Guizhou matcha has been exported to Japan on a large scale and opened the door to the European and American markets

On the morning of January 27, 2026, Meng Zude, Chairman and General Manager of Guizhou Tea Group, accepted an interview with reporters on the topics of the transformation practice and international development of Guizhou’s tea industry.

In response to reporters’ questions about how Guizhou matcha can break through the bottleneck and go global, Meng Zude shared good news for the new year: in early January this year, 32 tons of EU-standard matcha from Guizhou Tea Group departed from Tongren, Guizhou, crossed mountains and seas, and successfully arrived in Sweden, achieving a good start in the new year. He said that Guizhou has been producing high-quality tea since ancient times, but the province’s tea industry once fell into the dilemma of “having quality but no brand” and “high quality but low price”. Transformation and innovation have become the key to breaking through the bottleneck, and matcha has become the optimal answer.

Meng Zude introduced that in recent years, Guizhou has vigorously developed the ecological tea industry, with the tea garden planting area ranking first in the country. It has built 140,000 mu of high-quality tea garden bases meeting EU standards, laying a solid raw material foundation for matcha to go global. The core confidence for Guizhou matcha to be popular around the world comes from four “Pillars of Confidence”: policy, quality, alliance and creativity.

It is reported that the support from the People’s Government of Guizhou Province has paved a fast track for the industry; strict standards throughout the entire chain have forged the hard power of “Five-Good” matcha (good ecology, good quality control, good craftsmanship, good nutrition and good quality); the “leading enterprises + alliance enterprises + farmers” model has formed a stable industrial supply chain, driving 200,000 tea farmers to increase their income; more than 30 kinds of innovative matcha products have built a diversified product matrix, winning recognition from consumers.

At present, Guizhou matcha has achieved leapfrog development. In 2025, its output and sales volume reached 2,500 tons, ranking first in the country, and its products have been exported to 54 countries and regions. In particular, Guizhou Tea’s EU-standard matcha was exported to Japan on a large scale for the first time, and hundreds of tons of matcha opened the door to the European and American markets, causing a strong response in the global matcha industry. This is not only a vivid practice of Guizhou matcha showing Chinese cultural confidence in international competition, but also a magnificent transformation from Made in China to Chinese Brand.

Looking to the future, Meng Zude said that Guizhou Tea Group will continue to focus on core areas such as base expansion and product innovation, striving to achieve a sencha output of 6,000 tons in 2027 and 10,000 tons in 2030, further increase its share in the global matcha market, and let Guizhou matcha shine more brightly on the world stage.