Ali Francis

By gambling on a line of pantry products, restaurant empire Momofuku found a better business model.

If you were an alien beamed into an American supermarket this year, you’d be forgiven for thinking that humans could not possibly get more obsessed with protein. Since Chicago lifter Irvin Johnson began selling “Hi-Protein Food” in 1950, a soy powder advertised in “Iron Man” magazine as a miracle for “skinny” men, the supplement has come a long way. Protein leaped off the recovery shelves of local gyms and into almost every aisle of the grocery store.

If you were an alien beamed into an American supermarket this year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that humans could not possibly get more obsessed with protein. Since Chicago lifter Irvin Johnson began selling “Hi-Protein Food” in 1950 , a soy powder advertised in “Iron Man” magazine as a miracle for “skinny” men, the supplement has come a long way. Protein leaped off the recovery shelves of local gyms and into almost every aisle of the grocery store.

Matcha wasn’t ready for this. A-frame signs hawk Grinch-tinted carrot cake lattes. Your daily dose of collagen now comes in green. There’s matcha deodorant. Matcha patches for de-puffing your under-eye bags. Home cooks can whip up a disorienting-looking batch of matcha hummus. Obviously Dunkin’ has a green tea-dusted donut. And, as Ellen Cushing writes in The Atlantic, “possibly millions of young people on TikTok” are out there wistfully “decanting green sludge from one vessel to another.” I’m not done! In Los Angeles, you can now visit a matcha-centric diner, where the highball glasses carry tea-spiked ginger fizzes.