It was 6 pm on a Monday.

Still 5 days away from the weekend.

4 unproductive meetings and 3 rejections later, all I needed to save my last 2 brain cells was 1 cup of coffee.

But the moment I walked into the Starbucks in my neighbourhood, I had to double-check if I was in the right place.

Not because the people had changed.

Not because the interiors had.

But because the world inside had turned green.

₹450 for a matcha oat milk latte. ₹380 for plain matcha. ₹520 if you wanted it “ceremonial grade.”

All revolving around one single thing.

Matcha.

At the risk of my entire mood for the day, I ordered one anyway.

Curiosity won.

Taste didn’t.

What stayed with me longer than the aftertaste wasn’t the drink. It was the scene.

This didn’t feel like one café experimenting with a new menu item.

It felt… organized. Rehearsed. Like I’d walked into something that had already been decided elsewhere.

And once you notice it, you can’t unsee it.

———

Turns out, I wasn’t imagining things.

Global matcha market size hit $4.83 billion in 2023, projected to reach $8+ billion by 2030. In the US alone, matcha sales jumped 47% between 2022 and 2023, with 68% of buyers under 30.

Starbucks quietly doubled its matcha menu offerings in 2023. Blue Tokai, Third Wave, and every indie café from Bombay to Bangalore followed suit.

On Instagram, #MatchaMorning has 4.2 million posts. TikTok’s matcha content? Over 650 million views and counting.

And here’s the thing: this isn’t Gen Z’s first rodeo with wellness drinks.

They did this with kombucha in 2019 (remember that?). Sales spiked, influencers posted their “booch” rituals, then it quietly disappeared from most feeds by 2021.

They did it with oat milk lattes. Cold brew before that. Açai bowls. Moon milk. The list goes on.

But matcha feels different.

According to Google Trends, search interest for matcha among 18-24 year olds has sustained a 73% increase since 2021, while kombucha dropped 41% in the same period.

It’s sticking around longer.

The loyalty seems… stronger.

Which is where things get interesting.

———

Because real loyalty doesn’t need a script.

You don’t have to convince yourself you like pizza. You don’t rehearse why coffee works for you. You don’t post daily reminders about why you’re still into chocolate.

But with matcha, the language is different.

Scroll through those #MatchaMorning posts and you’ll see the same phrases repeated like a mantra:

“It grows on you.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“It’s not about taste.”

“Day 47 of my matcha journey.”

Journey.

When did a beverage become a journey?

A Reddit thread titled “Does matcha actually taste good or are we all lying?” has 847 upvotes and 423 comments, most of which sound like group therapy sessions:

“I hated it for two weeks, then suddenly I loved it.”

“Your palate adjusts.”

“I tell myself I like it and now I think I actually do?”

That last one is particularly telling.

That’s not how you talk about things you genuinely love.

That’s how you talk about things you want to be seen loving.

And maybe that’s the point.

Gen Z isn’t drinking matcha because it tastes good.

They’re drinking it because it means something.

———

Look at the aesthetics.

Every matcha post follows the same formula: minimalist white mug, soft morning light, a journal or book strategically placed nearby, maybe a plant in the background. The caption always mentions “morning ritual,” “slow living,” or “intentionality.”

These aren’t drink photos. They’re lifestyle declarations.

Calm. Intentional. Disciplined. Together.

All the things life isn’t giving them right now.

Consider what Gen Z is actually dealing with: A 2023 McKinsey Health Institute study found that 46% of Gen Z report feeling anxious or stressed daily—the highest of any generation. They’re entering a job market where 60% of entry-level positions now require 3+ years of experience. They’re watching housing prices climb while their wages stagnate.

Everything feels chaotic and out of control.

And here comes matcha, whispering: “You can choose calm.”

Not by fixing the economy. Not by solving the housing crisis. Not by making therapy affordable.

But by spending ₹450 on a green drink every morning.

The drink is a prop. The identity is the product.

They’re not asking “Do I like this?” They’re asking “Does this make me the person I want to be?”

Which explains why 23-year-old Priya from Bangalore will post her matcha latte every morning even though she admitted to me she “still kind of hates the taste.” She’s not documenting a drink. She’s documenting a version of herself she’s trying to become.

———

But here’s where it gets uncomfortable.

How long can you pretend to like something before you stop pretending?

Or more accurately: at what point does performance become reality?

Psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance reduction.” When your actions don’t match your beliefs, your brain has two options: change your actions, or change your beliefs.

If you drink matcha every day while thinking “I hate this,” that dissonance eventually becomes unbearable. So your brain quietly rewrites the story: “Actually, I think I’m starting to like it.”

Not because the taste changed.

Because you did.

This is how acquired tastes work. Coffee tastes like burnt water the first time you try it. Wine tastes like sour grape juice. Beer tastes like bitter sadness.

But you keep drinking them because of what they represent: sophistication, adulthood, social belonging, and eventually, your brain surrenders. The performance becomes the preference.

So when Gen Z says “it grows on you,” they’re not lying.

They’re just not telling the full truth either.

The full truth is: you’re not acquiring a taste for matcha. You’re acquiring a taste for who you become when you drink it.

———

And maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing.

Maybe in a world this chaotic, choosing a green drink every morning is the smallest rebellion available.

Not against coffee.

Against chaos.

When a 24-year-old orders matcha instead of coffee, they’re not just switching caffeine sources. They’re opting out of the jittery, anxious energy that coffee represents; energy that keeps you running on empty, checking emails at midnight, saying yes when you mean no.

Matcha, with its L-theanine and “sustained energy release,” offers a different story: control, mindfulness, doing less but better.

Even if that story is mostly marketing.

Apparently, a standard matcha latte has about 70mg of caffeine compared to coffee’s 95mg. The L-theanine content that supposedly creates “calm energy”? You’d get the same effect from 30 minutes of deep breathing.

But that’s not the point.

The point is the declaration of intent.

I choose slow. I choose intentional. I choose to be the kind of person who has morning rituals instead of morning panic attacks.

———

A few weeks after that first Starbucks visit, I found myself back there.

Same Monday gloom. Same need for caffeine.

This time I ordered coffee.

But I noticed something while waiting: a girl, maybe 22, ordering her matcha latte with oat milk, no sweetener. The barista knew her order by heart. She probably came here every day.

As she waited, she wasn’t on her phone. She was just… standing there. Breathing. Still.

For three whole minutes.

In a world where three minutes of doing nothing feels illegal, that stillness looked like rebellion.

And I thought: maybe it doesn’t matter if she actually likes the taste.

Maybe the taste was never the point.

———

I don’t know if Gen Z actually likes matcha.

But I know they like who they become when they order it.

And in a world where so much feels out of control, maybe choosing a green drink every morning is the smallest form of agency available.

Not because it changes anything external.

But because it changes something internal.

Matcha isn’t a beverage trend.

It’s a coping mechanism disguised as a lifestyle choice.

A daily reminder that you can choose something, even if you can’t choose much else.

And if that choice involves pretending for a while until it becomes real?

That’s not fake.

That’s just how people survive.

So no, I really hope Gen Z doesn’t unmatch-a with matcha too soon.

Not because the drink matters.

But because the choice to believe you can create calm in the middle of chaos might be the realest thing they’ve got.

Even if it tastes like grass.