Savor Scout › Food guides › Matcha
How to find good matcha
Matcha is powdered green tea, whisked into water or milk. Good matcha is vivid green, smooth and gently bitter-sweet; poor matcha is dull, bitter and hidden under sugar.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Bright green colour — Vibrant green means fresh, high-grade matcha. Brownish or olive green means old or culinary-grade powder.
- Whisked, not stirred — Whisked with a bamboo chasen to a fine foam.
- Unsweetened by default — Good cafés let you choose sweetness. Pre-sweetened powders hide poor quality.
- Origin named — Uji, Nishio or Yame. A café that names its matcha cares about it.
- Straight matcha available — Usucha (thin tea) on its own, not just lattes.
What to order
- Usucha — Straight matcha, to judge quality.
- Matcha latte, unsweetened — Then add sweetness if needed.
- Iced matcha — In summer.
- Hojicha latte — Roasted green tea, as a comparison.
- A matcha dessert — If they make one.
Where to find Matcha
Matcha is mostly found at Japanese restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 13,468 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 528 Los Angeles, CA 274 San Francisco, CA 192 Honolulu, HI 192 Las Vegas, NV 148 Seattle, WA 122 Chicago, IL 121 San Diego, CA 94
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 176 Touro University 163 The Graduate Center 163 Baruch 162 New School University 154 FIT 132
A few to start with
- icca — New York, NY
20 Warren St, New York - Azay — Los Angeles, CA
226 1st St, Los Angeles - Zaoh — San Francisco, CA
1555 Mission St, San Francisco - Irifune Restaurant — Honolulu, HI
850 Mililani St, Honolulu - Bocho Sushi — Las Vegas, NV
124 S 6th St Ste 150, Las Vegas - joybento — Seattle, WA
214 Madison St, Seattle
Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for ceremonial grade, Uji, whisked and matcha café, and favours specialist tea shops over chains with a matcha option.
Looking in a particular city?
Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
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