Matchaful's NYC Matcha: The Founder, the Farm, and Every Café

Most matcha cafés can't tell you which farm grew their tea. Matchaful can name the prefecture, the family that runs the fields, and the three-to-four-week window when the leaves are shaded before harvest. That transparency is the whole point of the brand — and the reason it grew from a one-woman operation into one of New York's most recognizable matcha names.

Here's the founder, the farm, and a guide to every Matchaful café in the city.

From a Williamsburg apartment to seven cafés

Hannah Habes founded Matchaful in 2012, grinding and selling single-origin matcha out of a Brooklyn apartment back when most New Yorkers still couldn't tell ceremonial grade from culinary. In a conversation with Osea, she described tasting more than 100 matchas across repeat trips to Japan before settling on a single source — a deliberate choice in an industry where most cafés buy blended, distributor-sourced powder with no visibility into the farm.

More than a decade later, Matchaful's café page lists seven standalone New York locations, and its matcha sells online and in 200+ retail accounts, according to a Saxbys profile of the company.

When the brand opened in Williamsburg — the neighborhood where it started — Habes marked the moment on Instagram, posting as @chiefmatchaofficer: "Today, a 10+ year dream became a reality: we opened our 8th Matchaful cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When I first started Matchaful in my tiny apartment on Union Ave, I'd walk around Williamsburg, imagining the day we'd open a cafe here." (She counts it as the eighth café opened over the years; seven New York locations are open today.)

The farm behind the cup

Matchaful's about page sources all of its matcha from a single fourth-generation family farm in Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture. The sustainability details are specific enough to be checkable: the tea is shaded for the final three to four weeks of growth, the fields sit under solar panels that feed power back to nearby towns, the plants are grown without pesticides, and the farm fertilizes with organic compost from the local community in a closed-loop system. The matcha is ground to order and shipped within three months of grinding to limit oxidation — freshness being one of the few matcha quality factors a buyer can actually taste.

Single origin matters here for a concrete reason, not a marketing one: when matcha comes from one farm and one harvest, the cup is consistent and the supply chain is traceable. Blended matcha — the default at most cafés and chains — averages out the quality of many farms and erases the origin entirely.

Every Matchaful café in NYC

Seven locations, all in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Hours below are from Matchaful's café page; check it for holiday changes.

• Williamsburg — 92 Berry St, Brooklyn. Daily 8am–5pm. The newest café and the spiritual home base, blocks from where Habes started the company.
• Nolita — 217 Mulberry St, Manhattan. Daily 8:30am–6pm. Opened December 2020 on the block between Prince and Spring, with an outdoor seating area the brand highlights.
• SoHo — 184 Prince St, Manhattan. Weekdays 8am–6pm, weekends from 8:30am.
• West Village — 87 Christopher St, Manhattan. Daily 8:30am–6pm.
• Clinton Hill — Culinary Lab + Café — 44 Washington Ave, Brooklyn. Weekdays 8am–5pm; Saturday in two windows; closed Sundays. Doubles as the brand's production space.
• Midtown East — inside Clean Market — 240 E 54th St, Manhattan. Daily 8am–5pm.
• Brookfield Place — 250 Vesey St, 2nd Floor, Manhattan. Weekdays 8am–5pm, weekends from 9:30am.

Where to start

The seven cafés pour the same single-origin matcha, so the choice comes down to setting and timing:

• Want the origin story? Start in Williamsburg — the newest café, on Berry Street, minutes from the apartment where Habes first ground matcha to sell.
• Want to sit outside? Nolita is built around its outdoor area and keeps the latest weekend hours of the bunch.
• Curious how the matcha is made? The Clinton Hill Culinary Lab is the production space and a café in one.
• Commuting through Manhattan? Brookfield Place and the Midtown East counter inside Clean Market are the convenient stops.

If you'd rather make it at home, Matchaful sells the same single-origin matcha by the tin online and through its cafés.

For more matcha across the five boroughs, see our full New York matcha guide.

Reporting drawn from: Matchaful — About; Matchaful — Cafés; Osea: A Conversation with Hannah Habes; Saxbys: Meet the Woman Behind NYC's Buzziest Matcha Startup; @chiefmatchaofficer / @matchaful on Instagram. Café addresses cross-checked against the Matcha Maps shop database.