My Ocha – Matcha Shop (Shops at Riverside, Hackensack, NJ)

“Whole Lot A Matcha… We Got Ya!”

My Ocha is a new café inside the Shops at Riverside (Hackensack, NJ) with a focus primarily on matcha, or powdered green tea. With a very modern interior and fantastic fresh menu, My Ocha is a wonderful addition as the Bergen County mall undergoes renovations this fall.

Their menu currently consists of various drinks & snacks including French macarons from the popular Macaron Café in NYC, soft serve ice cream, and a selection of refreshing spritzers (20 oz) for only $4.95: enjoy flavors like matcha limeade, cherry yuzu, blueberry matcha latte, and much more! They also serve both hot & iced matcha drinks (you can even choose from regular, almond, coconut, and soy milks), hot & iced teas, and coffee.

The owners, John & James, take great pride in what they do and as I spoke with James, I instantly loved the direction they are taking My Ocha! Get this: they only use ceremonial grade matcha and 90% of their inventory in house is organic… even their water is triple filtered!

The shop will actually continue to expand its offerings in the near future. James indicated that as their food menu grows past macarons (think crêpes and poké bowls), one of their goals is to provide tall tables for dine-in guests.

Personally, I think the inside is perfect from the colors, down to the decor. It’s very inviting and James is very hospitable, leaving for a great experience from beginning to end.

They’re also one of the few shops in this area that use the Coffee Ripples service, which is an app-powered machine that “prints” high quality images on your coffee foam using coffee bean “ink”. This is an awesome bonus I discovered during my visit! I printed a Darth Vader onto my foam, and the possibilities are endless because you can customize your own image with your smartphone app & it gets sent directly to My Ocha’s machine. Check out the video below for how it all works:

My personal favorite here is the strawberry matcha latte. What is it? Imagine hand-ground ceremonial grade matcha powder via mortar & pestle, meticulously brewed & then swirled with a milk of your choice (regular, almond, coconut, or soy), and a layer of utterly delicious housemade strawberry compote at the bottom. What you get is this:

Not only does it look good, it tastes even better!

You can find My Ocha right by Au Bon Pain and Mr. Cupcakes on the first floor of the Shops at Riverside (390 Hackensack Ave, Hackensack, NJ 07601) and online at Yelp & Instagram.