Isabella Wilson was 19 when she tried matcha for the first time, in the summer of 2024, having a little of the drink from a friend. She thought: “It’s not that bad”.
From having a few a week, she moved on to several a day. She even got a job at a café where they served it, and kept drinking it when she got home. At her peak, she was consuming 400 mg of caffeine a day, the equivalent of five Red Bulls. She spent 2.000 pounds in a year, buying bags of powder from an unreliable seller on Vinted and 10-pound sachets at Tesco. “I was thinking about my next matcha when I already had one in my hand”, she recalls.
Her body began to take its toll: migraines that wouldn’t let up even when she woke up, tunnel vision, dizziness, weekly vomiting, acne and 12 kilos of weight gain. It all made sense in January, when she saw a video of someone hospitalized from drinking too much matcha. In March, she cut her intake to two cups a week, and within a few weeks the acne and headaches started to disappear. Experts point out that store-bought matcha can contain more caffeine than an espresso.
