erin marie has a weird habit.
she decides something is going to happen.
and then, somehow, it does.
this sounds either deeply motivational or mildly suspicious.
with erin, it seems to just be how she operates.
one morning, she woke up and decided she wanted to work at Skechers.
not eventually.
not that would be nice someday.
she decided.
within a month, she had an interview there.
her explanation for this is extremely simple:
“i just decided it, and then it happened for me.”
which is inconvenient for everyone who has purchased seventeen productivity books.
one very large group project
these days, erin works behind the scenes in fashion production.
and she has a pretty good description of what the fashion industry is actually like:
one giant group project.
honestly, that tracks.
because behind every finished image where the clothes are perfect, the model looks effortless and everything appears to have spontaneously arranged itself beautifully, there are a lot of people just outside the frame making sure none of it falls apart.
producers.
stylists.
photographers.
assistants.
talent.
garment bags.
clothing racks.
someone looking for something that was literally just here.
someone else holding that thing.
everyone doing one small part of a final image that makes the whole operation look much less chaotic than it actually was.
a group project.
just with better clothes.
the things outside work
erin's interests have been moving outside production too.
she's getting more into personal styling, mindfulness, meditation and sound baths.
which is a pretty funny combination when your actual work involves production.
one part of the week is coordination, people, clothes, decisions, deadlines and making sure everything happens when it's supposed to.
the other part is basically asking your brain to shut up for a minute.
probably necessary.
she also moved from Long Beach to Los Angeles, which naturally led to another development.
matcha.
there are some things LA apparently handles automatically.
the very LA origin story
erin thinks her first matcha might have been from La La Land.
which feels almost too neat.
move toward LA.
get matcha at La La Land.
become progressively more LA.
next thing you know somebody is inviting you to a sound bath on a tuesday.
erin likes her matcha earthy, sometimes with lavender or vanilla.
pretty straightforward.
what she doesn't particularly enjoy is everything people occasionally make you feel like you're supposed to know before you're allowed to say that.
do i need to study for this?
matcha has accumulated homework.
ceremonial grade.
origin.
cultivar.
harvest.
shade growing.
water temperature.
whisking technique.
which region?
which farm?
which bowl?
at some point you begin wondering whether you ordered a drink or accidentally enrolled in an elective.
erin's take is much simpler.
sometimes you just like matcha.
that should probably be enough.
there's nothing wrong with caring deeply about tea. there are people who know an enormous amount about how matcha is grown, harvested, processed and prepared, and there's a whole history behind it worth understanding.
the weird part is when that knowledge starts functioning like an entrance requirement.
you shouldn't have to pass a test to drink something.
knowing more is optional
we actually write a lot about matcha nerd stuff ourselves.
if you want to know what matcha is actually made of, great.
if you're curious about why some matcha tastes grassy and some doesn't, also great.
if you want to know absolutely none of that and simply want your matcha with lavender?
also great.
those things can coexist.
knowledge is useful.
gatekeeping isn't.
most people don't start loving anything by learning every technical detail first.
you don't need to understand fermentation before you're allowed to like bread.
you don't need to identify grape varietals before you're allowed to enjoy wine.
and you probably shouldn't have to explain where your tea was shade-grown before somebody gives you the green drink you asked for.
sometimes the first useful piece of information really is:
i like this.
make me another one.
this is basically why poda exists
that attitude is pretty close to why we built poda.
there are already beautiful, traditional ways to prepare matcha.
we weren't trying to make those disappear.
we were trying to make sure the alternative to performing the whole preparation process wasn't don't drink matcha.
poda matcha paste comes concentrated in a squeeze tube.
squeeze it into a cup.
add a splash of warm water.
stir.
add milk.
done.
the point is not that nobody should know anything about matcha.
the point is that you shouldn't need to.
you can learn as much as you want after the first cup.
or nothing at all.
the drink will survive.
erin does not need another group project
this feels particularly appropriate for someone whose literal description of fashion production is one giant group project.
matcha doesn't need to become another one.
no equipment checklist.
no research assignment.
no flashcards asking GRADE? ORIGIN? VARIETY?
just make the thing the way you actually enjoy drinking it.
earthy.
lavender.
vanilla.
whatever.
erin already seems pretty good at deciding what she wants and moving toward it.
the Skechers interview appeared within a month.
fashion production became the work.
personal styling is becoming another part of the picture.
mindfulness and meditation entered somewhere along the way.
Long Beach became LA.
and matcha became another little piece of it.
this is erin marie
there's probably a much larger lesson to pull from erin's habit of deciding something is going to happen and then watching it happen.
we're not going to turn this into linkedin.
maybe she manifests things.
maybe she's just good at following through.
maybe deciding what you actually want makes doing the next obvious thing significantly easier.
either way, her approach to matcha seems to follow the same basic rule as everything else:
don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.
if you like it, drink it.
you can study later.
— mujtaba, founder