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Some things take a lifetime to find. Others take a pandemic.

Ryoko Benoist was born in Tokyo, raised between Tokyo and Kyoto in a family who ran a small wagashi shop, a restaurant, and a workshop in Kyoto, where Japanese craftsmanship was not a concept.

She spent years in the luxury and fashion industry, moving between Tokyo, London, and Paris. A world that moved fast, looked beautiful, and never stopped consuming. She was good at it. But something was always just out of reach.

Then everything stopped.

When Covid arrived, Ryoko lost nearly 80% of her freelance work overnight. In the silence that followed, she began a different kind of journey, inward.

Slowly, she started to hear something she had buried under years of motion: a deep desire to share the beauty and traditions of Japan with the country she now called home. As a Japanese woman living in France, she had spent years moving through a world that admired Japanese aesthetics from a distance. She wanted to close that distance.

Matcha found her at exactly the right moment. She ordered some to try… and what arrived was an organic matcha from the Nakai family in Wazuka, Kyoto. She didn’t know it yet, but that bowl would change everything.

The journey to Wazuka.

In October 2024, Ryoko traveled to Wazuka, Kyoto,  one of Japan’s most respected regions for shaded tencha cultivation. She met the Nakai family: tea farmers with over 350 years of history, and more than 40 years of organic cultivation, among the very first in the region to commit to it, long before it became a trend.

She walked the fields. She spoke with the farmers about their methods, their philosophy, their relationship with the land. She fell in love with the beauty of Wazuka itself, its hills, its light, its quiet.

And then one of the farmers prepared a bowl of their matcha for her.

That was the moment. The matcha she had tasted during Covid, the one that had started everything, this was it. She knew, without any doubt, that this was the matcha Europe had never truly been offered.

She returned. And again. Each visit deepened her understanding of every step of the process, and her conviction that this was something worth building a life around. In April 2025, she launched MUSUBI MATCHA.

Why MUSUBI MATCHA exists.

“Musubi” (結び) means connection. A knot. The place where two things meet and hold.

MUSUBI MATCHA was founded with one purpose: to bring the highest quality organic matcha — pure, traceable, grown with integrity — directly to Europe. In full respect of its tradition. Safe for the body, gentle on the earth. No blending. No middlemen. No compromises.

The mission is simple: through a direct partnership with the Nakai family, to deliver the finest organic matcha to France and Europe — and through the matcha ritual, to offer people something increasingly rare. A moment of calm. A quiet pause that belongs entirely to you.

From 2026, MUSUBI MATCHA holds an exclusive distribution partnership with Nakai Organic Tea Garden in France and Italy — ensuring that every tin that arrives at your door is fully traceable to the field, the harvest, and the hands that grew it.

Ryoko holds a certification as a Japanese Tea Advisor. She is also the founder of @matchalove_ryoko, an Instagram account dedicated to sharing the depth, culture, and rituals of authentic Japanese matcha in Europe.

This is not just a product.

Matcha is not only for lattes. Not only for desserts. Not only for trends.

What MUSUBI MATCHA wants to bring you is something quieter. A daily ritual that slows the morning down. 5 minutes of stillness before the world asks anything of you. A bowl that asks only one thing in return: to be present.

That is what we bring to Europe. One bowl at a time.