It’s a truly summery, hot day in New York today (up to 37°C in the sun)… And it’s time to remind you of one special cafe that loves its customers so much that they hand out umbrellas (and water!) to those standing in line.

Cafe 12 (Twelve) is a matcha cafe in New York City that serves ceremonial-quality matcha from a 180-year-old Japanese farm, hand-churned right in front of you. This place is famous for its near-perfect preparation, something matcha fans will appreciate.

The standard matcha dosage for a latte in most New York City coffee shops is 2 or 3 grams. 12 Matcha uses 6 grams per cup, sourced from Uji, a small city near Kyoto, Japan, considered the world’s premier matcha-producing region since the 18th century.
Tea master Haruhide Morita of Hotta Katsutoro Farm personally developed the blend for 12 Matcha — one that’s complex enough for connoisseurs yet accessible to those trying matcha without milk for the first time.
Twelve’s menu includes two drinks (Matcha Latte and Matcha American) and two desserts (Basque cheesecake and ice cream). The desserts are overseen by the former pastry chef of Noma (Copenhagen), considered one of the most legendary restaurants in the world with three Michelin stars. The exterior of 12 Café is a former savings bank building with a cast-iron facade (1874), now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The interior is by the fashionable Ciguë bureau, featuring a bar counter made of volcanic lava and emerald enamel.
Three large glass flasks of water line the bar counter. At the bottom of each are large chunks of Japanese binchotan — shiny black charcoal that looks like an artifact from another century. This isn’t just decor, but one of the oldest methods of water purification in Japan.
The number 12 in the brand name isn’t just aesthetics. 12 Hz is a frequency in the beta range of the brain, associated with a state of focused calm. Not drowsiness, not anxiety — precisely the clarity that, according to Buddhist monks of the 10th and 12th centuries, drinking matcha before meditation.