Point Loma Cafe Paru Tea Bar Brings Matcha and Modern Art to La Jolla | Eater San Diego

"I'm excited by the new Paru Tea Bar location in downtown La Jolla on Girard Avenue, which opened Tuesday, November 16 and will operate Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The founders, Amy Truong and Lani Gobaleza—who met during a study-abroad program in Japan and are now married—launched the company in 2017 with cold-brew tea pop-ups and a premium subscription box before opening their first retail shop in Point Loma in 2019. At this 1,200-square-foot space designed by Sunset Projects, they offer a large variety of loose-leaf teas sourced directly from farms in East and Southeast Asia and Japanese matcha milled in-house on a custom matcha mill from Kyoto that they say is the only one of its kind in California. Matcha and loose leaves are available for retail and at the tasting bar alongside specialty drinks like hojicha lattes made with oat milk and cold-brew tea sweetened with Okinawa black sugar. The shop sells teaware and local products such as Mikolich Honey and tea-infused chocolates from Deux Cranes, will not have a regular food menu but plans seasonal pop-up food producers, and includes an art gallery called Bow Hall whose first exhibit by La Jolla High School alum Kristi Lin features landscapes created with Paru's dried tea leaves." - Candice Woo