Why Catherine Got More Beautiful in Japan
A conversation about green tea, matcha, and the philosophy hidden in your cup
It started with a simple observation.
We were sitting at a café near Nakanoshima, the kind of early autumn afternoon where the light turns gold and nobody’s in a real hurry to go anywhere. Nicholas was on his second coffee. I had hojicha. Catherine walked in, dropped her bag on the chair across from me, and pulled out — as always — a bottle of green tea from her tote.
Nicholas looked at her, then at me, then back at her.
“Has anyone told you,” he said, squinting a little, “that you look… different? Like, good different. Like you’re actually sleeping and eating vegetables or something.”
Catherine laughed, a little caught off guard. “I mean, I’ve been getting that a lot lately actually.”
That’s how this conversation began.
Nicholas: Okay, I have to ask. My wife started doing some skincare thing she found on Instagram, costs her like four hundred bucks a month. Catherine shows up looking like this and her secret is what — green tea from a vending machine?
Takeshi: laughs I’m not a dermatologist, so I can’t promise you anything. But I’ll say this — walk into any convenience store in Japan, look at what’s in people’s bags on the train, see what everyone’s drinking. It’s almost always tea. Hot or cold, winter or summer.
Catherine: That’s honestly what happened to me. When I first got here, I was still buying coffee or the canned lattes, you know. But then I started noticing that literally everyone around me had this little bottle of green tea. And I don’t know, I just started doing it too. It felt… natural? After a while I couldn’t imagine going a day without it.
Nicholas: And that’s it? That’s the whole secret?
Catherine: I mean, I don’t know if it’s the secret. But my skin has been better since I moved here. My hair feels different — I don’t know if that’s the tea or the water or the food or just the lifestyle. Probably all of it. But the tea thing, I notice it when I forget to bring it. I feel off.
Takeshi: There’s actually something worth knowing about why that might be. Green tea — and matcha especially — is packed with catechins. They’re a type of polyphenol, very strong antioxidants. Japan has one of the highest concentrations of catechin-rich tea varieties in the world, partly because of the climate, partly because of how the tea is processed. When you heat green tea leaves, you preserve those compounds in a way that oxidized teas like black tea don’t.
Nicholas: Antioxidants. Okay, I’ve heard this word about fifteen thousand times. What does it actually do?
Takeshi: Simply put — it fights oxidative stress in your cells. That process is linked to inflammation, aging, skin degradation. Catechins also have some antibacterial properties, which is part of why Japanese people traditionally drank green tea with and after meals. It’s practical.
Nicholas: So it’s basically free skincare.
Takeshi: laughs I wouldn’t put it that way. But it’s not nothing.
Catherine: I’ve read some blogs by foreigners living in Japan — a lot of people write about this. Like, they came here and their skin improved and they half-joke that it’s the tea. I used to think that was just the excitement of being somewhere new. But now I’m not so sure.
Nicholas: What’s the actual difference between regular green tea and matcha? I always assumed matcha was just green tea that someone pulverized and started charging twelve dollars a cup for.
Takeshi: laughs That’s fair. The difference is significant though. With regular green tea, you steep the leaves and drink the water. The leaves get thrown away. With matcha, you’re grinding the entire leaf — the whole thing — into a fine powder and consuming all of it. So you’re getting the full concentration of nutrients, chlorophyll, L-theanine, catechins. It’s a different experience nutritionally and in terms of flavor.
Catherine: The L-theanine thing is interesting to me. I’ve been reading about it. It’s supposed to create a kind of calm focus? Like the opposite of caffeine jitters?
Takeshi: That’s roughly right. Matcha has caffeine, but L-theanine modulates how your body responds to it. The effect is less of a spike and more of a steady, present kind of alertness. Some people describe it as meditative clarity. Which is actually not a coincidence — matcha was historically used by Zen monks during long meditation sessions, specifically because it kept them alert without agitating the mind.
Nicholas: Huh. So Buddhist monks were essentially the first biohackers.
Takeshi: laughs I don’t think I’d phrase it that way in front of a monk. But there’s some truth to that.
Catherine: Takeshi-san, can I ask you something about the tea ceremony? I’ve been wanting to go to one properly but I feel like… I don’t know. Like I’d be a tourist there. Like I’d miss the point of it.
Takeshi: That’s a good concern to have. Most people who go to a tourist tea ceremony experience are receiving something — a performance. The real thing is different. It’s not a performance. It’s closer to a shared silence.
Nicholas: A shared silence. Okay, speak English for a second. What does that actually mean?
Takeshi: Let me try. There’s a phrase that’s central to tea ceremony — ichi-go ichi-e. It means “one time, one meeting.” The idea is that this specific gathering — this exact combination of people, this light, this season, this moment — will never happen again. That’s not poetry. That’s just true. And the ceremony is built around that truth. Every movement, every gesture, every choice of bowl and scroll and flower in the alcove — it’s all designed to make you present to that unrepeatable moment.
Nicholas: That’s… actually kind of heavy when you say it like that.
Takeshi: It’s the opposite of heavy. It’s lightening. When you really feel that this moment won’t come back, you stop being somewhere else in your head. You’re just here.
Catherine: But is there more to it? I’ve heard that gratitude is a big part of it too?
Takeshi: Yes. And this is the part that’s hard to put into words without it sounding like a poster on someone’s office wall. When you sit with a bowl of matcha in your hands, the tea has a history. Someone planted the tea plants — probably on a slope in Uji, or Nishio, or Kyushu. Someone else pruned them, tended them for years, waited for the right moment to shade the plants before harvest to concentrate the chlorophyll. Someone picked the leaves by hand. Someone processed them. Someone transported them. Someone prepared this bowl with care. And now it’s in your hands, warm.
Catherine: That’s a lot of people.
Takeshi: It’s always a lot of people. For everything. We just don’t usually stop to notice.
Nicholas: Okay, I’m going to be honest with you — that’s the kind of thing that in New York I would have rolled my eyes at. But sitting here, it doesn’t feel like a cliché. I’m not sure why.
Takeshi: Maybe because no one’s trying to sell it to you.
Nicholas: laughs Fair point.
Catherine: Do you do the full ceremony yourself, Takeshi-san?
Takeshi: Not formally. I’m not trained in the way someone who has studied with a master for many years is. But I make tea at home with intention. I don’t do it while looking at my phone or thinking about what’s next. I boil the water, I wait for the temperature to drop a little — you don’t pour boiling water over good green tea, it burns the leaves and turns it bitter — and I just make the tea. That’s all. It takes maybe four minutes.
Nicholas: Four minutes of not looking at your phone. That sounds genuinely difficult for me.
Takeshi: laughs Start with two.
Catherine: Can I ask — is there something you’re thinking about during those four minutes? Or is it really just… nothing?
Takeshi: Somewhere in between, I think. I’m aware of the sounds. The water. The steam. Sometimes I think about where the tea came from, just briefly. It’s not forced. It’s more like the act of making tea creates a small, quiet room inside the day. You can step into it or not. I just try to step into it.
Nicholas: So what’s your actual take on this? Like, should I be swapping my morning Americano for a bowl of grass-flavored powder?
Takeshi: laughs Please don’t do anything because I suggested it. But I’ll say — the cultural habit of drinking tea in Japan isn’t just about nutrients. It’s about pacing. It creates pauses. Most people here drink tea several times a day, which means they stop and make tea several times a day. Those are small breaks built into the rhythm of life. Whether the catechins are doing something for your cells or not, the act of pausing is doing something.
Nicholas: I will say, since I moved here I drink way less alcohol than I used to in New York. I think partly because there’s always this tea option that’s… satisfying somehow. Doesn’t feel like deprivation.
Catherine: I’ve noticed that too. I barely think about wine anymore, which is weird because in the States I drank it like water.
Takeshi: Japan has its own drinking culture, that’s for sure. But tea holds a different kind of place here. It’s not a substitute for anything. It’s its own thing.
Catherine: Takeshi-san — you mentioned that gratitude is at the core of tea ceremony. Is that connected to the way you think about shrines? You’ve mentioned before that you don’t go to pray for things, but to report and give thanks.
Takeshi: Yes, they’re connected for me. Whether it’s tea or a shrine visit, the movement underneath it is the same — becoming aware of what was given to you. Tea involves people you’ll never meet. The fact that I’m here, healthy enough to sit in this café, involves people and circumstances going back further than I can trace. Acknowledging that isn’t religion, exactly. It’s just honesty.
Nicholas: You know what, my grandmother used to say grace before meals. And when I was a kid I thought it was just this old-fashioned ritual. But the way you describe it… it’s kind of the same impulse, isn’t it? Stopping to notice before you consume.
Takeshi: Yes. Exactly that.
Catherine: That’s actually really beautiful, Nicholas-san.
Nicholas: Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.
We ordered another round. Nicholas finally switched to green tea. He made a face at the first sip — a bit bitter, he said. By the end of the cup, he asked for another.
Some things don’t need much explanation. They just need one honest encounter.
What to Take Away
This conversation started with a compliment and ended somewhere neither of us expected. That’s usually how the good ones go.
Catherine isn’t more beautiful because of a product, a regimen, or a trend. Something shifted when she made one small, quiet change: she started carrying tea. And in doing so, she accidentally stepped into a practice that has shaped Japanese daily life for centuries — the practice of pausing.
Green tea and matcha are genuinely rich in catechins, powerful antioxidants that may contribute to skin health, reduced inflammation, and metabolic balance. L-theanine offers a calm, focused alertness. The research on these compounds is real, though no one cup is a cure-all. The habit of drinking tea — the stopping, the warmth, the ritual of it — likely matters as much as the biochemistry.
Tea ceremony, chadō, takes that habit and deepens it into philosophy. Ichi-go ichi-e — one time, one meeting — asks you to be present not as a self-improvement strategy, but as an act of honesty. This moment won’t return. The people who grew, picked, and carried this tea to your hands will never know you. The least you can do is notice.
You don’t need to learn a formal ceremony. You don’t need a tatami room or a bamboo whisk. You just need four minutes, a little hot water, and the willingness to step out of what’s next.
That’s it. The rest takes care of itself.
SHIBUMIWORKS is a dialogue-based media project dedicated to sharing Japanese philosophy and culture through honest, unvarnished conversation. New articles are published regularly on Medium.
If something in this conversation stayed with you, consider sharing it with someone who might need a quiet moment today.