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After having successfully brought the coffee shop chain Tully's to Japan and helped to make coffee tremendously popular there, Kouta Matsuda is returning to the United States with the hopes of returning the favor with a different beverage. He has a chain of successful cafes in Japan that specialize in matcha. With his drinks, he is hoping to do for green tea what Starbucks did for coffee.
His company, Foodx Globe, recently opened its first US Koots Green Tea cafe in Bellevue, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Decorated in bamboo and Asian prints, the cafe specializes in a variety of drinks all made with matcha, a powdered green tea, and other Asian drinks. The menu includes offerings such as matcha Americanos and white chocolate matcha lattes, in addition to black sesame smoothies and tapioca pearl teas.
While specialty teas are growing in popularity, matcha is a fairly new player in the US tea scene. It has been helped along by Starbucks green tea lattes and frappuccinos, but bringing a coffee drinker over to the "green side" might be an uphill battle. Matsuda is planning his expansion slowly, with a few choice west coast locations to open over the next year or two.
[Image Seattle Times]
