Inside Nana’s Green Tea, the Japanese Chain Taking Seattle by Storm | Eater Seattle

"Located at the base of a brand-new Amazon building at 1007 Stewart St. in Denny Triangle, I’m looking forward to the opening of Nana’s Green Tea on November 29 — the chain’s first continental U.S. location (it already has sites in Hawai’i and Vancouver) — and the store is taking reservations for an early test drive with limited hours through November 28. The shop, owned by Jessmin Lau, features an evocative interior: a large custom concrete tea bar meant to evoke a stone basin and an eye-catching deconstructed wooden tea-house structure with beams that are wood on one side and mirrors on the other to reflect sunlight and simulate being in nature, all under high ceilings. Nana’s centers on green-tea varieties grown and processed by the company, especially matcha and a roasty, cocoa-noted hojicha; the extensive drink menu offers them hot, cold, sparkling or as floats, and includes eight matcha lattes, four hojicha lattes, four red-bean lattes, matcha latte frappes, and lattes with an unsweetened base that can be doctored with whipped cream or caramel. Desserts and parfaits are a highlight: slender parfaits built on tea agar (jello) and soft serve with toppings like sweet bean paste, several kinds of mochi, brown-sugar syrup, and chocolate sauce, plus ice-cream flavors such as hojicha, matcha, and black sesame; soft serve is also available in a cone. Seattle’s shop will bake more pastries on-site than any other Nana’s — including tender matcha and hojicha roll cakes, chocolate gateau matcha cake, and yuzu cheesecake — and will offer a sizable food menu (available to go after the first week) of Japanese comfort items: rice bowls (tuna avocado, salmon sashimi, chicken soboro), rice plates (chicken nanban, salmon cutlet, tofu teriyaki), two chicken curry options (katsu and karaage), three salads including a creamy potato salad, and the chain’s first savory breakfast pitas filled with salad and a choice of chicken karaage, tofu, or salmon cutlet. Owner Jessmin Lau hopes matcha skeptics will find their proprietary blend mellow with little bitterness, and in a test of first-time tasters more than half preferred the roasty hojicha; starting November 29 the planned hours are Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–8 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m.–8 p.m., with breakfast served until 11 a.m." - Suzi Pratt