One of Brooklyn’s Best Matcha Shops Just Opened in Los Angeles | Eater LA

"The first West Coast outpost of a New York–based matcha specialist opened in Los Feliz in late February as a small, minimal shop that imports its own tea and mirrors the Brooklyn design with natural elements such as light wood shelves and stone countertops. The shop serves a focused menu of lattes, traditional whisked matcha, and other brewed teas from Japan, and is best known for its matcha lattes: “We have three different varieties of matcha that we source specifically for lattes,” says owner Zach Mangan, who started the tea-importing company 15 years ago and opened the first shop in New York City in 2020. Alongside the latte varieties, the shop “reserves a special blend to use in a traditional whisked preparation,” and also offers hojicha and sobacha (buckwheat tea) lattes and cortados; iced options include sparkling matcha, gyokuro (shaken green tea), genmaimatcha (green tea with roasted rice), and mugicha (barley tea), while wakoucha (a Japanese black tea) and sencha are available brewed hot. The company’s import arm is incorporated in Japan with a main office in Fukuoka; tea comes in weekly directly from producers, is repackaged and distributed to the U.S., and Mangan says this helps ensure freshness: “Usually it’s less than 10 days between receiving the teas from the producers and getting them into the hands of the customers.” He also notes the supply constraints around matcha—“matcha counts for less than half a percent of the output of Japanese green tea”—and that the business is positioned to spread inventory across many producers: “Kettl is in a good position with the relationships it’s developed with producers over the years,” Mangan says. The Los Feliz location offers grab-and-go service plus a small back seating area and an upstairs mezzanine with communal seating; a four-seat tasting counter runs a guided tea-tasting “omakase” by reservation (counter patrons can also order a la carte), and the mezzanine is planned to double as an education lab mirroring the 12 weekly Japanese-tea classes held at the New York shop once staff are settled. The location also features exclusive collaborations—plant-based, tea-flavored ice cream bars produced with August Novelties (from former Noma pastry chef Malcolm Livingston II) are available only at this spot—and is developing a pastry program with a local chef. Having a physical shop has brought local interest and partnerships with area restaurants and coffee shops (including Tsubaki and Mandarin Coffee Shop), and Mangan emphasizes the difference a storefront makes: “It creates a different type of culture than just being online. You can really build a community.” Reservations for the matcha tasting counter are available on the shop’s website." - Fiona Chandra