One would not necessarily know from the stripped-down storefront in Chelsea that MatchaBar is a company with some seriously big ambition. Inside, the Manhattan Sideways team observed a steady trickle of customers weave past wood tables and art books to get their matcha fix from Eddie and Manuela at the counter. We followed in suit, and while we waited for our rose latte, Eddie, who had started working with the company a few months prior, told us about his personal matcha obsession:
“In high school a friend introduced me to the drink and I was quickly hooked. I bought at least one cup a day from Starbucks, often more, until I realized I was drinking a sugar blend, not the real thing at all. Wow, there is a big difference. With matcha you get the health benefits of green tea, the energy of coffee, and no jitters or crash because the caffeine is released over an extended period, not all at once.”
The owners, Max and Graham Fortgang, are brothers and New York natives who recently moved to LA. Their first store opened in Williamsburg in 2014, and while that location is now closed, there is one in LA, another in Soho, and the Chelsea shop, which opened in 2015. “Our motto is that good things come to those who hustle, and we’ve made a lot of progress in a short period of time.”
Max and Graham definitely know how to hustle. Max is the head chef, blending matcha into new juice and spice concoctions, while his younger brother heads the business side of the operation. Last year it was revealed that Drake (the hip-hop star) is one of the company’s main investors, and the brand announced a partnership with Whole Foods which will sell MatchaBar bottled drinks across the country.
The brothers take sourcing their product very seriously. Every year, Max and Graham make a pilgrimage to an independent family farm in Nishio, Japan for the matcha spring harvest, where “the stone-ground powder is derived from the topmost leaves of the first harvest of a green tea crop.”