So the thing you should probably know about me is that I've been running businesses since I was fourteen, which basically means I've been running on coffee since I was fourteen too, and not because I loved the stuff, but because somewhere along the way I completely convinced myself I needed it just to function.

My mornings all looked the same for years, I'd drag myself downstairs, stick the kettle on and grit my teeth through a cup of something I didn't even enjoy, telling myself it was the one thing that would get me through the day. It got me through school, it got me through a law degree that I somehow managed while running a business at the same time, and it was always the same story going round in my head, that coffee was the thing keeping me on point. Looking back now, I don't think I ever really needed it, I think I just really needed to believe that I did.

There was even a stretch of late nights in the office where I thought energy drinks might be the answer, and that lasted about five minutes, because I very quickly ended up with my heart doing this horrible little skipping thing in my chest, and it scared me enough that I put them straight down and never went back. So it was back to coffee, except I never actually liked coffee on its own, so I'd end up drowning it in vanilla or turning it into a mocha, basically doing everything I could to mask the taste of the thing I was drinking to survive. And don't even get me started on the aftertaste, that stale coffee taste that just lingers, the coffee breath that follows you around all day. My very first job while I was at uni, the guy who ran the place would come over to tell me what to do and just breathe pure coffee all over me, and I remember thinking, I never, ever want to be that person.

And then my little sister came along and got completely obsessed with matcha and would not stop going on about it, and I basically told her where to go because I was so sure it just tasted like grass, which was a very bold stance to take given I'd tried exactly one bad one and decided I was an expert. But she wore me down, I finally got my hands on a properly good matcha, and that was it, I was done for.

Now it's the first thing I actually want in the morning instead of the thing I force down, and there's no gritting my teeth and no drowning it in syrup and no talking myself into it, I just love it exactly as it is. I get my ice, I make my matcha, I take my little four minutes to myself, and I carry a drink I'm genuinely excited about back up to my desk, and it's quietly become my favourite part of the whole day.

And here's the thing I'll happily own, I have got the biggest sweet tooth going, and I'm never going to be the person who tells you off for not drinking your matcha totally pure and unsweetened, because I love a sweet drink and I always will. That's actually exactly why I brought my flavoured matchas to market alongside the pure one, because if you love something sweet then you deserve to drink something that genuinely tastes incredible, all of the flavour and none of that grim lingering aftertaste, something you look forward to rather than just tolerate.

And that, really, is the whole reason Sip Dopa exists, because whether you're a matcha purist or a total sweet tooth like me, I wanted a matcha so ridiculously good that you'd reach for it because you want to, not because you feel like you need something just to get through. So I went and made the tastiest ones I possibly could, and I'm so proud of them I could cry.

I'm still chaotic, I still run about five things at once, and I'm messy as anything, but these days my mornings taste absolutely incredible, and for me that's the dream. So, welcome, I'm really glad you found us, now go and make yourself a gorgeous matcha.

Love, Abbie x

Founder, Sip Dopa