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Tell us a little about yourself We’re a Melbourne-based (but always travelling) couple who love health, food and fitness, but who never thought we’d end up running a global health food company! I just recently left my job as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer to work in the business full-time, so it’s been quite a drastic (but welcome) change from the corporate world to entrepreneurship. Nic, however, has always owned his own businesses and splits his time between Matcha Maiden, a creative agency, an aerial photography company and a software development venture. We both love to learn, travel, and push ourselves to the limits, so starting up a new business in an industry we’ve never worked in before has been a wonderfully rewarding challenge. And, most importantly, we are very proud parents to our hilarious golden retriever, Paul! How did Matcha Maiden come about? That is the perfect description of how it all happened – it just “came about” by accident! It all grew out of us wanting matcha for ourselves and being unable to find a blend that met our taste/price/organic/accessibility requirements. A little of bit of research later and we’d made our first bulk order with the vague hope of selling one or two bags every now and then but with the more likely back up plan of just consuming it ourselves over its one year shelf life. And then, BAM! The matcha madness suddenly swept us off our feet and has continued to grow and blow our minds every day. It’s been the loveliest surprise! We like to pretend we pre-empted the market trend and were super organised and planned it all in advance, but I think some of the best businesses don’t happen that way. What is matcha? You may not have heard of matcha because it’s only recently that it has made its move from the tea category to the health food category (we’re not sure why it took so long but we hope we’ve helped push it out into the world). Matcha Maiden’s mission has been to spread the magic of this gorgeous green powder as far and wide as possible introducing it to the world as not just a plain old tea but a versatile, nutritious and delicious superfood! Matcha may sound fancy and mysterious but it’s actually really simple and you’re probably more familiar with it than you think – it is 100% pure green tea leaves ground into a fine powder. We’re both big fans of green tea both for its flavour and its health benefits. Finding a powdered form of green tea that not only enhances the concentration of all of green tea’s health benefits but also makes it much more versatile was a dream come true! The idea that you could enjoy green tea both as a tea but also as an ingredient in any other recipe was just revolutionary to us! And since the serving size is only 2g, we loved the idea that you can manage the quantity to bring out the matcha flavour if you enjoy it (i.e. in green tea flavoured desserts) or mask it with other ingredients so even if you don’t like green tea you can still enjoy the benefits. How can it improve my health? We all know the potential health benefits of green tea including enhanced metabolism, energy, focus, skin, immunity, and overall wellbeing. Since matcha is a concentrated form of green tea (allowing you to drink the whole leaf instead of throwing it out with the tea bag), it packs a concentrated punch of all these health benefits and can contain up to 137 x the antioxidants of regular green tea! It also make a great alternative to coffee given it has a lower level of caffeine and a wonderful little amino acid called L-theanine that ensures a slow release to the bloodstream and helps prevent the “jitters”. What are some ways I can easily include in my diet? It is so easy to include matcha in your diet – it has a beautiful green tea flavour should you wish to enhance that in smoothies, baked goods, desserts, etc. If you prefer to mask the flavour though, you can still reap its health benefits by using it as a seasoning in salad dressings, stir-fries, soups etc. And then you can get even more creative and use it in home made face-masks, toothpastes and body scrubs – the possibilities are endless! Check out our Instagram (@matcha_maiden) for inspiration or our website for recipe ideas! For more natural health tips visit our blog at: http://www.alkalife.com.au/blog
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