Unwritten Asia

Japan is one of the most coffee-obsessed countries in Asia. It is also the country that gave the world the matcha ceremony. So why does one country have two completely different drink cultures — and how did both of them end up conquering the world?The answer involves foreign warships arriving in 1853, a government that decided the only way to survive was to become Western, and a tea ceremony that almost disappeared. Twice.In this episode of Unwritten Asia, we trace how Japan adopted coffee as a deliberate act of political survival during the Meiji Restoration — and how matcha was simultaneously preserved, nearly lost, and eventually turned into a five-billion-dollar global export industry that now fills the seasonal menus of Starbucks, Dunkin', and Pret a Manger.This is not a story about taste. It is a story about identity, colonial pressure, and one country performing two completely different versions of itself for two completely different audiences — at the same time.What you will learn in this episode:Why the samurai class drank matcha — and what happened when the Meiji government abolished themHow Japan's first Western-style coffee shop opened in 1888 — before most Japanese people had tasted coffeeThe two moments matcha nearly went extinct — and what saved it both timesWhy Japan exported nearly 9,000 tonnes of matcha in 2024, a 24% increase in a single yearThe schism between traditional tea ceremony masters and the global matcha industry — and why both sides are rightEpisode chapters:00:00 — Introduction: Japan's two drink cultures01:00 — The tea country: matcha and the samurai class01:53 — The ships: Perry's arrival and Japan's survival calculation02:36 — The Meiji Restoration and the first kissaten04:20 — How matcha nearly died — twice05:47 — The global matcha boom: 5 billion dollars and TikTok billions06:42 — The schism: ceremony masters vs the oat milk latte07:20 — The answer: two performances, neither an accidentWatch the illustrated version on YouTube: [YOUR YOUTUBE LINK]Follow Unwritten Asia for weekly Asian history the West never taught you.

Vietnam is the world's second largest coffee producer — and it only started because France needed cheap labour. Here's what that has to do with egg.In 1858, France sailed into Vietnam and planted coffee across its highlands — not for culture, but for colonial profit. That single agricultural decision set off a chain that nobody saw coming: it turned Vietnam into a Robusta superpower, made fresh milk irrelevant, and pushed a wartime bartender named Nguyen Van Giang toward one of the most surprising inventions in food history.This episode traces every domino. From a Paris decision to a Hanoi café. From colonial labour to a cup of cà phê trứng.What you'll learn in this episode:→ Why France chose Vietnam for coffee — and why the Caribbean collapse made it urgent→ How Vietnam became the world's 2nd largest coffee producer (ahead of Colombia, ahead of Ethiopia)→ Why fresh milk was genuinely unavailable in wartime Hanoi→ The exact moment Nguyen Van Giang reached for egg yolk instead — and why Robusta made it work→ Why cà phê trứng (Vietnamese egg coffee) is now on menus in Tokyo, London, and New YorkChapters:France plants coffee in Vietnam — the 1858 decisionVietnam becomes the world's 2nd largest coffee producerThe wartime milk shortage — why condensed milk ran outNguyen Van Giang invents egg coffee at the Metropole HotelWhy Robusta is what makes the egg foam workThe full domino chain from colonial empire to your cup—Unwritten Asia covers forgotten Asian history that Western textbooks never taught — told from the inside. New episode every week.Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.Next week: Japan's government once ordered its citizens to drink coffee. Buddhist monks fought back. The battle between those two cups is still happening. → "How Coffee Conquered Japan — and Why Matcha Fought Back"

There's a man you've almost certainly never heard of. And right now — at this exact moment — his idea is carrying your voice, your messages, your video calls, and your entire digital life across the ocean floor.His name is Charles Kao. In 1966, this quiet Chinese-British engineer at a modest lab in Harlow, England published a calculation that the entire telecommunications industry dismissed as physically impossible. That calculation is why the internet is fast. It's why streaming works. It's why you can video-call someone on the other side of the world without a delay.This episode covers:— Why copper wire had a hard ceiling that made the internet impossible— The specific impurity problem Kao identified that everyone else had missed— How a glass manufacturer went from scepticism to producing the breakthrough fibre in just four years— Why Kao won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009 — more than forty years after the paper that made it all possible— What his story reveals about the difference between asking whether something works now, and whether it can ever work in principleCharles Kao died in 2018. An estimated 5 billion kilometres of fibre optic cable now runs across the planet. Every submarine cable across the Pacific traces back to a paper most people in the industry didn't want to read.Unwritten Asia covers forgotten Asian history that never made it into Western school curricula — one story per week, told from the inside.