In our latest What’s Cooking, we talk to Paris Samuel, founder of Konomi Matcha. We found out how the team at Konomi Matcha had a background in the Melbourne food and beverage industry and discovered Matcha a number of years ago and were captivated by its ceremonial history and health benefits.

The name Konomi roughly translates from Japanese Romaji to “preferred taste or blend” and seemed the perfect way to capture the essence of their brand and purpose and they say, their blends are Konomi!

Your name: Paris Samuel

Your business’ name: Konomi Matcha

Where are you based: Melbourne, Victoria

How would you describe your business? Matcha Connoisseur

What do you love about your job? 

Offering a quality product that I know is good because I made it. My work is flexible for family life and I enjoy meeting lovely people in the food industry.

What part of your job would you gladly give away? Lots of driving.

Who or what has been the biggest influence on your career?  Passion for food and I love being creative with food.

If you were starting out in business again today, what advice would you give the younger you? 

Be prepared that it is not easy. In fact, running a food and beverage business is a lot of hard work.

Tea or Coffee

Tea

Sweet or Savoury

Sweet

Sunnyside Up or Down 

Down

Red or White

Red

Well Done or Rare 

Well done

Your go-to snack

Fruit and chocolate

Thinking about the newcomers and hopefuls who are reading your interview, do you have anything further you’d like to add to inspire or caution them with?

Make sure you have worked with someone in a similar business before starting out yourself. Sounds simple but  a lot of people don’t do it. Also, have an understanding or have someone you can rely on that understands parts of the business you don’t. Be organised, organised, organised. When you are wearing different hats, things get on top of you quickly and you feel overwhelmed and end up not achieving much at all, but if you are organised it is much more manageable.

Thank you Paris for providing us with such incredible insights into your world of running a matcha connoisseur business. Paris is a Females in Food VIP Member and leverages the opportunities our member community provides to women looking for likeminded connections, support for those decisions that are hard to make alone and those unique collaboration opportunities.

The Females in Food team