Private label matcha means the tea inside is ours and the can outside is yours. Starting this season, RIKYU fills and nitrogen-seals our first-harvest Kagoshima matcha directly into your own branded cans — from a minimum order of just 100 cans per size.
Every week, someone writes to us about starting a matcha brand. The idea is usually clear. What stops them almost never is. It isn't the recipe, and it isn't the sourcing — it's the pallet of packaging sitting between them and their first sale. Private label in Japanese tea has traditionally meant thousands of units, a warehouse to keep them in, and a five-figure decision made before a single customer has tasted anything.
We wanted to remove that step entirely. No big commitment, no warehouse. A small first run, ready to sell.
Why 100 Cans Changes the Math
One hundred cans per size is a real launch, not a sample order. It is enough to fill a café retail shelf, seed a pop-up, send press kits, and still have stock left to sell. It is also small enough that you can afford to be wrong about your first label design.
That matters more than it sounds. At 100 units you can run a 30g can in black for retail and a 20g in silver as a gift size. You can test a seasonal edition without committing your year to it. You can find out what your customers actually reach for before you scale — and when you do scale, nothing about the product has to change.
A first run should be small enough that you can afford to be wrong, and good enough that you probably won't be.
The Can: Steel, Screw-Top, Pull-Top
The can is the product. Customers pick it up before they taste anything, and it is the only part of your matcha that lives on their counter for a month. So we chose one format and made it properly rather than offering a catalogue of compromises.
Steel screw can. Rigid, opaque, and cold to the touch — it protects the powder from light and handles shipping without denting the way thin-wall tins do.
Screw-top lid. Resealable, so the can stays in use for the whole month rather than being decanted into something else on day one.
Steel pull-top. A tamper-evident seal underneath the lid. Your customer is the first person to break it, and they can see that.
Nitrogen-flushed. Air is displaced before sealing, so the matcha meets oxygen for the first time in your customer's kitchen.
Four sizes: 20g, 30g, 40g and 80g. Three colours: silver, white and black — the 20g is silver only.
KIKU, one of the brands running on this can. Their name, their harvest year, their label — our matcha inside, filled and sealed in Japan. This is what a private label run actually looks like when it arrives.
Direct Fill — No Inner Bag, No Middle Step
Most small-batch matcha in a tin is not really in a tin. It is in a foil sachet, and the tin is a box around the sachet. That is the cheap way to do short runs, and it shows: the customer opens a beautiful can to find a bag, and the powder has already been packed, shipped, unpacked and repacked before it got there.
We fill direct. The matcha goes straight into your can, and the can itself is the barrier — steel wall, nitrogen headspace, pull-top seal. One filling, one sealing, one opening. Fewer transfers means less oxygen exposure, less static loss of powder, and an unboxing that feels like what your customers paid for.
All of it happens in Japan: filled, flushed and sealed here, then shipped to you as finished retail stock.
What Goes Inside: YMSC Yutakamidori
A private label programme is only as good as the powder it puts in the can, so we didn't build this around a filler grade. The default matcha for private label is YMSC — a first-harvest, single-cultivar Yutaka-midori from Kagoshima, grown pesticide-free and machine-milled.
In the bowl it is sweet and umami-forward with a measured bitterness behind it — the balance is the point. Plenty of ceremonial matcha is delicate to the point of vanishing under milk. YMSC keeps its character in a latte, which is where most of your cans will end up being used, while still standing up on its own as usucha.
Because we source it directly from the growers rather than through brokers, it sits well below what ceremonial grade usually commands. That gap is what makes a 100-can run viable at a price your customers will accept.
It also clears the paperwork side: YMSC meets both EU and US pesticide-residue standards, so you are not discovering a compliance problem after your first shipment lands.
What It Costs
Private label pricing starts from $9.00 per can for a 30g can, with the matcha and the filling included. A run of 100 cans is therefore a four-figure decision, not a five-figure one.
Final pricing depends on can size, quantity and how much matcha goes in each can, so we issue a detailed quotation for every order rather than publishing a table that won't match your spec.
One Thing to Plan For: Labels
Label printing and application are not included in the base price. Some brands already have a printer and a designer they trust, and we would rather not charge them for ours.
If you don't, we can arrange it. Label production in Japan and application by our team are both available on request — just ask when you enquire, and we will include it in the quotation. What we need from you is artwork; what you get back is a sealed, labelled, shelf-ready can.
Who This Is For
Cafés that already pour our matcha and want something customers can take home. New brands testing a first SKU before they commit to a production run. Wellness and lifestyle labels adding a tea line without becoming tea importers. Hotels, studios and roasters who need a small, genuinely good gift item with their name on it.
What they have in common is that none of them want to spend their first season managing inventory. The matcha, the can, the nitrogen seal and the compliance are handled here. Your part is the label and the story.
Two sizes of one brand, stacked beside the plain silver cans they started as. A hundred cans per size is enough to do this properly — a retail size and a gift size, both wearing your label.
Specifications at a Glance
Matcha — YMSC, first harvest, Kagoshima
Cultivar — Yutaka-midori, single cultivar
Grinding — machine mill
Cultivation — pesticide-free
Compliance — meets EU and US pesticide-residue standards
Can — steel screw can with pull-top lid, direct fill
Freshness — nitrogen-flushed and sealed in Japan
Sizes — 20g, 30g, 40g, 80g
Colours — silver, white, black (20g: silver only)
MOQ — from just 100 cans per size
From — $9.00 per can (30g, matcha and filling included)
Starting Your First Run
Tell us three things and we can quote you: which size, which colour, and how many. If you're not sure yet, tell us instead what you want the can to be — a retail line, a gift, a café take-home — and we'll suggest the spec.
We'd also rather you taste it first. Ask for a sample of YMSC before you order a hundred cans of it; that is the whole reason we keep samples on hand.
📩 Contact us: Request a sample or get in touch with our team
