One of Newbury Street's New Matcha Cafés Is Only Renting Until Spring

In early June, David Chae signed the first lease of his life. He was 21 and had been selling iced matcha out of a truck and at pop-ups around Greater Boston for about a year. "First-ever lease in my entire life. I don't even have my own apartment," he told the Boston Globe. The space was 222 Newbury Street, directly under Dirty Water Dough Company, in a storefront a bubble tea shop had recently left.

The lease runs eight months. Chae signed it to test the market, according to the Globe.

That detail changes how to read the matcha run that has filled in along Newbury over the past year. On paper, three matcha-focused shops now sit within 47 street numbers of each other, and it looks like the street has settled into a new identity. The three shops arrived on very different terms, though, and the newest one is there because a landlord needed someone to fill a gap.

A vacancy with a matcha bar in it

The Globe described the arrangement as good for both sides. The landlord at 222 Newbury faced a gap between the previous tenant leaving and next spring, when another tenant is expected to move in. byChae fills that gap.

Chae was candid about where he would like to land long term. He told the Globe he wants to eventually find a permanent home for the café and sign a long-term lease in the South End, which he called his ideal neighborhood.

"I think there's a great community growing there, and a strong global sense," he said. "Newbury is a little touristy."

The opening date also moved. In June the Globe expected a mid-to-late July opening. Boston Magazine later reported an August 8 opening. A short lease that starts late leaves less time on Newbury. As of Boston Magazine's October 2 roundup, the café is open and serving a mango sticky rice matcha latte. No closing date, next tenant or South End address has been publicly announced.

Three shops, three different bets

Here are the three shops side by side.

Mizu came first. Boston Restaurant Talk reported it open at 217 Newbury by December 30, 2025, and described it as a Japanese-influenced gelato shop serving matcha gelato, parfaits and matcha lattes. Boston.com's January coverage added matcha tiramisu to the list. By May, Mizu was already among the Newbury recommendations in a Boston University student guide to the city's matcha spots, published by The COMmunicator.

Nana's Green Tea comes from a different place. It is a modern Japanese café brand founded in Tokyo in 2001. MassLive reported that the Boston shop is its first in New England, its seventh in the United States and its second on the East Coast. A 25-year-old brand choosing 175 Newbury for its New England debut is a deliberate expansion, the opposite of a stopgap.

byChae is the local story. Chae started selling matcha from a truck in summer 2025, took a leave from Babson College that December to go all in, and saw sales triple. By June he had done well over 100 pop-ups, including partnerships with Gap, Free People, local Pilates studios and universities. Students waited up to two hours in line for a drink at some of those pop-ups.

So the cluster combines a gelato-led shop that has been on the street for about ten months, a long-planned outpost of a Tokyo brand, and a young local operator on a short lease. Only byChae has a stated reason to leave.

What the eight months are testing

The Globe gave a fairly specific picture of what Chae wants the Newbury storefront to prove. He said he hopes the café will reach around $100,000 in sales a month while he keeps running pop-ups around Boston and in Brooklyn. He sources his matcha powder directly from farms in Yame, a green-tea region on Japan's Kyushu island, and said he was ordering more than 220 pounds a month and storing it at his parents' house until the café opened.

The café was never meant to be his only outlet. Boston Magazine reported a byChae residency at the Dig Inn in Kendall Square through the end of August, which ran during the café's first weeks. In June, Chae said he was slowly launching a wholesale business to supply other matcha cafés and pop-ups. He also planned to sell tins of matcha powder for customers to take home once the café opened. We haven't found any later report confirming that either one has launched, so ask at the counter.

The menu reflects his pop-up roots. Over the past year he has served matcha in banana pudding, blueberry and hojicha cream flavors, topped with cold foams such as an aqua "ocean foam." The mango sticky rice matcha latte on Boston Magazine's October list is the newest example.

Chae has also described the wider scene as early. "I feel like the Boston market is a little slower," he told the Globe, adding that he had seen at least 10 new pop-ups appear in Boston in just the past few months. That fits the Globe's broader May reporting on Asian and immigrant-led café concepts rethinking the traditional café with matcha and specialty coffee. The Globe also cited national figures showing matcha sales in the U.S. rose 86 percent from 2022 to 2025.

Working the stretch while all three are open

Since the three shops lean in different directions, each one suits a different kind of stop:

1. byChae at 222 Newbury for flavored matcha and foams, starting with the mango sticky rice latte. We could only find hours on a third-party listing, so check before a weekend trip.
2. Nana's Green Tea at 175 Newbury for a sit-down dessert with your tea. Boston.com's August guide highlighted its matcha and hojicha drinks and matcha mochi parfaits. MassLive also singled out the Matcha Chocolate Crunch Frappe and the Matcha Soft Serve with Warabimochi. Don't plan on a meal here, though. Nana's own Boston location page says this shop does not offer a food menu.
3. Mizu Matcha at 217 Newbury for something later in the evening. Its posted hours run noon to 10 p.m. daily, so it opens latest of the three. Nana's posts 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, so both stay open past dinner.

byChae and Mizu sit almost directly across from each other at 222 and 217, and Nana's is a short walk up the street at 175. For comparison, Matcha Café Maiko has been at 115 Jersey Street in the Fenway for years. It serves soft serve, parfaits and drinks made with ceremonial-grade matcha from Uji. Its Boston store page tells customers to call for updated hours.

The calendar is the part with an end date. In June, the Globe reported that 222 Newbury's landlord expects a new tenant next spring, and Chae has said he wants his long-term café in the South End. Until either of those is announced, byChae is open at 222 Newbury, across from Mizu and a short walk from Nana's.

Storefront turnover on Newbury tells you a lot about how Back Bay is changing, and keeping track of which openings are long-term commitments and which are tests is part of what we do every day. If you'd like to talk through what's moving on your own block, the Tracy Shea Real Estate Team is happy to compare notes over a matcha. Schedule a consultation when it suits you.