Matcha Cafe Near Me in Tiong Bahru: Matchaya's New Flagship

Matchaya's flagship moved to Tiong Bahru this year, and the new shop at #01-05, 82 Tiong Poh Road, Singapore 160082, is where Matchaya serves its kakigori, which the official menu prints as exclusively at Matchaya Tiong Bahru. It opens from 9:30am to 9:30pm every day, and the headline drink on the Specialty Drinks page of the Tiong Bahru menu is the S$10 hot Koicha Latte, made with ceremonial Okumidori matcha. Anyone typing matcha cafe near me in the heritage estate should know that this is the brand behind a large share of the matcha poured in Singapore's cafes, now running its own room at full scale.

Matchaya's own directions give Havelock MRT on the Thomson-East Coast line as the closest station, about seven minutes on foot. Outram Park, an interchange for the East-West, North East and Thomson-East Coast lines, is roughly nine minutes away, and Tiong Bahru station on the green line is a 13 minute walk through the estate. The cafe sits on the ground floor of the block, so once you reach Tiong Poh Road you are looking for unit #01-05 at number 82, not an upstairs shop.

The company launched what it calls Matchaya 3.0 here on 23 April 2026, and the Tiong Bahru menu carries items you cannot order at its Suntec City branch. The biggest is the kakigori range, which Matchaya calls the Cloud Series; the kakigori menu posted on its website ends with the line Exclusively at Matchaya Tiong Bahru. The ice comes from Kuramoto Ice in Kanazawa, a family business dating to 1923, imported specifically for this shaved ice menu. That alone makes this the branch to visit if you only have time for one.

Koicha means thick tea, and the Koicha Latte is the order that shows off the Okumidori cultivar: listed on the current Tiong Bahru menu at S$10 hot or S$11 cold, dense and almost savoury before the milk rounds it out. A standard Matcha Latte is S$6.50 hot or S$7.50 iced, which is the better value if you drink matcha daily. The Brown Butter Houjicha at S$8 swaps green tea for roasted leaf with a nutty edge, and the Matcha Cloud 9, also S$8, tops the drink with a light foam.

There is also a Dirty Matcha at S$8, a shot of espresso over matcha for people who cannot quite give up coffee, and a pot of loose tea for S$7.50 that the menu says can be refilled twice. Our honest call is to skip the Dirty Matcha on a first visit. The espresso flattens the Okumidori, and you are paying a premium for a tea you can barely taste; order the plain koicha instead and judge the leaf on its own.

The Signature Koicha Azuki kakigori costs S$22 and comes heaped with thick matcha syrup and sweet red beans, while the Burnt Butter Houjicha kakigori is S$18. Both are large enough for two after lunch. For something smaller, the Signature Matchaya Yuzu cake is S$10, the Matcha Lava is S$9 and a plate of 12 Warabi Mochi costs S$10. A Matcha Almond Croissant at S$6 is the quick pick for a morning visit with a hot latte before the heat sets in.

Matchaya is not only a dessert stop. The Signature Matchaya Chicken Katsu rice burger is S$13, with rice patties standing in for the bun, which makes it possible to have lunch and a kakigori in one sitting. Note that menu prices are before the 10% service charge and GST, which together add a little over 18% to the bill, so a koicha latte and a kakigori for two lands at roughly S$38 once everything is counted.

Tiong Bahru fills up on weekend mornings, when the market and bakeries draw brunch crowds, so the calmest time for Matchaya is a weekday afternoon or after 7pm, when the kakigori is a cooling end to dinner. The cafe runs a Matcha Appreciation and Wellness Workshop on Saturdays and Sundays at 10am for 90 minutes, so the room is busy with participants early on weekends. If you want a quiet table, avoid that slot rather than queueing behind a class.

If every seat is taken and you are staying in the city centre, Matchaya's Suntec branch at #02-737, Suntec City Tower 3 and 4, opens 10am to 9:30pm Monday to Thursday and until 10pm Friday to Sunday, five minutes from Promenade MRT. It is the place to go for the matcha soft serve, which is only on the Suntec menu at S$7 in a cup or S$8 in a cone, with a S$12 affogato for something richer.

Photos on the official menu show a curved, layered ceiling washed in soft light, paper lanterns, green and cream walls, banquette seating with terrazzo tables and a retail shelf of tins and tea tools. It is a cafe built to linger in rather than grab and go. On weekend mornings the long tables often belong to workshop guests learning to whisk their own bowl, and later in the day the banquettes fill with people working through a kakigori in pairs.

Matchaya dates to 2015. Founder Kevin Chee, a National University of Singapore materials science graduate who had worked at DBS and Singapore Airlines, spent six months learning with a tea company in Shizuoka before starting out. The brand began with weekend flea market pop-ups and a kiosk at ICON Village, according to MS News and Vulcan Post. Today Matchaya says it works directly with tea farmers and tea masters across different Japanese prefectures, and it estimates it supplies about half the matcha used by Singapore's cafes.

Before or after your matcha, walk to Tiong Bahru Market at 30 Seng Poh Road. The first market on the site was built in 1955 and the current building replaced it after a rebuild between 2004 and 2006; the upstairs hawker centre is the estate's breakfast hub. Then wander to 44 Eng Hoon Street for Qi Tian Gong, the Monkey God Temple, founded in 1920 and in this shophouse since 1938, reportedly the first temple in Singapore dedicated to Sun Wukong.

Matchaya Tiong Bahru is at #01-05, 82 Tiong Poh Road, Singapore 160082, open 9:30am to 9:30pm daily according to the official store page. The brand does not publish a phone number for this outlet, so reach it through its website and social channels. Prices carry a 10% service charge plus GST. The weekend workshop runs 90 minutes from 10am. The menu footnotes ask diners with allergies to notify staff, and tins, whisks and other tea gear are sold on the retail shelf.

This flagship is ideal for serious matcha drinkers who want to taste a single cultivar in a koicha latte, for dessert lovers chasing Japanese-style kakigori without flying to Kanazawa, and for anyone spending a slow morning in Tiong Bahru. It is less suited to visitors who only want soft serve, since that lives at Suntec. Come on a weekday afternoon, order the Koicha Azuki kakigori and a hot koicha latte, and give yourself an hour.