Matcha isn’t for everybody. If you happen to’re a fan of the bottom inexperienced tea, the style ranges from earthy to floral to umami; for those who hate it, possibly it’s muddy, grass-like or umami-in-a-bad-way. And nothing can flip somebody off matcha greater than a poorly made drink: a neon-green latte through which the powder sank proper to the underside, giving an disagreeable grainy texture to a singular taste.
Linga Ndambasha was not very impressed with Nashville’s matcha choices when she moved to city in 2021.
Ndambasha isn’t a espresso drinker, and her go-to order is often a chai or matcha latte. “Let’s simply say, I used to be solely consuming chai for fairly a while after I first acquired right here,” she says.
Linga Ndambasha making matcha
Nashville’s matcha latte sport has improved in recent times, and Ndambasha is contributing to that development along with her pop-up Ceremony. Ndambasha isn’t simply tossing inexperienced powder over milk and calling it a drink. She sifts the powder right into a bowl, provides heated water, hand-stirs it with a bamboo whisk till it froths, and pours it over ice combined with a flavored syrup like strawberry. Ndambasha says whisking by hand, quite than utilizing an electrical frother, ensures the tea is frothy sufficient, which implies the matcha is each extra flavorful and fewer more likely to sink to the underside of the drink.
The result’s a dramatic-looking drink — vivid emerald inexperienced mingles with pale-pink foam. Flavored matcha lattes are proving widespread at brick-and-mortar areas all through Nashville, and plenty of are additionally utilizing the same hand-whisked preparation.
Forevermore in East Nashville’s Cleveland Park neighborhood has the Instagram-worthy Purple Haze, impressed by the Jimi Hendrix mural on the facet of their mixed-use constructing. Co-owner JP McLeod concocted the drink after re-creating a pink chilly foam he noticed on social media, and after experimenting with it over espresso, tried it with matcha as a substitute. The drink, out there in strawberry and lavender flavors, was successful, and extra matcha creations adopted. Mary McLeod, JP’s spouse and Forevermore co-owner, lobbied for a slush machine in the summertime of 2025, and the frozen matcha grew to become a top-selling merchandise.
Purple Haze from Forevermore
“It’s damned scrumptious,” says JP. “We paid off that machine in a few weeks.” (Rejoice, Forevermore followers: The machine is returning in the summertime.)
Forevermore sells as a lot matcha as its also-solid espresso choices. JP says the matcha Forevermore provides is accessible for newbies — it’s not too bitter or savory and pairs nicely with candy flavors. Some clients love the lattes, and a few stay unconverted. Others, to JP’s disappointment, simply snap an image for social media and trash it — a waste of an ingredient that’s grown fairly costly.
If you happen to made it this far and nonetheless aren’t certain what matcha is, let’s clarify. Matcha is made out of unroasted Japanese inexperienced tea leaves which were floor right into a powder. Whereas many suppliers grade the standard of their matcha, it’s often divided into “ceremony” (a positive, dark-green powder with a stronger taste) and culinary grade (yellower, with a milder taste and higher for baking). Suppliers could impose tiers on these merchandise, which is useful to cafes however complicated to on a regular basis drinkers, and a few culinary matcha could also be labeled latte-quality. (All cafes talking to the Scene use ceremony-grade matcha.)
The distinctions are Western advertising labels quite than Japanese phrases, says Ndambasha. The distinction issues leaves that have been grown with plentiful shade, turning into a lush inexperienced earlier than being picked within the spring, and people grown with extra publicity to the solar and harvested in the summertime, turning into extra pale or yellow. That doesn’t imply all matcha is created equal — high quality issues, particularly in conventional Japanese tea ceremonies, and often the greener the higher.
Sadly, the elevated world demand for high-quality matcha has contributed to a scarcity. Japanese farms have struggled with warmth waves, local weather change and an growing old workforce, and harvesting is sluggish work, with farmers choosing tea leaves by hand earlier than processing them. Costs have gone up. Ndambasha says she discusses the scarcity and ethics of consumption within the matcha lessons she hosts. She additionally notes that tariffs and import charges could make it exhausting for companies to supply matcha.
Outdoors Babychan
Chef Leina Horii says the summer time months have been “a little bit bit scary,” and her normal suppliers “principally have been saying, like, ‘I can’t get my fingers on it.’” Horii and her husband Brian Lea are the cooks and homeowners behind elevated Japanese comfort-food restaurant Kisser and their new Japanese-inspired bakery Babychan. Horii says it was essential to her that they proceed to make use of ceremony-grade matcha for drinks at each areas, and whereas it’s nonetheless troublesome to obtain matcha — she sources from Japan — the search has turn out to be a bit simpler in winter months.
Horii calls matcha a “staple ingredient” of Japanese baked items, and the choices at Babychan pair it with Western flavors and kinds. Since opening within the Neuhoff District in August, Babychan has featured a matcha cheesecake and a French gateau pairing white chocolate with matcha. The January menu provides a matcha cream Danish with blueberries and pistachios.
“It’s only a fantastic ingredient to form of mess around with, whether or not you’re treating it in a really conventional approach or simply pairing it with nontraditional gadgets,” Horii says.
Horii is the kid of Japanese immigrants, which has knowledgeable the menus of each Babychan and Kisser, and he or she says many shoppers she meets are already huge matcha followers.
“I believe it’s actually cool that it’s one thing that individuals are actually embracing, as a result of rising up, it wasn’t one thing that individuals even knew what that was,” she says.
Muni Muni Matcha
Michelle and Patrick Javier of Muni Muni Tea Store additionally get pleasure from enjoying with taste pairings — the homeowners’ present favourite is a coconut matcha impressed by coquito, Puerto Rico’s staple Christmastime beverage. Different combos like taro, mango and naturally strawberry are provided year-round on the Church Road store. The Javiers say through e mail that the matcha scene in Nashville “has undoubtedly turn out to be extra various” and that “it looks as if locations have extra consciousness and intent of their matcha preparation.”
And there’s nonetheless lots extra matcha to strive in Nashville. In March, Forevermore is bringing again the second annual “Matcha Insanity” cafe crawl. Final yr’s roster of 23 retailers included cafes like Matroyshka, Cafe Babu and Flora + Fauna. They’re already hyping the occasion on Instagram, and Mary McLeod says this yr’s lineup goes to be even larger. Whether or not you’re a matcha beginner or looking for a brand new favourite, simply search for the brand new inexperienced scorecard.
