The Leaf — Where to buy
Izumi Matcha: the café, and the tins on its shelf
People search for Izumi Matcha as if it were a brand of powder, and it is not. Izumi Matcha is a café — one in San Jose, California, opened in 2019, and one in Cupertino, opened in 2023 — that makes matcha drinks and taiyaki and soft serve, and that is an official retailer of Marukyu Koyamaen, the Uji house. The tins it sells are Marukyu Koyamaen's, in the shop only. This page is what Izumi is, what it sells, and where to read about the matcha itself.
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In short
- Izumi Matcha is a matcha café in San Jose (3005 Silver Creek Road, opened 2019) and Cupertino (2023), not a matcha brand; its stated mission is to bring Japanese matcha to America.
- It is an official retailer of Marukyu Koyamaen and sells that house's tins — Tenju through Isuzu — in-store only, with stock announced on Instagram and often sold out.
- For the matcha itself — the blends, the koicha tag, the international shop, the shortage rules — read the Marukyu Koyamaen page; Izumi adds a place to buy it in the Bay Area.
What is Izumi Matcha? The short answer
Izumi Matcha is a matcha café in San Jose and Cupertino, California, and an official retailer of Marukyu Koyamaen. It does not make or blend matcha; it makes drinks with Marukyu Koyamaen's powder and sells that house's tins over the counter. There is no online shop. If you searched for it as a brand to buy, the brand you were looking for is Marukyu Koyamaen, and the way to buy it is that house's international shop or an authorized retailer such as Izumi.
The café
Izumi’s San Jose shop, at 3005 Silver Creek Road, opened in 2019; a second location in Cupertino followed in 2023, according to local reporting. The menu is matcha and hojicha drinks, soft serve and taiyaki, made — by the café’s own description and its customers’ — with powder from Uji. Its site states a mission to bring high-quality Japanese matcha to America by sourcing from Japanese producers and both using and selling it, and it identifies itself as an official retailer of Marukyu Koyamaen Japanese tea. That identification is the useful fact: the café is one of the authorized channels through which a rationed Kyoto house’s tins reach the United States.
What is on the shelf
Izumi’s “Buy Matcha” page lists Marukyu Koyamaen’s standard line under that house’s own names, grouped the way the house groups them.
| Group, per Izumi’s page | Blends | Marukyu Koyamaen’s designation |
|---|---|---|
| Koicha and usucha | Tenju, Choan, Eiju, Unkaku, Kinrin | Tagged “also for koicha” in the house’s catalog |
| Usucha | Wako, Yugen, Chigi no Shiro, Isuzu, Aoarashi | Thin-tea blends |
Source: izumimatcha.com, September 2026. All tins are stated as available for purchase in-store only. Kiwami Choan, second in the house's own line, is not listed on Izumi's page.
Izumi’s page adds the house’s pedigree — tea grown and made in Ogura, Uji, since 1704, and dozens of first places at the national tea competition — and a line of practical advice for one tin: prepare Isuzu with 70°C water to reduce tartness. It also states what every Marukyu Koyamaen stockist has stated since late 2024: the house is often out of stock everywhere because of demand, and Izumi announces what it has on Instagram.
What Izumi discloses, and what belongs to the house
Because Izumi is a retailer, the disclosures that matter — cultivar, harvest, shading, milling, best-before, testing — are Marukyu Koyamaen’s to make, and Izumi’s page does not repeat them. What Izumi states is the producer, the region, and each blend’s koicha-or-usucha place. The house’s own pages state the rest: eleven standard blends in a fixed order with six tagged for koicha; a best-before of seven months from packing printed on the tin bottom; a QR verification system for authorized channels; and, for buyers outside Japan, an International Online Shop with random weekday restocks, rotated destination countries, and a refusal of resale, proxy and business orders. A tin bought at Izumi is a tin from an authorized retailer, which is exactly the channel the house says to use.
Why the search exists
Eleven thousand searches a month for a two-shop café is a measure of the shortage as much as of the café. Marukyu Koyamaen’s tins disappeared from ordinary channels in 2024–2025; its own shops rationed to one item per person; resellers filled marketplaces at multiples of list price; and the few authorized retailers in the United States became destinations. Izumi, with a shelf of the standard line in a city full of matcha drinkers, is one of them. People searching the café’s name are mostly asking where they can get the house’s matcha, and the answer is: there, in person, when the Instagram says so — or from the house’s international shop, on the days your country appears in its list.
If you go
Check Izumi’s Instagram for what is in stock that week. Expect one tin per person if the house’s limits are being observed at the counter. Turn the tin over for the best-before date — seven months from packing, printed as year.month.day — and buy a 20 g or 40 g size you will finish within a month. Have a drink while you are there; it is made with the same powder, which is the rare chance to taste a blend before buying the tin.
Numbers and facts at a glance
- What it is: a matcha café in San Jose (2019) and Cupertino (2023), California; an official Marukyu Koyamaen retailer.
- What it sells: Marukyu Koyamaen’s standard line — Tenju, Choan, Eiju, Unkaku, Kinrin (koicha and usucha); Wako, Yugen, Chigi no Shiro, Isuzu, Aoarashi (usucha) — in-store only.
- Online sales: none. Affiliate program: none.
- Stock: often out; announced on Instagram.
- The matcha’s own facts: on the Marukyu Koyamaen page — six koicha-tagged blends, seven-month best-before, QR verification, international shop rules.
Sources
- Marukyu Koyamaen — official site — Marukyu Koyamaen
- Izumi Matcha — official site — Izumi Matcha
Questions people actually ask
Is Izumi Matcha a brand?
No. It is a café in San Jose and Cupertino, California, that serves matcha drinks and sells Marukyu Koyamaen matcha as an official retailer. The tins on its shelf are Marukyu Koyamaen's blends under that house's names.
What matcha does Izumi sell?
Marukyu Koyamaen's standard line, listed on its site in two groups: koicha-and-usucha blends — Tenju, Choan, Eiju, Unkaku, Kinrin — and usucha blends — Wako, Yugen, Chigi no Shiro, Isuzu, Aoarashi. In-store only.
Can I order Izumi Matcha online?
No. Izumi's page states its tins are available for purchase in-store only, that Marukyu Koyamaen is often out of stock everywhere because of demand, and that stock is announced on its Instagram. For direct purchase from Japan, Marukyu Koyamaen runs its own international shop with random restocks.
Where is Izumi Matcha?
The original café is at 3005 Silver Creek Road in San Jose; a second location opened in Cupertino in 2023. Both serve drinks, soft serve and taiyaki made with Marukyu Koyamaen matcha.
Is the matcha at Izumi good?
The matcha is Marukyu Koyamaen's, the house whose tencha took first place and the Minister of Agriculture prize in the national competition's tencha division in 2020 and which lists dozens of first places in its history. Which blend is in a given drink is the café's choice; the tins on the shelf are the house's standard line.
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