Can you grow matcha in the US? Portland’s newest cafe owners worked with an Oregon farm to find out

Hand-dyed green silks and a United States flag hang across from each other inside the cafe.

Order a matcha latte in Portland, and chances are you can trace its history 5,000 miles away to a green tea farm in Japan.

Though the drink has roots as far back as seventh-century China, matcha today is largely considered a Japanese creation. The United States is now one of the country’s most ravenous customers — importing more than 2,000 tons of green tea powder from Japan every year.

But matcha grown within the U.S. is a rarity, with few farms across the country possessing the knowledge and equipment to churn out the product on a commercial scale.

A hojicha latte and ube matcha latte from Mako Matcha Mill.

Edison Zeng and Emily Dewey, the faces behind downtown Portland’s most recent matcha cafe, want to change that.

The couple owns Mako Matcha Mill, a spot that recently popped up at 414 S.W. 13th Ave. in the old Cacao chocolate shop space. Though its grand opening is still to come, the cafe has already served its fair share of curious customers — many lured in by the bright green letters flickering in the window and dry-erase menu board promising drinks as cheap as $3.

Behind the counter at Mako Matcha Mill, a traditional Japanese granite mill churns 15 grams of matcha powder per hour.

Adorned with hand-dyed green silks and an eye-catching U.S. flag, the cafe’s real star is its traditional Japanese granite mill, which slowly chugs along behind the counter.

(Note: The matcha served at the cafe is milled off-site at production facilities, Zeng said. The in-cafe machine grinds 15 grams of powder per hour, enough for only a few drinks.)

Mako Matcha Cafe will serve a diverse menu of tea, matcha, hojicha and coffee beverages — with the option to add various made-in-house syrups, cold foams and, eventually, soft serve. Its owners also plan to partner with nearby Masu Sushi on grab-and-go food options like onigiri.

Zeng has worked in the matcha industry since 2013, first as an early seller of green tea powder on Amazon and later as a manufacturer and cafe supplier through his company Magus Brands.

Edison Zeng (left) and Emily Dewey (right) own Mako Matcha Mill.

His production experience is part of what allows Mako Matcha Mill to keep its costs low, he said — even after last year’s matcha shortage drove prices up at many U.S. cafes. It’s also enabled him to build relationships both internationally and right here in Oregon.

Behind the counter at Mako Matcha Mill, a traditional Japanese granite mill churns 15 grams of matcha powder per hour.

“I got a lot of connections and friendships with farmers in, literally, every single matcha-growing region in the world,” Zeng said, “the newest one of which is Salem.”

Just over a year ago, he and Dewey visited Minto Island Tea Company, a retailer and farm that grows its own tea plants on the outskirts of Oregon’s capital city. What started out as a tea-tasting date, he said, quickly turned into a blossoming business idea.

Mako Matcha Mill is located at 414 S.W. 13th Ave.

“I thought it would be cool and romantic, so I brought Emily there, and it was literally just three hours of me talking shop,” Zeng said. “Somewhere along the line, I was like, ‘Hey, do you think we can do matcha in the U.S.?’”

Mako Matcha Mill is located at 414 S.W. 13th Ave. in downtown Portland.

Minto Island Tea Company was up to the challenge.

The Willamette Valley farm has been growing Camellia sinensis — the plant behind many varieties of black, white and green teas — since 1988, according to its website. But turning green tea plants into matcha requires a few extra steps.

For one, matcha is shade grown, a process that limits sunlight exposure by covering the plant with tarp or another material. This sends it into survival mode, Zeng said, and turns the leaves ultra-green as they’re forced to produce more chlorophyll.

Zeng and Dewey harvested their first crop in May — kicking off a sequence of sorting, steaming and dehydrating the team had to do almost entirely by hand.

“I’d say that’s the biggest hurdle to this entire (operation),” Zeng said.

“Only one country and very, very few companies know how to do it,” he said. “These companies are hundreds of years old. There’s not much information out there about what to do, how to do it, so we had to learn a lot of it ourselves. We had to caveman it.”

Equipment expedites the process, he said, but doesn’t come cheap. After harvest, the team had to pluck and color-sort the leaves by hand. Then, they manually steamed the leaves in dim sum-style trays until they turned a universal shade of vibrant matcha green.

At the end of it all, Zeng and Dewey ended up with 2.5 kilograms of matcha, he said, which once milled into powder will reap about 150 individual tins.

One hundred of those will go to partner farms, Zeng said, and the couple plans to auction off the remaining 50 tins in Portland. Proceeds will be split between the Oregon Humane Society and a charity that serves veterans, he said.

“We’re super excited to try… what the U.S. stuff tastes like,” Zeng said. “I just can’t wait.”

For now, Matcha Mako Mill sources the bulk of its matcha from Japan, though Zeng has big plans to apply his newfound matcha-growing knowledge at a plot closer to Portland.

He’s been scouting locations with microclimates more akin to that of Uji, one of Japan’s top matcha-producing regions — and while he’s not ready to commit to a piece of land yet, he’s found a few suitable spots within 45 minutes of the city, he said.

The goal, Zeng said, would be to one day sell all locally-grown matcha at the cafe.

If you go: Mako Matcha Mill, 414 S.W. 13th Ave., is currently open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily; @makomatchamill on Instagram.