Matcha Cafe Maiko Garden State Plaza — Restaurant in Paramus

I do not know which of the workers I talked with the day before, but they boasted about their matcha being on par if not better than the matcha that 12 matcha serves. Now, for 7-8 dollars a latte, I would think that they can create a decent drink that would kinda make the money worth it.

I went today and as others have said, it was terribly understaffed with just one guy working, and not to be a snob but was wildly unprofessional. Airpods on and not listening while conversing with customers, and the matcha was just nasty.

On the surface it looks like they have a great set up, a cool water container, a nice matcha bowl, nice whisk, the works. But wow is cleanliness not a priority with them. I failed to take a picture but the matcha bowl and whisk looked like they did not get cleaned at all for about 2 days with multiple layers of old matcha overlapping eachother. The whisk was full of clumps of old matcha as well and it just looked absolutely disgusting.

I can call myself a sort of a matcha snob as I know all the works that goes into making matcha, and usually when I go to places that claim to have good matcha, they stick with the process and create good drinks. Not here. The man who served me just scooped matcha into the bowl without sifting, just threw however much water was in their recipe, and mixed it for an actual total of 5 seconds, resulting in just a terrible looking matcha.

After seeing that nightmare, I took my matcha and tried to drink it, hoping that I was just being negative and that maybe their powder is really good, but boy was I wrong. It was some of the worst matcha I have ever drank, that I can actually compare it to drinking the matcha powder you get from costco.

It was bitter, clumpy, very astringent, and just not a pleasant feel and taste at all.

As I raised my concern to the employee, he claimed that "I being a bit overdramatic." Sure, while I might be upset and a tad overdramatic, I think that I have the right to do so not only as a customer but as someone who paid 8 dollars (which is insanely expensive for a matcha latte in a mall no less, as places like 12 matcha only charge 7) for a drink.

At the end I did get my refund, but wow this place is terrible. The couple after me who got ice cream actually had to ask for another one as the ice cream they got was in terrible shape as well.

I do not know if it was a management problem, staffing problem, or just how the place is ran. I had high hopes for the place as they claimed to have great matcha, only to be met with the absolute worst customer service imaginable followed by a matcha drink that I would not guess is worth more than 2 dollars.

Overall, do not recommend if you actually like...

Excellent matcha. This is why we stopped by on our multi-state Christmas road trip. Now, my receipt says, “Allen,” but apparently, this is the proprietor of the location, and not the guy that served who was perfectly pleasant, answering all my questions and explaining the regular, less, and no sugar options for customizing my matcha.

We’ve been all over the states, Europe, and Asia, and the matcha and the way they mix it is authentic and the flavor cannot be beat. So, 5 stars for flavor. The 1 star for atmosphere, is because it was the post Christmas crazed mall and it was an odd island pop up type of kiosk…with a very modern TV screen menu (not touch screen) in the front which screams mall, not cozy matcha cafe. This was still fine, but when I paid, the guy had already walked off to start making our lattes, so I pressed “print receipt,” and simply reached to pick up my receipt, which is where the female employee (septum piercing) ran over, gave us a look without making eye contact, to show displeasure, and lectured me with a flat, exasperated voice, saying, “Please don’t do that. Do not reach over here and take the receipts…those are for us…now, I have to reprint one…”. Which was untrue. There were two pieces and one is for them and one is for me - we’ve all worked in retail.

I would have let this teenager/genZ/tired mall worker attitude go, except that she promptly walked over to start prepping a match soft serve and leaned over to the guy and started to talk about us… to which I had to intervene. If your employee is tired, fine, I get it, if I annoyed you by reaching over for my receipt, a different approach could have been used… like, “oh, I’m so sorry (insert smile), those are for us!” And not walking away before the receipt is printed also helps… but showing anger in the most indirect, passive aggressive way, is not the road to raising customer service. Maybe my expectations were too high for a mall location.

We will never stop by this location again on our vacations to NY/NJ. We will stick to popping by Cha Cha Matcha in the city or the multiple mom and pop locations in Fort Lee for...

My husband and I pass by this little kiosk all the time during our trips to Garden State Plaza, and we frequently marveled (salivated, really) at the posted signage of matcha and taro soft serve. We finally decided to give into our urges during this last visit and order a cup.

We ordered a smaller cup, but they are super generous with their portions! Our green and purple swirlage made an impressive mountain over the top of our cup, which turned out to be both a good and bad thing ; good, because more is always better, but not so great because it left less room for toppings. I chose mocha and Oreo pieces as my two toppings, but my server struggled to get these onto our order because the cup just couldn't hold as much. We were also a little disappointed that she used the Oreo dust instead of the pebble-sized crumbles (note that there are different sizes of mochi as well - be specific if you know you want either of these toppings for your own order!).

In the end, we had few complaints. Both the taro and matcha soft serve flavors rocked, and had the creamy mouthfeel you want in a good dairy dessert. There are no seats available here, but there's an entire food court of seating available mere steps from this kiosk, as well as other seating options...