Junbi Matcha & Tea

Originally opened in Los Angeles County as Sip Matcha, the budding matcha and tea chain rebranded in early 2020 as Junbi – Japanese for “preparation” – to avoid trademark issues when franchising new locations. With roughly 20 locations either open or in active development, including Orange County’s first store (Irvine, 2023) and another coming soon (Garden Grove, 2025), Junbi offers a fairly compact menu of drinks and snacks largely centered on Japanese-style matcha tea. Imported from Uji, Japan, the matcha is pitched as ceremonial grade, and undeniably well-used in everything we’ve tasted at the Irvine location.

Two large touchscreens handle ordering, introducing guests to specials that aren’t necessarily spotlighted on Junbi’s website: Winter specialties featured sea salt banana caramel drinks on our visits, mixed with one’s choice of tea, coffee, vaniila cream, blended ice, or combinations thereof. Matcha cold brews and lattes are the majority of beverages, including mixes with blueberries, taro, strawberries, mangoes, guava, yuzu dragon fruit, rose water, coffee, and vanilla. Hojicha, non-matcha teas, and pure fruit refreshers are also available, as are soft serve vanilla and matcha ice creams, served plain, as coffee/tea-topped affogatos, or mini-sundaes with various toppings. Four flavors of sushi-like rice balls (salmon, mentaiko, kelp, and snow crab) are each available for $4 or less as the only savory options, though they were all already sold out when we tried to order some an hour before closing time.

On our first visit, we tried three items and enjoyed them all. The blueberry matcha cold brew wonderfully combined obviously high-quality matcha with enough blueberry flavor (and optional/free but not necessary dried blueberries) with optional $1 almond jelly, delivering tons of flavor and texture in a large cup, while a strawberry slush was exactly as ordered – sweet, fruity, and icy – omitting optional vanilla milk and benefitting from fresh, chewy boba (added for 75 cents).