The Best Matcha in Los Angeles, Ranked by a Matcha Snob

Coffee For Sasquatch: great matcha, cryptid branding, no workspace.

I quit coffee years ago, drink matcha daily, and recently ranked every serious matcha in San Francisco on a Snob Scale. Los Angeles, consider this your turn.

The best matcha in Los Angeles runs from a line-out-the-door phenomenon to a cryptid-branded sleeper — and the top of this list currently beats everything I’ve had in either city.

1. Community Goods — the Vanilla Bean Matcha That Beats Both Cities

A million percent overhyped, 30–80+ minute lines, no space inside, priced like a collector’s item — and the vanilla bean matcha is incredible anyway. Nothing in LA or San Francisco has topped it for me. The full circus, including the airport line-cutting incident, is in my Community Goods review. (Google Maps)

2. Coffee For Sasquatch — Great Matcha, Zero Workspace

I really like the matcha at Coffee For Sasquatch — clean, well-made, served under the watchful eye of a bigfoot logo. Honest note: it’s not a good coffee shop to work at, so treat it as a drink stop, not a desk. (Google Maps)

The Testing List Continues

Also logged this trip: solid matcha at Re/Creation in Mid-City, and LA’s matcha-event scene is genuinely feral — we watched a rooftop microbakery matcha pop-up rack up a 300-person waitlist. This list will grow every trip — LA takes its green tea seriously and so do I.

For the northern rankings: the best matcha in San Francisco, where Constance holds the purist crown.

For the full picture of eating (and working, and tea-tasting) in LA, start with my Los Angeles travel guide and my best restaurants & coffee shops in LA list. Subscribe to my newsletter for new reviews — and if the “host a meetup in a great café” life appeals to you, that’s the Make Writing Your Job community at work.