Fifteen minutes before a ratio matcha pop-up opens, I sit in my car and scroll on Instagram. I sit there, lurking in my car—it’s become my pre-ratio ritual—while watching owner Meen Eversoll set-up her tiny tent. I wait until I just can’t anymore.
I get antsy and in a world of viral pop-ups. Sometimes you have to be brave and brazen to be the first in line, and I want to be the first in line at ratio matcha (which Eversoll stylizes with lowercase lettering). And for three pop-ups in a row, I have been—slipping out of my car, lingering far back enough not to be “in the way” but close enough to definitely be “first in line.”
I arrive early, because once I’m through getting my matcha, the line has already grown 10, 15, or 20 people deep. Every week, as word gets out, it grows longer. Last weekend, the line wound around the entire Northeast Saturday Dumpling Co. location, snaking out the door.
The length of that line is in part due to the sheer volume of people who want great matcha; part of the line is that ratio matcha serves slow, intentional matcha. There are no battery-powered whisks, just Eversoll’s hands wielding a chasen (a traditional matcha whisk) to make each drink, one at a time. There’s no rushing. There’s no batching. It’s matcha as matcha is meant to be.
When Eversoll founded ratio matcha, she wasn’t trying to go viral. She was trying to recreate an experience she had in 2018, when she visited a specialty matcha shop in Thailand and had the bright-green tea drink for the first time.
“It introduced me to matcha in a completely different way,” she says. Instead of just ordering a matcha latte, she got to choose the blends. She kept going back, trying all the varieties that this shop had to offer—just like I do with her matcha today. After that experience, she got really into matcha and started making it at home, buying all the blends she could get her hands on.
When she moved to the U.S., Eversoll couldn’t find matcha like her beloved shop in Thailand. Some shops diluted their matcha with too much milk. Others used low quality matcha, or delivered drinks that were grainy. “They didn’t have the characteristics I was looking for,” Eversoll says. She realized if she wanted to have a matcha spot that had what she was looking for, she would have to create it herself.
She moved to Minnesota from Colorado in November, and in March she quit her job to launch ratio. She held her first pop-up at Marigold in May and has since appeared at Marty’s, Bench Pressed, Saturday Dumpling Co., and other locations throughout the Twin Cities.
I’ve chased Eversoll’s pop-ups, spending my weekend mornings driving all over the city for matcha. Sometimes I double-fist drinks, hoping that other people in line think that I got one for a friend and not that I’m a matcha fiend.
Eversoll’s matcha is unlike what you’ll find in most coffee shops. Most matcha, even at specialty coffee stores, is mass-produced (yes, even the ceremonial-grade stuff) and very little of it is artisanal. At ratio? You have well-sourced matcha (Eversoll works with producers in regions like Fukuoka and Kyoto) with a clear personality and point of view.
I spoke with a fellow matcha lover, Tiffany Bui of City Cast Twin Cities, who says, “I could taste the earthiness of the matcha in a way that I can’t in a lot of other lattes. Even though it had sweetener, I could still really get that flavor right away.”
Right now, there are three blends, all unique. There’s the most popular option, the Haru, which Eversoll loves because it doesn’t get lost in the milk. “I’m a big fan of nutty matcha,” she says. “Sometimes commercial matcha is grassy and bitter,” but this one is nutty and slightly smoky. It’s not astringent. It’s highly vegetal. It’s a matcha for matcha lovers, but it’s also an approachable gateway if you’ve only had commercial matcha.
My friend who normally hates iced coffee drinks (ratio only does iced matcha) guzzled the whole thing, saying to me, “I hate iced drinks because I have sensitive teeth and they water everything down but my drink was good enough to ignore my recessed gums and down the hatch.” If that’s not a strong recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Haru is the first matcha you should try from ratio, but there are two other varieties on the menu. There’s Okumidori, which is a bit lighter than Haru, while being similar in flavor, and Kami, which is a rich and bold matcha that mirrors some of the flavors in chocolate.
If straight-up matcha isn’t your thing, you can also get a seasonal drink at ratio, like the excellent miso banana bread matcha. Eversoll layers caramelized banana syrup, oat milk, her Okumidori matcha, a delicate miso vanilla cold foam, and a sprinkling of cinnamon to make a drink that’s as Instagrammable as it is delicious. It screams fall, even though it’s iced, and the banana bread doesn’t overpower the matcha. You know when you get a strawberry matcha and it’s just oops all strawberry flavor with no matcha? That’s not how things are at ratio. The matcha is the star.
Eversoll’s last pop-up before a couple month break is on Sunday, October 3, at Marty’s Deli, so grab your breakfast sandwich, your hash browns and tomato jam, and get in line. (It’s going to be long, okay?! You will survive.)
“Getting to the front of the line and getting it feels like a really special little treat, which I think we should treat matcha as,” Bui says. “It has a lot of history and art behind it. I could feel that when I held it in my hands.”
I promise, this is one of the few pop-ups that’s actually worth the wait.
ratio matcha
Where: Marty’s Deli, 400 NE Lowry Ave., Minneapolis
When: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, October 3
