Amazing time, amazing friends, amazing Matcha.
We from ROKUSAI would like to say THANK YOU to all of you wonderful people who have joined us for our first Popup Event outside of Japan! The last four days were inspirational, wonderful and, most importantly, green and tasty :)
In this post we want to look back on these days and also inform more about the background and future of ROKUSAI Switzerland.
Who and what are we?
So to begin and bring everyone up to speed, we would like to officially introduce ourselves also here online. Many of you lovely people we have already met in person but maybe we didn't have time to properly introduce ourselves due to the busy days we had.
We are Shota and Yunus, the team behind ROKUSAI Switzerland.
Shota from Fukui, Japan
Hello everyone, I am Shota. I was born in Kyoto. These days I live between Tokyo and Katsuyama, a small town in the mountains of Fukui Prefecture.
Rural Japan is full of good things that few people ever get to see. Live only in Tokyo, and you will never come across them. Live only in the countryside, and you will lose sight of what people are really looking for. That distance between where things are made and where they are enjoyed never sat right with me. Therefore, wanting to close it is where everything I do today began.
Around ten years ago, I came across the ideas of farm to table and bean to bar. They eventually took me to Indonesia, where I visited cacao farms to see for myself how chocolate is actually made. What I brought home was simple: a supply chain is made of people, and the relationship with the maker matters most.
Good taste starts with good producers, and with how directly I can work with them. Matcha in particular depends on the eye and blending skill of the tea master who selects the leaves. That is why ROKUSAI is built on my direct, personal relationships with all the actors of the supply chain, from the growers up until the tea masters.
The ROKUSAI Blend is grown in Kyoto. It features rich in umami, with a soft, mild bitterness.
This is matcha as it is actually enjoyed in Japan, now also available in Switzerland.
Yunus from Winterthur, Switzerland
Hi dear friends, I am Yunus.
By profession I am an engineer.... So you might wonder why I am suddently whisking Matcha in a Shopping center, right?
Let me tell you the story of how I met Shota and why I am suddently part of a Matcha company.
On a way too hot summer night at 1 AM during my vacation in Kyoto I decided to leave my AC-controlled sleeping-pod and search some food after spending 3h trying to fall asleep unsucessfully.
As always, the elevator took an endless time to arrive because this capsule hotel has way too many guests who always go in and out. There standing, also waiting for the elevator, was a guy. I made a comment about how slow the elevator is in this building and from this point on the conversation set off.
We found out we are both going out for food late at night and also it turned out that the guy, who is obviously Shota ;), was originally from Kyoto. Great! I really hoped to have some more exchanges with local people and not just follow the tourist stream through Kyoto. We agreed to have dinner together in a cheap italian Restaurant chain from Japan. The time flew and we already spent 3h talking and laughting together.
Shota told me he would have a presentation tomorrow in a small tea-house named "Garden Lab" in Kyoto about the region where he lives now, Fukui. Since I had no plans I joined his talk which was completly in Japanese and I could not catch one word. But I caught the connection to Shota, the images of Fukui and decided to completly change my planned route through Japan to visit Shota in Fukui.
This was the best desicion possible. Fukui and especially the area where Shota lives is the most magical place I have ever seen. The Heiseji Hakusan Shrine (also called Moss-Shrine) is located there. The area of this Shrine is completly covered in green moss and it feels like the spirits would come out of the forest any moment now.
Also located right besides this Shrine is the café of Shota called ROKUSAI. He offers Moss-themed food and beverage items there.
I was immediatetely hooked by the Matcha Shota offered in his café. It was not like anything I tasted before. The Matcha was rich in Umami and you could feel the high quality with every sip.
From the time we spent together in Shota's Hometown we developed a deep friendship. From this friendship ROKUSAI Switzerland developed. To be exact it was when Shota visited me here in Switzerland and noticed that a lot of Matcha here is taste wise not on the level of his mixture. So we decided to found ROKUSAI Switzerland to bring the tastiest Matcha for a fair price here.
Popup Event at Archhöfe
Let's recap the days from the 08.-11. of July 2026 when ROKUSAI had its first ever Popup in Switzerland.
The whole event was amazing! Meeting you all in person was such a pleasure and sharing the enthusiasm for good Matcha was simply incredible. We appreciate each and everyone of you who decided to visit us.
We vividly remember the interesting conversations we had with all of you. Regardless of specific Matcha conversations or sharing stories from visits to Japan and exchanging travel tipps.
Although the work was very intense (~16h per day), it was extremely fulfilling and amazing because of all of your beautiful smiles, heartfelt feedback and personal stories you brought to us.
We are definitely considering to do a Popup again but we cannot say yet when it will happen.
Until then we will focus to develop the webshop and make sure the ROKUSAI Blend Matcha is well established in Switzerland.
We are also always on the lookout for potential B2B cooperations, regardless of collaborations for a popup or if you are interested in becoming a retail reseller of our signature blend.
We are looking forward to your message under:
Thank you all again!
Shota and Yunus