JENKI - Claudia Boyer

0:03Claudia Boyer:Hello there and welcome to episode 132 of People Doing Things. Today we are swapping the coffee jitters for a calm focus with Claudia Boyer, co-founder of Jenky, the UK's favourite matcha brand, coming to a high street near you. As a coffee lover, I've been curious, yet sceptical of matcha. Isn't it just green tea rebranded for a new generation? It's for those who want to feel focused, not wired, swapping bean origin and mocha pots for function and status, antitoxins and L-theanine with an aesthetic that says we're on top of a chaotic life, not part of it. This culture shift is a massive business opportunity.

0:43Claudia Boyer:The UK matcha market is exploding, currently valued at around 175 million and projected to rocket to a staggering 300 million by 2033 at a cago of 8.6 percent claudia and her husband otto saw this opportunity early and went straight to the source the hills of uji japan to find a ceremonial gray powder that actually tasted good they started with a 15 pound market stall of bricklay and have since built a new world of match here with bars and spitfield selfridges and Battersea Power Station, delivery for those who need it on demand, DTC channels for those who need it at home, as well as wholesale for those who need it in store.

1:26Claudia Boyer:In this episode, we delve into the confidence it took to remove coffee from their menu, the reality of building a business while raising twins, and why Matcha is the drink of a new generation. Grab your whisk and enjoy. Claudia, welcome to People Doing Things. How's it going? Good, thank you for having me. It's very nice to be here. It's been a long time in the making. It has. No, I appreciate the persistence to get me on here, finally. I guess I wanted to start by talking about your own personal journey starting Jenki. What I'm really fascinated in is this transition from like, I guess, jittery coffee, which everyone's kind of jittery, chaotic coffee and the world that kind of comes with that.

2:14Claudia Boyer:And the slightly more calm, focused, emerging space that is Matcha. What was your transition? How did you come across it? What was your kind of usage around it? Yeah, I mean, like yourself, was very much a coffee lover as well. And was overdoing it, basically. And running the sort of same frantic lives that we all do. Both Otto and I really got to a point where we needed something else that was just going to serve us a bit better. I'd heard of matcha but similarly to a lot of people had had had a bad experience and was suspicious um Otto had grown up in Asia so it had a sort of a better experience with matcha and sort of just pushed me to give it a go and also experienced better matcha and I think once I had sort of finally experienced a really delicious matcha and you can instantly feel the benefits and how it can make you feel unlike other sort of supplements or other ingredients I just really had that instant urge to want to share that with people it was like the secret that I had like suddenly discovered that I was just like why aren't more people drinking this and I think the sadness had come from when we kind of came back to London and wanted to go and experience it at somewhere and it was very much an afterthought on menus across London and no one was preparing it well and was wasn't doing it justice and it was just that sort of simple realization that well if this is presented in a way that is delicious appealing relatable to that coffee drinker then there is space for it and an opportunity for it because we kind of found that need ourselves and that coffee just was not completely answering all those sort of jittery anxious energy people were caring more about sleep all those sort of things so there was just so much that kind of came into it it wasn't a single moment but just like that slow realization that there could be an alternative and matcha you know it was embedded in a culture already across Asia obviously within Japanese culture and just translating that to Londoners was the kind of hard part and how can you make that relatable and familiar to a customer.

4:28Claudia Boyer:What were the like first three steps like you went to Japan you bought some matcha you're on brick lane? Yeah well I wish it was as simple as that but for us it was kind of taking a step back and realizing why isn't this something that is drunk more so we looked at kind of how people drank coffee and like I loved coffee culture going to a kind of a coffee shop sitting there I was freelance at the time working from coffee shops seeing how coffee was such a sort of an anti very much but like very much coffee was ingrained in people's lives if you're because that must have been peak coffee peak coffee of course it was literally like peak flat white moment yeah where it was just kind of shifting and speciality coffee was really rising up and people were doing things it was a really cool space to be in and explore but you could still get a fairly generic coffee from starbucks that was wasn't too bad so we very much realized that we needed to be in front of people preparing matcha freshly in order to deliver the experience that we had had and introduce people firsthand to matcha as opposed to the other option which could have been just like packaging up some matcha to sell online to people to then go and stumble through the experience at home so I think very much you know the quality of the matcha was the distinguishing factor for myself when I had experienced it when I realized how good it it could taste yeah to how bad I had experienced it and just how polar that made the experience and once also I had that sort of obsession with it it was diving into learning so much about matcha that I was just like the whole process of making matcha is such a you know has been around for generations the farmers really it really makes a difference to the end product and so it was really important that you weren't just I don't know buying off Alibaba a powder and you had to go direct to source and that was a real really important piece for us to be able to translate that clearly to our customers as well yeah I hadn't really realized the depth of the process that goes into matcha I always thought it was like rebranded green tea I guess simply put it is powdered green tea but I think once you unpack it in terms of it's like so much but it's like what my interpretation of it listening to you earlier was around you basically kind of force it to go into shock so it increases the amount of antioxidants and basically becomes high grade through the shading process right yeah I kind of I think you're sort of near abouts there but ultimately just to kind of quickly talk through it is that shading process of the leaves before harvest which is only about three weeks before harvest that forces the plant to overproduce in like chlorophyll and all these like wonderfully powerful antioxidants and crucially l-theanine and it's the l-theanine which is an amino acid which when combined with the caffeine forces like causes that natural slow release energy on ourselves that kind of calm focus takes the edge off you haven't got those peaks and troughs crashes jitters that you get from coffee it's a super steady slow release energy that you do instantly feel here we go we do thank you thank you guys okay i think we've got the same yeah i did that on purpose this is the flat green flat green high grid satina high grade coconut milk and it's great isn't it yeah i think everyone goes on their their own journey with with matcha and this is where we're all at at the moment a nice coconut flat green yeah um so you're going straight in but it's a good place to start it's sort of welcoming in the sense that coconut's kind of a little bit sweet but it's it should still allow for the match to come through i think other milks can be a little bit less this is the color combo this is this is the aim to achieve we're slightly pausing halfway through no no it's all right it's good together i know slurping down the mind okay so shading yeah so once you've kind of nurtured a really young sweet tea leaf which often are from the top half of the plant there are different now different harvests that take place so the first harvest which is you know there's different sort of terms that come through first flush or just first harvest is just the more common term spring harvest is the first harvest in the year that ultimately you're picking the youngest sweetest leaves and again that's quite an important process in securing a high quality matcha sort of similar to how you would pick the top part of a mint leaf you know you're going to get those youngest like the sweetest most potent flavor in there and you're also going to get this vibrant green color as you go further down the plant you get sort of hardier more bitter duller in color less of those like really potent sort of benefits in there so that sort of process is really important there's technologies evolving to away from like the hand picking technique but obviously anything sort of hand-picked is going to be the most valuable as well and then it goes into a process of you de-stem and you de-vein those leaves so that also is removing some of that bitterness from the plant whereas as you go further down or like later harvest there's normally up to three harvests now you're just going to get more bitterness come through and you're also just quality is reducing and then it's also they steam it and then they air dry the leaf and then your ultimately grinding that tea leaf into a powder which is the process of making the matcha from a green tea leaf into a powder and also the technique of grinding is also quite important so traditionally stone milling is what was what's happened over generations it's between two granite stone mills they grind it into a soup slowly into a super fine powder and that's also reminiscent of you can use metal balls now to kind of grind it there's a few other different techniques as well but the fineness of that powder is also important in the smoothness of the texture that you're drinking flavor heat comes into play there is quite a lot of technical details that I could kind of go on about but we haven't got that much time for it but yeah ultimately the care in that process the precision in making it doesn't start with just your end product making it in even in our bars that very much starts from ultimately the seed that's planted where it's planted the terroir and then the nurturing of the farmer from start until finish and into a powder yeah i think it's definitely got a huge richness to it in a similar way to i think especially as coffee but also you know things like champagne and all the rest of it yeah naturally i think people made those comparisons to wine to chocolate like a cow bean coffee it's and again in terms of grades you wouldn't end up drinking you know cooking wine as you wouldn't end up wanting to drink culinary matcha and I think a lot of the matcha that we see served in a lot of like places in the UK ultimately are at the quality or the grade of cooking grade matcha you know there's a few very key little points that you can look out for in order to kind of check what you're drinking and everyone can become an expert very quickly in that and we've recently actually just written a book that also just delves into a bit more of that that gives just some clarity and demystifying of matcha and how to kind of drink good quality delicious matcha that is really simple there's not too much to it once you kind of know a few things and then it is in the preparation and making sure it's it is freshly prepared is the best way forward so if we go back to like you're working in coffee shops as a freelancer yeah it's peak coffee yeah what then made you think like matcha would be the next big thing because I remember even when you started yeah I think someone in your team reached out to come on the podcast yeah and I initially said no yeah because as a strategist I like to sort of bet on trends yeah like if I invest in businesses that's usually where you know where I get excited right it's like what's the trend driving it is it going to be big yeah and at the time I remember sitting in my kitchen I think I was sent someone I didn't get it no and now I'm like fully in and think you could be the next Starbucks yeah I think it's and you definitely weren't the only one like it's been a long journey and it still sort of slightly blows my mind if someone had said people are going to be panic buying matcha to me when we first started that would have absolutely never been something that I thought would we'd be in this we'd be in that situation but I did see a shift in well people's behavior like you know the personalization of what you're consuming and also from like a mental health point of view caffeine was also triggering for people anxiety or sleep was becoming more important gut health like all these different sort of wellness attributes which are linked directly with matcha and then you consider people's behaviors on like what are they consuming and how are they consuming it so match it as much as yeah I cannot sit here and say I foresaw the total cultural shift that we're seeing but there was definitely a quiet need for something that served people on that daily routine space of going to a coffee shop and getting something that's going to make you feel better then but still feel sociable and like all these other players come into it alcohol is also an interesting it's been an interesting sort of shift so people were starting to consider things outside those very religious daily drinks which were coffee and alcohol I think and one of the things that I'm particularly curious to get your perspective on is like why do you think we're seeing this cultural shift and for me in in the like broad strokes of it you have like a slightly more like millennial mindset that likes coffee is work hard play hard yeah likes to have a good time likes to go out yeah still drinks yeah or still enjoys drinking and it's very much like quite a joy being in the chaos yeah whereas i think there is a gen z mindset which is life's chaotic enough yeah and we want an escape route yeah at times yeah and we don't need to be fully stimulated yeah the whole time yeah and we choose when we drink and when we don't drink yeah and actually like matcha fits a more aesthetic need yeah a more kind of socially driven need yeah but it also functionally works better for them it's really interesting to kind of consider how the shift has happened away from this hustle culture it sort of stemmed i think from this all like working from home covid we actually rode out the back of that yeah basically just back to how coffee and matcha play a role in that cultural shift i think for us there was like a conversation shift where people were going oh I don't drink coffee after midday I don't drink coffee after two o 'clock I do still have it as my first thing in the morning as like that immediate pick me up because I need that instant hit spring me out of bed feeling but I think people are now it's more about mindfulness it's more about slower rituals being present and matcha naturally lends itself to all those moments way more than coffee which is an immediate jilt energy or caffeine fix which I still think has a purpose for certain people and certain times of their day for sure I will still drink a coffee when it's needed but matcha serves a different purpose a different time of day and a different mood I think people are connecting with people in different ways as well I think it's the same with how people look at alcohol and how it like caffeine can hinder even that connection that you have with people as like alcohol does and it can be seen sometimes as a bit of a cloak over even an individual whereas matcha just can really refine that focus it doesn't it's not just a distracting sort of hit to yourself what we've also witnessed alongside that kind of wellness shift is an ice beverage revolution as well so where matcha also fits in is that it's a way more versatile ingredient than coffee ever will be in the sense of the flavor profiles that you can kind of channel towards a matcha menu as opposed to a coffee menu is way more extensive you can be more innovative with the drink.

18:36I mean, 90 % of our sales across the year are usually iced beverages. If you were to think about this, even two years ago, it really was a hot drink moment in people's day, having a coffee. So I think we've also had to wait a little bit for that evolution. And we're now seeing people returning a little bit more to drinking hot drinks as well. So it's sort of going kind full circle but flavor played a huge part for us at the beginning especially in ensuring that it wasn't totally alienating having a matcha we introduced more familiar ingredients or more playful ingredients to make it feel a little bit more welcoming yeah which you weren't really seeing on menus at the time yes there was like a turmeric or a beetroot latte for color but But in terms of like functional benefits, we had this lavender CBD matcha latte, which still I couldn't give you exact reasons why this worked.

19:40But I do think if I unpick it, it's the association that people had to being that kind of calm drink. It was like the ultimate I am choosing this because I want to feel more relaxed as opposed to a more energized bulletproof coffee. you know the kind of yeah which you're asking for that so I think and that was our most popular drink it literally drove I can't even remember off the top of my head the percentage of sales but like it was our most popular drink by a long way and people really like it was like their

20:14Claudia Boyer:identity what order they had on a menu do you think there's like a paradox sort of implicit with you know the janky iced flat green yeah right or the ice cream which one is this called the flat green the flat green which is i'm stressed because social media is so hectic yeah and therefore i want a calming less i don't want to feed that like anxiety anymore so i want a slightly more relaxing drink yeah but i also want to be seen with my drink 100 % on social and this is a bloody good status symbol yeah I mean from a branding perspective it ticks like all the boxes of a great brand like clear monolithic color super memorable name icon that people can like champion and herald looks easy to spot from 20 feet away yeah and it has become an accessory right and for us we've had really close sort of partnerships often have come through with like fashion and beauty because it's just quite that is the culture exactly so it's it also plays into that and that green is so synonymous with just I guess all these identities that you want people want to tie into themselves and I think the functional benefits obviously reassure people that they're making the right choice yeah and so there's so much that can kind of come with choosing to have a matcha drink and I think you know before it there is so much opinion around matcha we get a lot of passionate love and then you also get a lot of passionate hate as well I don't know what it is but it really welcomes those two-sided opinions I think there's a real contrast between and again we're getting very sort of like generational which is not always a great thing but mindsets rather than demographics the boomers don't really like that shit they think like what the fuck is that yeah Gen Z love it yeah we're sort of stuck in the middle as millennials who are sort of like match curious yeah totally and I think I think I can't remember what one of your first questions was but it was did you sort of bet on this trend and I think most of the people that were that you kind of speak to in these first stages of starting a business are of an older generation it was the same with like a lot of landlords across London trying to convince landlords that they should put a match a bar into their estates was we just we couldn't prove it until we had our first successful bar and it actually was going into Selfridges that really ultimately that they took a took a bet on us as well but we that really proved our credibility when we made that work we didn't serve any coffee it was matcha focused and I think that clarity in what we were doing and why people was coming to that and ultimately the cues that followed just sort of proved to it wasn't a generation at all it was just the proof was it needed to to come in order to kind of be reassured that it wasn't just a passing trend you know I know that a lot of people and from the very beginning have always said oh it's just a trend it's going to pass but we are now seeing that it very much is here to stay it's on every single menu that you walk into every single shop everyone's doing some sort of version of a nice strawberry right now a nice cherry latte it's like it's kind of synonymous with a coffee shop menu now yeah we are now seeing how that that effect has filtered through different generations and it's just kind of how people are choosing to enjoy it which is why for us it was so important starting with our bars and how we could bring that first-hand experience to our customers but we are now shifting whilst we are wanting to expand in those very considered locations we are wanting to also own that experience at home as well and really understand how people want to be consuming matcha at home and not just in bars across London I think one of the the big penny drop moments for me was when we were sampling the honey project at Selfridges yeah and the amount of people who would just like run up to us in sort of a frantic malaise and they would be like you know we were expecting that oh we've seen the honey project like we'd love to try it where's the janky bar the stress and trying to find the janky bar and selfridges is one that's quite stressful because and the queue sort of almost out the door yeah no i mean selfridges again is its own sort of microcosm of like incredibly interesting customer and also just a amazing very trend forward yeah And we've always been incredibly grateful for that opportunity to be there and continues to be one of our most successful locations.

25:31And I think to your point earlier, it lives so perfectly. We're opposite the beauty hall. People can go shopping for clothes. It's like part of fashion. And they'll pick up their janky and they'll do their shop alongside with the janky as their accessory.

25:48Claudia Boyer:It's a bit like the janky or the can of poppy. Yeah, exactly. That really solidified for us how matcha can live in those spaces and has continued to be a really important brand awareness piece for us. And will continue to take nods and inspiration from fashion, from beauty. And I think food, fashion and beauty is just a really interesting realm that kind of function in. And I think to your point as well, Femayken, people consume food through their eyes. And the same with drinks as well. And I think that also plays into naturally the iced drink. It being an iced forward drink. It's see-through.

26:36Yeah, it's see-through. People can see it. It's like food products on a shelf that you can see in. You want to see what that cereal looks like or those jar of beans. and it's the same with the drinks that our colorful drinks also do exceptionally well fruity specials they can really see what they're going to drink as opposed to a hot drink in a cup that is you know it's then incredibly important what the branding is of course but for us we can be quite simple with with our branding and really let the ingredient and the product do the talking and ultimately that first experience is so important so from you know the queue for example which is a great thing but we're also trying to balance how how long people are actually we speed of service is incredibly important to us being greeted by a really a passionate matcherista who has his experience in the menu and really understands the product and can kind of recommend something to kind of then obviously walking away with a beautifully prepared drink that is delicious all those steps right now we do have control of and that's what we keep wanting to refine and nurture to make sure we can deliver the best match your experience and that focus on providing just the ultimate match your experience not getting distracted by serving things like coffee and things like that allows us to just constantly refine that yeah i i guess you

28:07Claudia Boyer:had one of those rory sutherland type moments when you took coffee off your menu and you just saw sales increase by 80 percent yeah we introduced coffee at the beginning because we ultimately were like no one's going to come into our shop so we need to have a coffee machine to sort of draw people in to pretend and and then hit them at the end with you can only drink matcha but no we did we did do we did delicious coffee and it was really important to us and yes it was a moment of real clarity and also just looking at the data simply we realized that coffee was only bringing in four percent of our sales people were coming this was after a couple of years we dropped it in april 2023 having proven that selfridges we never had coffee on the menu at selfridges it was always matcha only because the space was so small we couldn't fit in all the equipment and we used it as an opportunity to really trial whether we could make it work and people were coming to Jenki just for matcha they weren't interested in trying coffee and you can't please everyone and I think once we gave even our customers that absolute authority in we do something well and we are disciplined in that that also just built even more trust into Jenki being a matcha brand there wasn't we weren't trying to be anything else we're not trying to be for everyone we do match and we do it really well and that was the focus that we needed is that selfridges point about how constraint budgetary or material can actually be a really good way to creatively grow 100 % I think for there's been a few points in our maybe my life but more if I'm focusing more into like janky obviously where just actually trying to do everything forces you to do nothing ever that well I think just being quite brutal with removing serving coffee from our menu and focusing on matcha just allowed operations to streamline like instantly our customers understood what we were serving the menu wasn't as convoluted our team had clarity like everything sort of falled into place you could say you know having been a yes brand to kind of every single opportunity as we all kind of naturally are at the beginning of a lot of businesses you just can refine your kind of responses to a lot of requests which is like no we can't do that because actually it's not allowing us to kind of focus on like our direction and our angle which is to serve delicious matcha it's not it wasn't compounding any beneficial outcome to add coffee to that yeah and again the same thing happened having twins like that sort of brutal focus you can sit through hours of meetings whereas now that kind of total I don't know just needing to optimize my time and being like it has just removed any procrastination procrastination I mean yes obviously I think we all can still procrastinate but that hyper focus being more just so much more proactive on decision making more decisive definitely helps with the pace of a business and moving forward because distraction does slow things down yeah and I think that second guessing yourself also slows things down as well yeah whereas it's nice I think when you get into a good confident flow state yeah be much faster making decisions yeah I think actually you're right I think confidence is making that decision just taking it back to making a decision to remove coffee was a confident bold decision and I think once you've done that and you've realized it's actually not going to be that bad you have so much more confidence and leading with confidence yeah is a really good place to be um I guess you touched on it you're married to and have twins with your uh co-founder Otto yeah what's that scenario like because I've you know you know that I ran honey with Laura and it's tough yeah I think I mean also and I have been together a long time um and I guess been through quite a few different phases of our lives together as well and married like you say started a business together had had twins we've got another baby on the way as well it's like oh kind of it is everything let's just go um but yeah I think we're incredibly lucky in the sense that we very much have different skills um Otto sits more in an operational financial business growth side to the business and I'm I'm more brand marketing and you know together we work on strategy and the sort of wider janky ambition but I think having the ultimate respect for for each other's skill set has been what's ridden us through like I trust him implicitly that he will get things that he needs to get done without me asking and he's the same with me and we don't really switch into each other's lanes too much so you don't you don't come home and go not sure that forecast quite right yeah no maybe exactly and I think but obviously that's changed quite dramatically at the beginning when you're doing absolutely everything.

33:52Claudia Boyer:Yeah. And I think we've had a very sustainable, organic growth approach to Jenki. And definitely as Jenki has got bigger, actually Otto and I work together less and less. There's days that go by where I don't necessarily have a meeting with him. Don't even text him. Check in with him at the end of the day. But actually at the beginning was where it is the hardest part of starting and I think actually having someone who is totally on your side you've both got the same ambition and intention and goals that you're both working towards together played to our strengths but also just played to our benefit when starting Janky and now naturally because of the skill set we've enabled it's enabled us to both grow separately within the business I think it's like kind of two architects working together it would be difficult but because we have those different lanes it sort of works quite well do you have your own mentors at all we actually don't we actually share a mentor at the moment um i think that's an area that we would both like to delve more into we haven't had too much we only started that in the last couple of months and it is something that i think has been incredibly valuable to both of us mainly as you know as the team's grown just how to be better leaders founders better at the roles that we do and I guess with with growth has also become that clarity on on our roles and where we can actually add value and making sure I feel incredibly fortunate that we've had incredible team join who are really talented and have allowed I you know have no greater um pride than like kind of witnessing them do incredible work and realize that actually I'm not best best position for that let me go and figure something else out so I think yeah and then adding adding the twins to it is just again it just has refined that focus again and definitely added more constraints on times but for me it's been really about just boundering my my time when I'm at work I'm at work and when I'm at home, I'm at home.

36:07And that sort of work-life balance for us has been really important to maintain, especially for myself. And Otto does a great job of it as well. So I think for both of us, that initial bit is always just figuring it out. How are you going to respond to it? But ultimately, we love our work. We want to continue to do that, but also love being at home. And those are our two focuses. So it's just the clarity on those is great.

36:34Claudia Boyer:I guess finally like what are you most excited about going forward you've got this book that's just come out yeah thank you for mentioning the book the book yeah um the book is very exciting and I'm again really proud of everyone for helping that kind of come together and for me it is a really exciting moment for for matcha more generally I think where we are at this time is just wanting to continue to define matcha in this sort of new place that it sees itself in and ensuring that it is delivered in a really expert way and Jenki leading that. So I'm just excited to see how the matcha industry and category evolves and just the fact that we're a part of that and leading that and wanting to continue to nurture that is just I feel very fortunate to be in that position and just continuing to see that that growth and curiosity of people of matcha I can now sort of let all my passion for it out and the book is a good a good place where I've been able to exercise that so yeah amazing well I can't wait to have a flick through the book we will get you the book get you the book to matcha And I'm excited to try your matcha honey as well.

37:54Claudia Boyer:And thank you so much for coming on People Doing Things and making the time. Thank you so much, Ed. It's been lovely. That was Claudia Boyer, co-founder of Janky Matcha on People Doing Things. As always, I've been your host, Ed Little. And if you are feeling particularly generous of spirit, reviews go a long way to helping this podcast grow. So please head over to Spotify or Apple and leave one. People doing things on a mission to celebrate and inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.