Wholesale Sourcing Guide
Sourcing wholesale matcha directly from Japan starts with a 1kg minimum order, a 15g paid sample to test before you commit, and a choice between FOB and EXW shipping terms. This guide covers everything a cafe, retailer, or importer needs to evaluate before placing a first order: minimum quantities, grades, cultivars, pricing, Incoterms, lead times, organic certification, and how to tell a direct producer relationship from a resold trading-house lot. WTEA works with 14+ verified Japanese tea producers and ships to buyers in 33+ countries, with no trading house markup between the farm and your order.
The minimum order for wholesale matcha through WTEA is 1kg for most lots, and 3kg for certain single-cultivar or limited-harvest lots. Most buyers don't start at that minimum, though: a 15g paid sample, or a custom size on request, lets you test a specific lot on your own menu or equipment first. Samples are priced to cover tea and shipping rather than to build in margin, and they ship the same way (EMS, DHL, or FedEx) your eventual order would, so you can also use one to check real transit time to your country. There's no separate MOQ tier for smaller businesses. A single cafe placing its first 1kg order and a distributor placing a recurring multi-kilogram order work under the same minimum; the difference is just volume. This is covered in more depth in Matcha MOQ Explained: Why 1kg Is the Right Starting Point.
The short version: culinary-grade matcha is built to be mixed, and ceremonial grades are built to be drunk on their own. Culinary matcha is grown and processed to hold its color and flavor when combined with milk, sugar, or batter, which is why it's the standard choice for lattes, baking, and other blended drinks. Ceremonial grades, usucha (thin tea) and koicha (thick tea), are meant to be whisked and drunk without additions. Usucha uses less powder for a lighter, more everyday bowl. Koicha uses roughly double the matcha with less water, made from the youngest shaded leaves, for a dense, intensely sweet preparation.
For a cafe or retailer building a drink menu, culinary grade is usually the right fit: it costs less per kilogram and holds up better under heat and dairy. A shop offering a traditional tea-ceremony experience, or selling matcha to be drunk plain, needs a ceremonial grade instead. Getting this wrong shows up immediately in the cup: culinary matcha whisked on its own tends to taste flat and overly bitter, while ceremonial matcha lost in a sweet latte is an expensive way to not taste the tea you paid for. See Culinary vs Ceremonial Matcha: Which Grade for Which Menu Item for a fuller breakdown.
Different tea cultivars produce noticeably different matcha, in the same way different grape varieties produce different wine. WTEA sources from producers growing Yabukita (the most widely planted cultivar in Japan, valued for balance and consistency), Okumidori (later-harvested, prized for deep color and a rounder sweetness), Samidori, Zairai (traditional seed-propagated bushes, more variable but often more complex), Tenmyo, Ujihikari, Gokou, and Hoshun, among others. Zairai in particular is not one variety but a mix of naturally propagated plants; because it isn't a single cloned cultivar, each Zairai field tends to have its own character rather than replicating exactly across farms. A single-cultivar matcha lets you name a specific flavor profile and hold a supplier to reproducing it order after order, which matters for a cafe building a signature drink. A blended matcha can offer more consistency at a lower price point by smoothing variation across multiple lots, which matters for high-volume operations less focused on a single distinctive flavor. Neither approach is objectively better; the right one depends on whether your business needs a repeatable flavor story or a stable, cost-efficient base ingredient. Single-Cultivar vs Blended Matcha: What Changes in the Cup goes deeper on this trade-off.
Wholesale matcha from WTEA ranges from roughly ¥5,000 to ¥360,000 FOB per kilogram, and the main variables driving that range are cultivar, harvest timing, and grade. Early-harvest, single-cultivar, ceremonial-grade matcha from a limited planting sits at the top of that range; later-harvest or blended culinary-grade matcha for lattes and food service sits near the bottom. Shading duration before harvest, how the leaf is processed and stone-ground, and whether a lot is organic-certified all add cost as well. Because pricing spans two orders of magnitude depending on these factors, the practical way to get an accurate number is to tell WTEA your intended use (cafe latte program versus a ceremonial retail line, for example) and target price range, and let the sourcing team match you to lots that fit rather than trying to price a category as broad as "matcha" from a single number.
FOB (Free on Board) means WTEA delivers the tea onto the vessel or aircraft at the port of export and covers costs up to that point; EXW (Ex Works) means the buyer takes responsibility for the goods starting at the producer's own door, including pickup, export clearance, and transport. WTEA quotes FOB by default because it's the more common structure for international tea buyers and keeps origin-side logistics, which WTEA already manages, off the buyer's plate. EXW is available on request for buyers who already run their own freight forwarding and want to control the shipment from pickup onward. First-time importers, and anyone without an existing freight forwarder relationship in Japan, are almost always better served by FOB. Whichever term applies, it's confirmed in writing before the order ships, so there's no ambiguity about who's responsible for what at each stage. FOB vs EXW: Which Incoterm to Choose When Importing Japanese Tea walks through this decision for a first-time importer.
Orders ship via EMS, DHL, or FedEx, with a typical lead time of 7 to 14 days from confirmed order to dispatch, barring unforeseen issues. That window covers final processing, packaging, and export paperwork rather than international transit time, which varies by destination and carrier. Buyers who need a tighter timeline for a launch or seasonal menu should flag that upfront; WTEA can advise on realistic dates before you commit rather than after.
Several of WTEA's producer partners hold JAS organic certification, and select lots are also certified to EU organic equivalence standards, available on request rather than across the full catalog. Not every producer in the network farms organically, so if organic certification is a requirement for your business, saying so upfront lets WTEA route you directly to the right lots and producers instead of the wrong ones. A certificate of inspection can be supplied alongside the order for customs clearance and retail-labeling purposes. Import paperwork more broadly is covered in Importing Japanese Tea into the EU and US: Documents and Requirements.
Buying through a trading house means one or more intermediaries sit between the farm and your order, each adding a margin and each layer of separation making it harder to trace a lot back to a specific producer or verify claims about how it was grown. Direct trade means the buyer works with the producer relationship WTEA has already built, with no trading house markup in between. In practice this shows up in three places: price (fewer margins stacked into the FOB number), traceability (a specific producer and often a specific field, not an anonymous blended lot), and communication (questions about a harvest, a cultivar, or a certification go to someone who actually knows the answer, rather than through a reseller relaying secondhand information). It doesn't mean direct trade is always cheaper than every trading-house alternative, especially at very large volumes where a trading house's own scale can compress prices. It does mean a buyer gets a clearer line of sight into what they're actually purchasing, which matters most for businesses building a menu or retail line around the specific story and quality of the tea, not just its price per kilogram.
A few concrete questions separate a supplier a business can build on from one it can't:
A supplier that can answer all six clearly and in writing is one worth trusting with a recurring order.
The sections above cover the decisions that come up in nearly every first wholesale order: how much to buy, which grade fits your menu, why a cultivar matters, what drives price, which Incoterm to choose, and what a legitimate supplier should be able to tell you without hesitation. A handful of these topics are worth a deeper look on their own, and are covered in more detail in the WTEA journal below, along with how to approach sourcing matcha for a cafe from scratch.
A direct-trade supplier can name the specific producer, and often the specific field, behind a lot; a trading-house reseller usually can't go further than "sourced from Japan." WTEA works with 14+ verified producer partners and can name the one behind any lot under discussion, along with its cultivar, harvest timing, and processing. Traceability is one signal worth checking, but not the only one: ask whether a farm visit is possible, since a supplier confident in its producer relationships will generally support one, while a reseller several layers removed from the farm typically can't arrange it. Pricing transparency is a third check, since direct trade removes the intermediary margins a trading house has to build into its FOB price.
None of this is required to start a conversation, but having it ready speeds up the quote. Useful details include the intended use (a latte program versus a ceremonial retail line, for example), a target grade if you already have one in mind, an approximate volume, and a target price range per kilogram, since WTEA's FOB pricing spans roughly ¥5,000 to ¥360,000 depending on cultivar, harvest timing, and grade. Buyers who aren't sure yet on grade or cultivar can skip that part; the sourcing team can recommend options once intended use and budget are known. The wholesale request form asks for exactly this information, and a 15g paid sample is the usual next step before committing to a full order.
Generally no: each cultivar or lot is processed and sold as its own unit, so a single 1kg order applies to one lot rather than a mix. The standard path for buyers who want to compare cultivars is to sample two or three at once, in 15g portions or a custom sample size, and then place a full 1kg order of whichever performs best on your menu or equipment. This keeps each lot traceable to its own producer and harvest rather than blending accountability across multiple sources. Repeat buyers with an established order history sometimes have more flexibility here on request, so if a mixed first order matters for your business, it's worth raising directly rather than assuming it isn't possible.
There's no single number, since usage depends heavily on menu mix, drink volume, and how many locations are being supplied, but a 1kg order is often enough for a single moderate-volume cafe to run a season of matcha drinks before reordering. A high-volume latte program can burn through that same 1kg much faster, while a location using matcha only occasionally, as a specialty item rather than a menu staple, can stretch it further. Because matcha loses freshness faster than black or oolong tea once a bag is opened, the better planning question is usually not "how much do I need for the year" but "how much will I use in the next one to two months," and ordering close to that figure rather than stockpiling.
FOB price covers the tea itself plus WTEA's costs up to the point the shipment is loaded at the port of export; landed cost is what you actually pay to get that tea into your own warehouse, and it's always higher than the FOB number. The gap between the two includes international freight, import duties and taxes, customs brokerage fees, and final domestic delivery to your address, none of which are included in the FOB price WTEA quotes. How large that gap is varies significantly by destination country, shipment size, and which carrier or broker you use, so it isn't a fixed percentage that applies evenly to every buyer. Getting a freight and duty estimate from your own carrier or customs broker before finalizing a budget is the most reliable way to know your real landed cost.
Yes: a farm visit is one of WTEA's three main buyer paths, alongside a wholesale purchase and a distributor application, and it's a reasonable step to take before committing to a large or recurring order. A visit lets you meet the producer directly, see the fields and processing facility in person, and ask questions that are harder to fully resolve over email. Availability is case-by-case and depends on the specific producer's schedule and the purpose of the visit, so it isn't guaranteed for every request, but WTEA typically responds to farm-visit requests within about 72 hours to confirm whether and when a visit can be arranged. Buyers planning a significant first order, in particular, are encouraged to request one.
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