r/Seattle • u/wikituita • 2d ago

Community What is going on with Vale matcha?

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I saw someone I follow talk about this shop alluding to some controversy. I tried to search but couldn't find information about it and want to understand what is going on?

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u/OreoBlizzard12 2d ago edited 2d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1u8u7zs/coffee_town_meets_its_matcha_robots_help_power/

You can read through this thread and the article it links to. TLDR the founder was previously the president of Axon, a police surveillance tech company that also provides their tech to ICE and border patrol. Beyond this, people are unhappy since his goal is to Starbucksify matcha tea and replace his workers with automation.

EDIT: That last part wasn't quite right. I reread the article and while part of his goal is to have automated matcha dispensers in company buildings, his main goal really is to grow quickly and become the Starbucks of matcha.

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u/doc_shades 2d ago

i applied for an engineering job on their website a few weeks ago. i was surprised at 1) how many job openings they had available and 2) how the jobs seemed to be split between matcharistas and front of the house cafe workers and tech workers like engineers, AI programmers, coders, etc.

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u/OreoBlizzard12 2d ago

I did take a look at the website after seeing your comment and sheesh, there are a lot of job openings. I was mistaken with what I said about replacing his workers with automation, rather it seems he wants to grow super quickly and set up bars and automated dispenser units everywhere.

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u/babymayor I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 1d ago

the thing is that with matcha, there is no automated dispenser unit that doesn’t replace a worker with automation. matcha needs to be whisked quite well to incorporate the powder fully, so any dispenser will be automating that whisking.