In a sunlit shop on a quiet street in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, the air hums with the low, steady grind of a traditional stone mill. The walls, coated in pale limestone and traditional seaweed-infused Shikkui plaster, exhale a faint, earthy aroma. Locals come for the matcha—luminous green, delicately bitter, impossibly fresh—but what lingers is harder to name. It’s what the Japanese call Ooika, the aroma of shade, the hidden fragrance that rises when tea plants are shaded to the brink of survival. It’s also the name Marc Falzon and Joann Lui gave their growing tea company—a quiet nod to the unseen labor, ancient relationships, and cultural reverence that live inside every cup.

Falzon, founder of Ooika, isn’t Japanese. But for the last decade, he has been quietly building bridges between Japan’s most revered multigenerational tea farmers and the U.S. market, forging a business on respect, patience, and integrity. His path to this point was far from linear. With a background in fine art and photography, Falzon’s relationship with tea began during graduate school.

“I went to the east coast of China, and I remember going to a tea market in Hangzhou,” he recalls. “I sat down with this guy and had tea for three hours. It completely changed my idea of what tea was.”

That moment sparked a deeper exploration of both Chinese and Japanese tea culture. Eventually, Falzon fell in love with matcha—but not the stale, mass-produced version flooding the American market.

Around the same time, matcha was gaining traction in the U.S., praised for its vibrant flavor, calming energy, and high antioxidant content. Unlike steeped green tea, matcha is made by finely grinding whole tea leaves into a vivid powder—a concentrated brew with both nutritional depth and cultural significance.

“Matcha is more than a drink,” he says. “It’s agriculture. It’s history. It’s survival.”

That sentiment pulses through every element of Ooika, from the careful sourcing and in-house grinding to the sense of care and intention felt inside each of the three shops. The survival he refers to isn’t just the plant itself, though the process of growing matcha-grade tea is famously precarious, but the survival of centuries-old farming traditions at risk from global demand and market pressures.

“It took years to earn trust,” Falzon says of working with Japan’s top tea families. “You can’t just show up with money and expect to buy the best tea.” That patience has paid off. “There’s a level of humility and consistency required. I just kept showing up, drinking tea, and listening.”

Through meticulous sourcing from Japan’s most prized family farms—including celebrated growers in Uji, Yame, Hoshinomura, Shizuoka, and Kagoshima—Falzon and Ooika offer something rare: single-origin matcha, ground in-house with authentic Ishi-Usu stone mills, just days before it reaches a customer’s cup. It’s a process few in the U.S. attempt, one that requires both technical expertise and deep-rooted relationships overseas.

A Transportive Experience

Ooika now operates three locations in New Jersey: a flagship in Lawrenceville, a moody and minimalist shop on Princeton’s Witherspoon Street, and a soon-to-open location on Nassau Street in Princeton. Much of the serene atmosphere, from the traditional wall treatments to the uncluttered lines and light-infused calm, reflects the vision of co-founder and architectural designer Joann Lui—the quiet hand behind Ooika’s visual identity, whose thoughtful palette brings Japanese aesthetics to life in subtle, resonant ways.

Visitors to Ooika are immediately immersed in an environment where every detail tells a story: the steady hum of the stone mill, its retro-mechanical body vibrating as vivid green tea grinds before your eyes. The subtle scent of seaweed embedded in the walls. A quiet Japanese greeting—Irasshaimase!—welcomes you into a space that feels both modern and timeless. “It doesn’t translate literally,” Falzon explains. “But to me, it represents acknowledgment—it says, ‘We see you.’”

Even Ooika’s growth has defied convention. Falzon refuses to rely on influencer marketing, instead directing 100 percent of his marketing budget to nonprofit partnerships. For him, it’s about building real community, not chasing trends. That philosophy extends beyond matcha—to the staff culture, the minimalist branding, and the choice to grind tea in-house. It’s all part of the same quiet rebellion against convenience and hype.

Innovation lives comfortably alongside tradition at Ooika. Along with the refined matcha experience, Falzon and his team continually introduce playful seasonal offerings, like the recent Denim Matcha Latte, a blend of ground matcha, blueberry purée, lavender syrup, butterfly pea powder, and oat milk. Inspired by Japan’s love of vintage denim, it’s a drink that playfully ties cultural homage with seasonal flair—a perfect example of how heritage and creativity coexist in every cup. It’s that balance, quietly present on the menu and in the atmosphere, that keeps customers returning season after season.

Beyond the U.S., Falzon’s ambitions include refining tea at scale to relieve pressure on Japan’s supply chain—an often-overlooked side of the matcha boom. His New Jersey facility now holds the largest matcha refinery in the United States, a surprising statistic for a company built on patience and restraint.

For all the technical precision and global logistics, Falzon’s love for matcha remains deeply personal. It’s about the relationships, the history, the care brewed into every cup.

It’s about the aroma of shade—that elusive quality that lingers long after the last sip, reminding you that the best things—the rarest, most honest things—often exist just out of sight.

Visit OOIKA
2661 Main St., Lawrence
300 Witherspoon St., Unit 102B, Princeton
Nassau St., Princeton (coming soon)
ooika.co