Tea Master Matcha Cafe & Green Tea Shop

Tea Master of Little Tokyo states its purpose plainly: every tea is an invitation to enjoy and explore and to be educated by, and it invites you to be a tea master wherever you are on your tea journey. Owner Daigoro is a native of Tokyo and a student of the Edosenke school of the Japanese tea ceremony. Japanese tea has been sold from this same East 2nd Street store for over a decade, with the cafe half opening in 2014 and the Tea Master name arriving in 2016. The buying is specific. Their first harvest shincha comes from Hoshino Tea in Yame, Fukuoka, which is one of the few places in Los Angeles you can taste a named Japanese producer's new-season leaf. The matcha soft serve pulls the crowd and the queue can stretch, though the whisked drinks are where the craft shows. We would take both, then walk to Midori Matcha and Okayama Kobo, which are minutes away.