isshiki, Ace Hotel — good matcha, not yet dialed in 👍

On the way in I asked the couple walking out where their drinks were from and whether they were any good. Long pause. “Ehh — not the best.” Then he chimed in: “because hers isn’t sweet. Mine’s sweet, and it’s pretty good.”

That was the review, delivered on the sidewalk, before I’d ordered anything. It turned out to be exactly right.

isshiki sells its two cultivars separately — Samidori and Yabukita, each as its own shot — and blends them for everything else on the menu. A café that will name the cultivars and then let you taste them apart is a café that has thought about matcha. That’s becoming more common, but it’s still rarer than it should be, in New York or anywhere.

I ordered the iced coconut water matcha, about $9 with tip — the matcha arrived warm only because they pour it straight onto the cold coconut water. No milk and no sugar to hide behind. It’s the safest honest test of a shop’s powder: sip the matcha straight off the top, and if it disappoints, stir it in and let the coconut water carry it. It didn’t disappoint. The grassiness reads Yabukita, and there’s a sweetness underneath that I’d guess is the Samidori — though nobody told me the house blend is what’s in this cup, so treat that as a guess.

What doesn’t work is the texture. It’s gritty. Not catastrophically, but the grain is there on every sip, and that’s either the grind or a whisk that never fully took. It is the one thing standing between this and a place I’d send people to.

Sweetness doesn’t remove the grit — nothing does — it just makes it forgivable, because nobody judges a cold sweet drink the way they’d judge a bowl of tea. So the sweet menu is fine here, and the couple on the sidewalk sorted themselves accordingly: his was sweet, and it was pretty good. Don’t come here for the straight shot. It isn’t bad, it’s middling, and there is too much matcha in this city to spend a straight pour on middling.

One caution. I asked whether the “cloud” topper is dairy-free. The first answer was “yes, there’s no lactose.” The second, when I asked oat or coconut, was “I think it’s made with vanilla.” I never got a straight answer, and I couldn’t spot what they were pouring from either. So I still don’t know what’s in it — and if you’re avoiding dairy, neither do you. Order something else, or get someone to show you the carton.

Rating: 4/5. Real cultivars, real intent, an unfinished grind.

Sizes are dosed 5g (0.18 oz) / 6g (0.21 oz) / 7g (0.25 oz) — generous, and they’ll tell you the number, which is its own good sign.

Has anyone had the Samidori shot on its own here? I want to know whether the grit is the powder or the prep.