Lauren Danson Purvis was fresh out of college when she launched Mizuba Tea Co, her business that imports and sells fine matcha tea from Uji, Japan. A lifelong tea nerd, Purvis had befriended a tea farmer on a family trip to the region, which is near Kyoto and is the birthplace of matcha, a stone-milled jade-colored green tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies. Six months later, when the farmer she’d become friends with asked for help selling his tea in the US, Purvis decided to start a business. But she quickly realized how little she knew about business in general, let alone how to import tea, meet Food and Drug Administration regulations, and create sell sheets for retailers. “I never cried so much as I did that first year,” Purvis, 33, says. “The sheer learning curve was extremely overwhelming. I had no idea what this entailed, but I knew I loved matcha enough to want to see it happen.”
Her father, a family doctor who ran a practice in the Santa Barbara area for 30 years, shared advice on hiring and setting up her business, and staked Mizuba with a small loan. Purvis repaid him the first year, and has been profitable ever since. Her mom came onboard – now known as “the matcha mom” in the region around the family home – and handles deliveries, receives shipments and watches inventory. Purvis’s father joined as the CFO, and is in charge of payroll and financial matters. Her husband, Dan, is a graphic designer who started out working on packaging. In 2018 he came onboard full-time as the COO and food safety manager – as well as the company’s janitor.
As CEO, Purvis oversees purchasing, manages farmer relations, runs customer service, develops products and trains baristas around Portland, Oregon, where her company is based. She manages partnerships and marketing, collaborates on social campaigns, and plans events. Though she has a team of five others, Purvis touches every part of the business, including quality assurance and financials. “We all do what needs to be done,” she says. The one component they outsource is human resources.
Demand for matcha started booming in 2015. That was when National Public Radio named it “superdrink” of the year, and wellness influencers like Gwyneth Paltrow began posting the Kermit-green tea on Instagram. Tea drinking in general got another boost during the pandemic. A 2021 study found that a green tea component lauded for brain health also helps ward off Covid infections. The international matcha market is expected to nearly double from $3bn in 2020 to $5.62bn by 2028, according to Verified Market Research.