there are probably easier ways to figure out you're serious about fashion than staying up until 2 a.m. in your apartment, individually attaching rhinestones to something for sabrina carpenter's tour.
amanda did that anyway.
one rhinestone at a time.
until two in the morning.
which is a pretty good sign that fashion stopped being a casual interest somewhere along the way.
florida, los angeles, and a skateboard
amanda moved from florida to los angeles for two things:
fashion and skateboarding.
it's a combination that makes considerably more sense once you meet her.
these days, she's a fashion student and works in a bridal studio sewing wedding dresses, so most of her life happens somewhere between class, fabric, fittings, garment construction, sewing machines, and whatever project has decided it needs several more hours than originally expected.
sometimes that project apparently involves several hundred rhinestones.
but fashion wasn't always the obvious plan.
before all of this, amanda was actually in graphic design.
she had always liked clothes. she was interested in fashion growing up, sketched things, thought about it, paid attention to what people wore.
she just didn't really think it was something she could seriously do.
there's a weird difference between liking a creative field and giving yourself permission to build a life around it.
for a while, fashion stayed in the first category.
then she moved across the country for it.
problem solved, apparently.
when the side interest becomes your whole life
creative career changes always look neater in retrospect.
graphic design becomes fashion.
florida becomes los angeles.
something you used to think about becomes the thing you spend most of your week doing.
from the outside, it looks like a pivot.
from inside, it's usually a thousand smaller decisions.
the application.
the move.
the first class.
the first thing you make that comes out nothing like the sketch.
the first thing you make that actually does.
and eventually, a random night when you look at the clock and realize it is 2 a.m. and you're still attaching rhinestones by hand.
at that point, you're probably committed.
somewhere in there, matcha happened
amanda's relationship with matcha was less dramatic.
she first got into it while working as a barista at Maru.
and at first?
she didn't like it.
then she did.
a lot.
not exactly an elaborate origin story, but probably a more realistic one than pretending everyone tries one matcha latte and immediately starts discussing cultivars.
sometimes your taste just changes.
you try something once and think absolutely not.
you try it again and think wait.
then somehow the drink you used to avoid becomes something you actually order.
for amanda, part of that change seems to have been understanding what matcha is supposed to taste like in the first place.
because she has a fairly strong opinion about the most common description of it.
matcha does not taste like grass
according to amanda, the whole matcha tastes like grass thing is wrong.
it tastes like tea.
light.
mellow.
especially good with milk.
and she's not completely alone on this one.
good matcha does have an earthy, vegetal character, but there's a lot more going on than the lawn-clipping description people give it after one bad cup. the flavor can be savory, softly sweet, creamy and umami-forward depending on how it's prepared.
we broke down the whole question in what does matcha taste like — and why does it taste like grass?, including why some matcha genuinely does end up tasting aggressively grassy or bitter.
the short version is that matcha can be bad.
bad powder exists.
stale powder exists.
boiling the life out of it exists.
poor preparation exists.
so does drinking one terrible matcha latte and deciding an entire category tastes like a backyard.
fair enough.
but not necessarily accurate.
the second-look problem
there's a strange little parallel in amanda's story.
not a giant inspirational metaphor. calm down.
just something that keeps showing up.
fashion was something she liked before she believed she could seriously pursue it.
matcha was something she tried before she believed she actually liked it.
both required a second look.
one second look resulted in moving from florida to LA, studying fashion, working in bridal, and hand-bedazzling performance looks at 2 a.m.
the other resulted in a drink.
clearly the stakes were different.
but there's something nice about not needing to immediately understand the things that eventually become part of your life.
sometimes the first answer is wrong.
why her matcha preference makes sense
amanda likes matcha light, mellow and milky.
which also happens to be the side of matcha we care about most at poda.
the goal with poda matcha paste was never to make matcha taste like something else. it was to make getting a smooth cup less dependent on having good powder, good technique, the right water temperature, and enough patience to deal with clumps before leaving the house.
the paste is already concentrated, so making it is basically squeeze, stir, sip.
if you're wondering why we put matcha into paste in the first place, what is matcha paste — and how is it different from powder? goes much further into that.
amanda probably doesn't need the explanation.
she worked behind a café counter.
she has done enough complicated things.
this is amanda
right now, amanda's world is fashion school, bridal gowns, sewing machines, skateboards, LA, and projects that apparently have no respect for bedtime.
somewhere inside that world is matcha.
not the most important thing about her.
not even close.
just something that found its way into the routine after a slightly unsuccessful first introduction.
which is kind of why we started matcha people in the first place.
the drink is rarely the most interesting part.
the person is.
amanda went from thinking fashion might not be something she could seriously do to quite literally sewing it for a living.
and she went from not liking matcha to defending it against allegations of tasting like grass.
people change.
— mujtaba, founder