Nana's Green Tea Haymarket Review Matcha, Hojicha & Japanese Desserts

Looking for matcha and hojicha in Sydney? Nana's Green Tea in Haymarket has a huge selection of matcha and hojicha drinks plus desserts, food and snacks. Find out what we loved, what we'd order again and whether it's worth a visit for Japanese desserts and tea lovers!

It's a chilly weekend day when Sophia and I arrive at Nana's Green Tea. The cafe is located on Ultimo Road in Haymarket just opposite Market City. It is outfitted in shades of cream and is spacious with a few different types of seating with cute tables for one or larger tables for groups as well as low Japanese style tables where you take your shoes off and sit Japanese style. Ordering can be done at the counter or through the QR code.

Nana's Green Tea is an international chain of green tea and has branches all around the world. The last one I visited was actually in Waikiki, where I enjoyed a matcha latte with azuki. The menu here has plenty of hojicha and matcha but there is also a big menu of desserts as well as onigiri, soups and Japanese dishes to enjoy with your drinks.

Sophia loves hojicha and watches them intently to improve her home hojicha game. She has ordered a hojicha latte with kuromitsu or brown sugar syrup on the side. The hojicha is darkly roasted but a little less smooth than other places as they don't whisk it fresh (from her watching them prepare it). It looks like it is made from a pre-mixed batch.

My choice is the matcha frappe with black sesame ice cream, a combination that I haven't tried together before but I figure I like both flavours so I might like it. My first sip of the matcha frappe is a little cold because of course it's a frappe during winter (this is really more a summer drink) but once it warms up the herbaceousness of the matcha really springs to life. I also think matcha is best enjoyed cold but not freezing cold. The black sesame gives it a more rounded, nutty flavour and creaminess from the ice cream. It is also a bit sweeter than I normally would drink it and the sweetness becomes more pronounced once the drink comes to room temperature. There are also three chewy Shiratama or white mochi balls on top of the latte.

While there are bigger dishes we had already just come from lunch so we just get something small to snack on. You can order an onigiri with a choice of topping and side dishes but one of the side dishes has to be a miso soup. I opt for the chicken ham (or what tastes like SPAM) with a fat dab of mayonnaise, a side of miso potato salad and karaage chicken.

The karaage chicken is quite darkly fried. I think a minute or two less would be great so that doesn't dry it out but the potato salad is a nice smooth Japanese-style potato salad. The spam is tasty although there's a bit too much rice for the small piece of spam.

It is time for dessert and the hojicha roll is a Swiss Roll with cream and a centre of hojicha paste. The flavour is good and the texture is light and it has a good level of hojicha flavour. It does look like this may have been frozen previously.

There are a whole range of parfaits and we choose the black sesame warabimochi parfait which ends up being my favourite dessert. This one has a fior di latte gelato, special K cereal, whipped cream, black sesame jelly cubes and black sesame ice cream.

A tip: to get a bit of everything in one spoonful, ask for a large bowl where you can upend it all and you can access everything. Even though I'm not usually a big dessert eater I end up eating a lot of this because it's so damn good with a delicious range of textures.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like matcha or hojicha? Would you enjoy a cafe like this?

This meal was independently paid for.