Ogawa Coffee — Restaurant in Boston

They have a few table seating right off the entrance. Then they have these staircase bench seating, that goes alongside the wall. I am not a huge fan of these seating style... We were lucky to get a small table all the way at the back.

We each ordered a different kind of latte, and different kind of sweets. I asked the staff at the ordering counter how I can get a latte with latte art. He said “by asking for it.” Well, ok then. I ordered Houjicha Latte with something cute (animal). So he passed that message along to a barista, and he went to work! It came out adorable with twinkles in his eyes!!!! And the Houjicha was quite nice, strong flavor of real houjicha, sweet, rich, and high quality. It was a bit pricy cup of latte, but I really enjoyed it!

My hubby went with Matcha Latte, and asked for holiday-themed latte art, and the same staff said they have snowman or tree. He asked for tree. Now, we were imagining Christmas Tree, right? But NO! It came out with some kind of a serious tree (LOL), but regardless, nicely done! The Matcha latte was strong in flavor too. More bitter than sweet.

For the desserts, we chose Matcha Sundae and Matcha Cake Roll. Not huge and again, a bit pricey. Matcha Cake Roll was adorable, they put my hubby’s name on the plate without being asked to do so. I assume you could request them to put a special message if you wanted to. The only thing was that the cake was quite dry.

We had a nice little latte time here, with high quality drinks and high quality desserts. A female staff came over a few times to pick up the dishes that we finished, while saying “not rushing you, just more elbow room” with...

Ok, so, everything was absolutely great, to say the least. The flat white that I got was done with absolute perfection. I was watching the barista that was doing my latte art and he was in his zone. You could just tell that the chaotic world around him paused as he was pouring the milk.

So as I said I got a flat white and one of their macaroons, and both were amazing. Since this place is a Japanese inspire coffee shop, they used Japanese coffee beans, and the coffee was in fact good (I’m not one to drink many Japanese coffees). I didn’t get the Vietnamese iced coffee that they offered but I saw how they made it and they did use a phin (traditional Vietnamese coffee brewer), which is something that my local coffee shops don’t use for their Vietnamese iced coffee.

The atmosphere was really great. I loved how they got creative with the limited space they had by making benches that stacked vertically (like a баня/sauna). Maybe it’s a Japanese style but I wouldn’t know. Definitely a placed I’m looking forward to revisit the next time...

Ogawa is my go to Matcha latte place and has been for the past 7 years. It is the closest you can get to Kyoto matcha other than going to Japan. However I've noticed over the last year the attitude of some of the baristas really suck. One particular girl acts like you're inconveniencing her. And this has been on multiple occasions. I ordered a large iced matcha latte with a few mods. The girl taking my order must've misheard and put it down as a medium. Not an issue, she was very friendly and it's an easy fix. I didn't find out until the barista called it out. I said "oh that was supposed to be a large". She replied with "well it says medium" and I said "... well I said large she mustve misheard me. Not a big deal I will pay the extra" to which she continued "you only paid for a medium" and then ignored me. I'm usually an easygoing customer but paying $8 to be treated like that is just scummy.

Please speak to your baristas about their attitude. I am more than willing to pay $8 for a good matcha latte but not if it comes with a...