The International Matcha Association presents

International
Matcha Cupping Forum

Taste the Future: Discover Specialty Matcha — A Guided Tasting Experience
September 21, 2026 Isabel Sullivan Gallery — Tribeca, NY By advance registration
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01 The Forum

Taste the Future
Discover Specialty Matcha —
A Guided Tasting Experience

IMA is hosting a guided specialty matcha tasting experience during Climate Week NYC.

Much like specialty coffee or wine, matcha offers a remarkable diversity of character—shaped by its origin, cultivar, cultivation methods, and the skill of the farmer. In this event, you’ll taste and compare carefully selected matcha side by side, exploring not only the differences in flavor but also the nature, producers, culture, and craftsmanship behind each cup.

This is more than a tasting. It’s an invitation to consider how biodiversity, regenerative agriculture, quality, culture, and community connect—and how, together, they can shape a new food system.

We welcome chefs, baristas, researchers, investors, policymakers, sustainability leaders, and everyone curious about the future of food.

Join a community gathering from around the world, and experience the beginning of a new culture: specialty matcha.

Aerial view of tea gardens
Tea leaves tumbling in the roasting drum
Steam rising from the steaming machine
Leaves on the drying line
Pressed tencha leaf and liquor on the tasting bench
Matcha gathering on the granite mill
02 The Cupping

A common language
for a world of matcha.

At the heart of the Forum lies the IMA Specialty Matcha Cupping Form — a shared language of evaluation. Before your eyes, master tasters whisk each bowl and assess its aroma, color, umami, and finish, articulating what excellence in matcha truly means.

03 Programme

Ninety minutes,
in two movements.

Each session moves from learning to tasting to conversation — unhurried, in the manner of tea itself. Between sessions, the room is reset; each audience meets hundreds of matcha anew.

0:00
I. Opening
A welcome, and an introduction to the International Matcha Association — its mission, and the standards by which great matcha is measured.
0:15
II. The Cupping
Hundreds of matcha on display. Live cupping and commentary by the world’s top tasters, followed by a guided tasting of selected bowls.
0:55
III. In Conversation
Tasters, producers, and food professionals in dialogue — on terroir, craft, and the future of matcha. With audience questions.
1:15
Reception
An open reception with the speakers. The tasting continues; the conversation lingers.
04 The Venue
atIsabel Sullivan
Gallery
39 Lispenard Street
Tribeca, New York
NY 10013

Isabel Sullivan Gallery — a home for contemporary art in Tribeca’s gallery district — opens its space to the Forum. Amid works chosen to spark joy and curiosity, hundreds of matcha take their place as objects of craft in their own right.

A white-walled gallery, hundreds of bowls of green: the Forum unfolds as an exhibition to be tasted — matcha presented, considered, and appraised as one would a work of art.

Isabel Sullivan Gallery, 39 Lispenard St, Tribeca
Canal St (A·C·E / N·Q / 6) — 2 min walk  ·  Tribeca, New York Open in Google Maps →
An Invitation

Take a seat
among the bowls of green.

Attendance is complimentary, by advance registration. Seats for each session are strictly limited; we invite you to reserve early.

Session One — 12:00 PMInvitation OnlySession Two — 2:30 PMOpen to the Public
September 21, 2026  ·  12:00 PM / 2:30 PM  ·  Isabel Sullivan Gallery, Tribeca