Tencha hit 8,235 yen a kilo at Kyoto's May 2025 auction, up 170 percent in a year and past the old record. The squeeze is real: heatwaves, an aging farm workforce (over 70 percent are past 65), and the frozen reserve blenders leaned on ran out. But production has risen for a decade. The shortage sits only at the ceremonial top, where the markup lives. The science is narrow too: caffeine and L-theanine on focus, real; the "125 times the antioxidants of spinach" line traces to a test-tube assay the USDA withdrew in 2012. Matcha will fragment into collagen and protein versions, and the trade press already has the next leaf staged: lion's mane focus lattes, adaptogenic cacao. The leaf was never the product. The reaching was. Keep your receipts.