Kettl

Kettl is a Japanese tea company with a room on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Feliz, and matcha sits at the center of everything it sells. Zach Mangan started it in 2011, after a stretch working the counter at Ito En in New York, where he poured two visiting businessmen a tea from their own region of Fukuoka out of his private stash. They invited him to come and see the farms. He went, toured them, and found that the teas he most wanted to drink were the ones staying in Japan. Mangan and his wife Minami then spent two years building relationships with some of the country's most notable producers, and Kettl is now in its fifteenth year with offices in Fukuoka, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Tea arrives direct from the growers every week, hand packed by the Fukuoka team and airshipped, so what reaches the whisk is close to the harvest. Okuju, Uji Homare, Hukuju and Tsubaki are among the matcha on the shelf. The cafes are built for going further than a cup to go. There is full omakase service alongside the counter menu, and shelves of loose tea, matcha tins and ceramics to carry home. We come here when we want to taste one producer against another, and the staff will happily walk you through it.