Two of the trendiest treats Urban students enjoy — matcha and Dubai chocolate — travel at least 5,000 miles to arrive in their hands. Behind this journey are questions around ingredient shortages, high costs and ethical consumption.

Matcha is a Japanese leaf that people grind into a bright green powder and brew into a rich tea. According to a popular matcha brand called Ooika, farms most commonly grow it in the Kagoshima, Kyoto and Aichi prefectures in Japan. Matcha has existed in Japan for more than a millennium, but it became popular overseas during the last two decades.  

Part of the recent increase in matcha consumption is due to social media popularity. The Instagram hashtag #matcha has 9.5 million posts attached to it. “I kept seeing these aesthetic matcha videos [on Instagram], and it made me want to drink it more,” Rosalie Oliver ’28 said. 

Lachlan McConnell ’27 drinks matcha lattes every week. “It’s very soothing … [and] it tastes good. The green color is [also] fun,” she said. 

Matcha’s explosion in popularity, especially in the U.S., has consequently increased the tea’s demand. The New York Times reported on the impact on Sazen Tea, a leading matcha company. “In September 2023, the business sold about 2,700 units of top-grade matcha grown in Uji, Japan’s best-known tea-producing region,” it said. “A year later, that monthly figure had more than quintupled, to nearly 14,000 units.”

According to the Global Japanese Tea Association’s August 2025 report, “prices have surged by about 270% compared to last year, likely driven by demand from international visitors and social media trends.” The report further detailed how the extreme popularity of matcha overseas has made it less accessible to locals in Kyoto, Japan — an area with many matcha farms. 

While this sharp uptick in price led to lower matcha consumption in Japan, U.S. retail sales of the product have not yet shown any signs of slowing down. Rather, sales have increased 86% in the past three years according to NBC news. Urban students have observed the high cost of matcha. “I’ve just noticed how expensive they are. [Matcha lattes] are anywhere from $6 to $7,” McConnell said.

Soaring demand for matcha creates issues for local matcha farmers. The process of growing quality matcha often takes at least five years because the tea plants mature slowly. After farmers grow them, they shade, harvest, dry, cut and grind the matcha leaves, which takes additional time and effort. This makes farmers reluctant to grow significantly more matcha, since it requires much labor and they are uncertain if the trend will last beyond several years according to The New York Times.

Matcha is not the only food item that social media has popularized. Dubai chocolate is another treat that, because of its trendiness, has skyrocketed in price. Dubai chocolate is a Middle Eastern-inspired candy bar produced worldwide with a pistachio cream filling and a shredded type of pastry dough called phyllo that took the internet by storm in 2024. 

The chocolate first went viral when food influencer Maria Vehera posted a Tiktok of her splitting open the chocolate bar — the video has since garnered 138.2 million views. Haight Street Market sells bars of Dubai chocolate for $23, whereas they sell normal chocolate bars of the same size for around $4.

The interactive aspect of eating Dubai chocolate convinced Oliver to purchase a bar. “I bought Dubai chocolate once, and I thought it tasted okay. I only wanted to get it because it looked fun to crack open the chocolate and have the filling spill out,” she said. 

Some students refrain from buying Dubai chocolate due to its steep price. “[Dubai chocolate is] not something I want to spend that much money on — especially since I usually want a tiny piece, and you can only buy the giant bars for $30,” Hannah Leibowitz ’29 said.

The increase in demand for Dubai chocolate has emerged alongside a sudden pistachio production shortage. According to California’s Administrative Committee for Pistachios, pistachio production in the U.S. fell by 26% from approximately 1.5 billion to around 1.1 billion pounds between 2023 and 2024. An article from The Guardian reported that a poor pistachio harvest in 2023 contributed to the lowered supply. 

The supply shortage and subsequent increase in prices have created issues for those involved in the pistachio industry. A leading Iranian nut production company, Keinia, reported that “[t]raders, manufacturers, and retailers [had to contend] with reduced availability, higher procurement costs and intense competition for premium-quality nuts.”

 The Financial Times reported that pistachio kernel prices rose from $7.65 to around $10.30 per pound since the Dubai chocolate trend emerged in December 2023. This price jump has overwhelmed companies who want to sell Dubai chocolate. 

In addition to creating food supply issues, McConnell worries that trendy foods often create waste because many stores and cafes serve them in plastic or foil. “[While] a lot of the cups we get … are compostable, when I get matcha lattes, some of them aren’t,” she said.

With the demand for matcha and Dubai chocolate creating high costs, ingredient shortages and environmental concerns, some Urban students think people should learn to consume these foods more mindfully. “People should ask themselves, … ‘Do I really need to be drinking or eating this right now?’ Just think twice before you eat it or drink it,” Oliver said.

Leibowitz also feels that people should consume trendy, high-demand foods in moderation. “[I don’t] mean that matcha shouldn’t be available, but I think matcha should be a thing you have once in a while. [If you’re] having this thing daily, maybe weekly, … it can lead to monoculture,” they said. 

According to a report by the National Institute of Health, monoculture is the cultivation of one crop in a specific area with the goal of increasing its planting efficiency, a practice that often harms soil quality.

Leibowitz’s ideas about consuming matcha less frequently echo how Japanese people originally intended to consume the tea. The New York Times article on Sazen Tea reported that most people in Japan have matcha every once in a while, but many Americans see matcha as a casual food item that is always available.

McConnell also reflected on how people should be mindful of food consumption. “We take a lot of things that we eat for granted,” she said. “We don’t know where it comes from. I think [having the] knowledge of where the food is coming from and how it’s impacting the planet is a good thing.”