Flavorful Zen: Ooika Matcha

          “Irasshaimase!” the barista exclaims to every customer as they step in the door. This greeting, which means “welcome to our store” is a trademark of Ooika, a newly-opened matcha café on Main Street.With wooden furniture, quiet ambient music, and the white noise of the matcha mill, the aesthetic cafe has become a new relaxing hub for Lawrentians. 

          Matcha is a Japanese tea made from finely ground, dried, young tea leaves, and has an earthy and slightly bitter taste. The green tea plant is grown in a shaded area and harvested by hand only once every year, usually during May. Only the youngest and greenest part of the tea leaves are picked. The bright green matcha powder is made by milling the dried tea leaves. Matcha comes in powder form and is dissolved in hot water and whisked to make tea, or sprinkled in as flavoring. Because matcha plants are grown in the shade, the tea is rich in caffeine, amino acids, and antioxidants– drinking matcha can even prevent cell damage and aid in weight loss. Despite only recently becoming popular in the United States for its health benefits, it has been a foundation in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies for centuries. To make matcha, a “chasen,”  a special whisk made from a singular piece of bamboo, is used. Unlike conventional metal whisks, the tool will not scratch the bottom of the bowl while frothing up the matcha. Since matcha never dissolves, the best matcha is simply whisked until frothy. To best use the chasen, it should be whisked in a special “W” pattern in the bowl. 

          Marc, a Lawrenceville native and one of the owners of Ooika Matcha, has been in the tea industry for 10 years. After entering the field, he “lived in Japan and got really into matcha.” Marc decided to open up a matcha store after getting a matcha mill for fun during the Covid-19 pandemic. Ooika Matcha began as an online matcha shop, and Marc wasn’t originally planning on having an in-person location, but he wanted to make high-grade matcha more accessible. Setting up the shop took three years, because “the [Lawrence] township rules made it difficult to set up a new store.” Ooika’s matcha is unique, because it is the only matcha in the world that is “milled fresh every day.” Most matcha stores, even in Japan, use matcha that is about six months old. At Ooika, the matcha sold is more expensive,  “single-origin matcha,” which means all of the leaves used to make one jar of matcha powder are grown from a single location. For first-time customers, Marc recommends their most popular drink, the strawberry matcha latte, and the upcoming matcha and sakura ice cream for the summer. For long-time fans who want to immerse in the “high-grade matcha” experience, he does not recommend the café drinks and instead suggests single-origin matcha jars called usucha that are served “traditionally in Japan.”

          Many students have become frequent customers, including Audrey Liu ’26 and Angela Yang ’25. Liu’s favorite is the original matcha latte, and she loves that the drinks “use exclusively oat milk,” making all drinks lactose-free and vegan. Yang likes both the strawberry matcha latte and the strawberry soda. With an abundance of refreshing items to pick from, consider Ooika Matcha the next time you need a refresher. Offering drinks and snacks like sesame lattes and sakura-flavored soft serve, they will definitely have a treat that fits everyone’s taste.