In the mornings, before the sushi menus come out, the corner unit at 488 Gore Ave quietly opens its doors as Hush Coffee Store – a daytime pop-up matcha bar in Chinatown, Vancouver. There’s no sign outside, just a wooden board with a paper menu proped up on the side of the building. This is a place still figuring itself out. But it’s worth noticing, especially if you’re searching for matcha in Vancouver that doesn’t come pre-sweetened or pre-blended. They use matcha from TsuEn Tea which offers some of the highest-quality Japanese matcha available in Vancouver. An independently owned family company founded in 1160 C.E., Tsuen is Japan’s oldest continuously operating teashop, with an unbroken lineage of tea merchants spanning more than 24 generations. Check out my full review of Hush Coffee Store below.
Hush Coffee Store Chinatown – Menu
They have a very small coffee and matcha menu offering with a smattering of Imagawayaki in different flavours. For my visit I had an iced oat matcha latte ($6.90). While the colour of this latte is visually striking with a beautiful green colour, the flavour doesn’t match the appearance. It’s very light in flavour, so if you’re used to a bold, grassy matcha with a punch of umami, this version will disappoint.
Still, it’s early days. The shop only just opened and the baristas are friendly and seem to be working through the usual kinks of a new cafe opening.
What stands out more than the drinks is the Cofu Cake ($4.00), their name for imagawayaki, a round, filled Japanese street snack traditionally cooked in cast-iron molds. Hush Coffee shop has a few flavours but I chose the matcha one that is filled with red bean. It’s not crisp, the reheating happens in a microwave but the filling is generous, and the cake itself is soft, warm, and comforting.
For those who haven’t tried it, imagawayaki is somewhere between a pancake and a mochi cake, often filled with anko (sweet red bean), custard, or matcha cream. It’s a common festival snack in Japan, but rarely seen in Vancouver cafés. It’s very similar to Taiwanese wheel cakes.
Check out the full menu here:
Worth a Try?
For me it’s a pass for now. There are a lot of other cafes in Vancouver with better matcha and Hush Coffee Store unfortunately falls short. They are very new though, so I anticipate they will work through the kinks but for now it failed to impress.
Hush Coffee Store (inside Cofu Chinatown)
Address: 488 Gore Ave, Vancouver, BC V6A 2Z6
Website: https://www.cofu.ca/hush
