselves.

The Unexpected Benefits

This whole nightmare-turned-adventure had consequences I never anticipated:

• Better tea: We now serve tea that's fresher and higher quality than anything available through German wholesalers.
• Better stories: Customers love knowing their matcha comes from a specific farmer in Kyoto. It's not just "organic Japanese matcha"—it's Tanaka-san's Okumidori from the mountain plots.
• Better margins: Despite the hassle, importing directly costs less than markup-heavy wholesalers. We pay farmers more and still save money.
• Competitive advantage: Other Hamburg cafés can't match our quality because they're limited to whatever the wholesalers stock. We have access to teas they've never heard of.
• Resilience: We're no longer dependent on a single supply chain. If one farmer has a bad harvest, we have relationships with others.

Would I Recommend This to Other Café Owners?

Honestly? It depends.

If you're happy with decent tea from reliable wholesalers, stick with that. There's wisdom in simplicity. Not every business needs to vertically integrate.

But if you're obsessed with quality, if you want tea nobody else has, if you're willing to work harder for better results—then yes. Learn to import. Build relationships. Accept the chaos.

Just know what you're getting into: late nights, language barriers, customs headaches, and the constant low-level anxiety that comes with international logistics.

But I'm not complaining.

At least I'm having a hell of a time doing it.