Matchaya founder on turning a weekend pop-up into one of Singapore’s biggest matcha brands

Long before Covid-19 sparked the home-based business boom, Kevin Chee was already spending his evenings brewing matcha and houjicha lattes from home for weekend flea market pop-ups.

All because he could not shake the feeling that Singapore deserved better matcha.

At the time, he was working a corporate job at DBS after an earlier stint as a management trainee at Singapore Airlines.

Before that, Mr Chee had graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering.

“I specialised in nanostructure and nanotechnology. Think of it like Iron Man,” the 38-year-old quipped to MS News during our recent chat at Matchaya’s new Tiong Bahru flagship.

But instead of building high-tech suits, Mr Chee found himself tinkering with tea leaves, recipes, and ratios in pursuit of a cup that could show Singaporeans matcha was more than “just green tea”.

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