The Economist.
Hello, and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist.
I'm Rosie Blau.
And I'm Jason Palmer.
Today on the show, what should record labels do about AI music?
And why Japanese farmers are struggling to cope with the matcha boom.
First up, though.
I'm at a big tea farm in Kagoshima, on Japan's southern island of Kyushu.
The farm belongs to Nishi Toshimi, who inherited the place from his family two decades ago.
Moeka Iida writes about Japan for The Economist.
Nishi says back then, the tea industry was struggling.
Prices were falling and sales were shrinking.
But then, the world went crazy for matcha.
Nishi says the matcha boom has felt almost like a miracle.
Because of this surge in global demand,
Japan's green tea exports have tripled in the past decade,
and prices have shot up as well.
This all looks great, at least on the surface.
Well, tell me what the matcha boom, the matcha miracle looks like on the ground these days.
Nishi is very enthusiastic about this, and so are a lot of other farmers.