Imbibe 75 Place to Watch: Kettl

With matcha lattes on every café menu, diehard tea lovers seek spaces and drinks with greater depth. The new flagship location of Kettl, a Japanese tea importer in Brooklyn, meets that demand with a café that doubles as an interactive tea gallery. A full menu of Japanese teas includes matcha milled in-house—a level of freshness rarely seen outside Kyoto—and nutty, caramelized hojicha roasted on-site before your eyes in an infrared countertop roaster. Airy sweets like matcha chocolate chip cookies and an artful green tea gelato parfait help keep the caffeine jitters at bay.

The café also doubles as a gallery for ceramics from Japan as well as just below your feet, care of a kiln used by the potter and co-owner Minami Mangan. In May, co-owner Zach Mangan will publish his first book, Stories of Japanese Tea: The Regions, the Growers, and the Craft. The book is anchored by interviews with a rogue’s gallery of tea farmers, ceramicists, and roasters, to name a few, and explores the cultural nuances and agricultural wisdom that’s elevated Japanese tea culture to an art all its own. “I wanted to share how this is made, who’s making it, and credit the people crafting all of these products,” Mangan says. “And a book of information I wish I’d had when I was starting out.”