Business owner Jinie Ho of Green Times Matcha worked as a barista in high school and currently works at popular brunch spot Farmhouse Café. The recent high school graduate says she enjoys making matcha lattes at home — which led to creating her own syrups, and eventually, starting a mobile matcha cart.
“I took my barista skills to make my own housemade syrups,” she says. “Our business is a mobile matcha cart — companies call us for their events, and we go to their venue to set up and serve matcha.”
Ho’s business, Green Times Matcha, officially started this past July.
“I chose the name because my crew had told me they always had a ‘good time’ in our environment workspace,” she says. “Since matcha is green, we decided on ‘green times’ (for the business name).”
The business does four to five pop-ups per month, according to Ho. Green Times Matcha recently popped up at Fighting Eel’s downtown Honolulu store on Bethel Street.
“What makes our business unique is that every syrup and cold foam is homemade,” Ho says. “We have a modern, minimalist concept, and we use a camera production collapsible cart as our matcha station.”
Green Times Matcha’s menu currently consists of several lattes ($9-$10 each) with a choice of milk — oat, soy and whole — and all drinks contain cold foam (which includes dairy). Customers can also choose their desired sweetness level for the lattes. The business sources its matcha from AMI MEI, according to Ho.
The strawberry matcha latte ($9) is the most popular drink, according to Ho.
“It’s a simple strawberry matcha with muddled strawberries and it’s topped with a strawberry cold foam made with our housemade syrup,” she says.
The latte is topped with freeze-dried strawberry powder, strawberry slices and sea salt.
“Everyone likes strawberry, but a lot of people favor the earl grey,” Ho says. “We tried to make our special earl grey matcha differently from other cafes. I’ve never seen an earl grey matcha on island before, so I wanted to bring it to the café world. I brew my own tea bags and turn it into a syrup, and I top it off with a hand-whisked vanilla agave sea salt cold foam.”
The early grey matcha latte is nicely balanced. It’s ideal for those who prefer the tea flavor, and the sea salt topping prevents it from being too sweet.
The business’s newest drink is its coconut cloud matcha ($9), which features coconut water with pulp topped with matcha vanilla agave and sea salt cold foam.
If you want a dessert-like option, check out the business’s matcha-gato ($8), which is its twist on an affogato.
“It’s served with vanilla ice cream, topped with our homemade strawberry syrup and cold foam, corn flakes, and salty French fry chips to give it that sweet and salty flavor,” says Ho, who explains the dessert is inspired by Japanese parfaits.
Customers can also look forward to new fall drinks starting tomorrow, Oct. 4, including pumpkin spice matcha with sea salt pumpkin cold foam, coconut matcha cloud (coconut water with vanilla agave sea salted matcha cold foam on top) and ube condensed milk matcha with salted ube cold foam.
Follow Green Times Matcha on social media to see where the business will be popping up; the next one will be on Oct. 4 at Fort Ruger Market, followed by one at Harbors Vintage (on South Beretania Street) on Oct. 12. The business’s biggest pop-up will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 30 at ALOHA Collection at Ala Moana Center.
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CONTACT
Green Times Matcha
Instagram: @greentimes.matcha
Kelli Shiroma Braiotta can be reached at kelli@alohastatedaily.com.
