Amai

Amai is the Asian inspired coffee and tea group behind four Southern California cafes, and it pours organic ceremonial matcha at every one of them. The name is the Japanese word for sweet, which the drinks list takes seriously: matcha here arrives with banana cream and banana chips, with mango and coconut cream, or under a cap of sweet foam dusted in more matcha. Vicki Vo and Edward Chiang, a married couple, started the original Amai Tea & Cafe on Anza Avenue in Torrance and ran it for two years before the group grew. Van Corrales approached them about a second address after watching how well the Torrance shop worked, and the line he used about that meeting has stuck with us: he saw a husband and wife with a business that knew the operational side, and he brought the creative half. Santa Monica opened in 2024, with Glendale and Huntington Beach following. The coffee is worth knowing about even here. House coffee is slow-dripped through a Vietnamese phin, the espresso is Sightglass Owls Howl, and the ube, cream puff and sea salt foams are whipped in house to order. Every cafe runs the same organic ceremonial matcha, so the difference between them is which of the sweet builds each one keeps on the board.