Atelier Matcha, Cebu IT Park: the same latte is ₱270 or ₱480, and here is the difference

You came in for a green drink and the counter asks you a question. Four names on the board, Tennouzan, Ogurayama, Samidori, Matsukaze, and the same matcha latte priced at ₱270, ₱340 or ₱480 depending on which one you point at. Nobody explains the difference. The staff will if you ask, but there is a specific kind of Filipino politeness that stops you asking in a queue, so most people pick the cheapest, or the most expensive to be safe, and leave without knowing what they just paid for.

Here is what you paid for, and the cheap way to find out which one is actually yours.

The ₱390 way to answer the question

Order the Matcha Shot Tasting Set. Three shots, hot, one each of Samidori, Ogurayama and Tennouzan, side by side on a wooden board. ₱390.

Look at that against the menu for a second. The single Tennouzan latte is ₱480. The tasting set is ₱90 cheaper and it hands you all three of the teas that latte could have been made with, undiluted by milk, which is the only way you will ever actually taste the difference.

Two outcomes and both of them save you money. Either you can tell them apart, in which case you now know which cup to order for the next year. Or you cannot, in which case your drink is the ₱270 Samidori and you have just saved yourself ₱210 every visit for the price of one tasting.

If ₱390 is more than you wanted to spend on tea, the same logic works at ₱150: order the straight Samidori, drink it on its own, and see whether the thing you like about matcha is actually the milk.

The four names, and what they really are

The board describes them by mouthfeel, which is useful at the counter and tells you nothing about why one costs nearly twice the other. The tasting notes as printed:

Name	What the menu says	What it is
Tennouzan	Full body, strong umami and aromatic taste	The top of this menu. A koicha grade, meaning it is made to be whisked thick rather than drunk as a latte.
Ogurayama	Medium body, sweet, creamy and well-balanced	A blend, and the house’s most widely sold ceremonial one. Named after Ogura, the part of Uji the company sits in.
Samidori	Light body, refreshing and mild	The only true cultivar on the board, and the one with the best story. See below.
Matsukaze	Light body, slightly bitter and bold	A blend, the entry ceremonial grade, and the one they put in the iced matcha water.

Two things worth being straight about, because the shorthand everywhere is loose.

Only Samidori is a cultivar in the plant sense. Ogurayama, Matsukaze and Tennouzan are house names for blends, which is not a lesser thing, it is how ceremonial matcha has always been sold. And the red tin on the counter, Houjicha, is not matcha at all. It is roasted green tea, which is why the hojicha latte tastes like toast and costs ₱270 flat with no choice attached to it.

Even Tennouzan is not the top of the house range. There is a whole line above it that this shop does not carry. So the ₱480 latte is the most expensive cup in Cebu IT Park, not the best matcha in Japan, and it is worth knowing which claim you are buying.

Samidori is the one with the story

The tea comes from Yamamasa Koyamaen, in Ogura in Uji, south of Kyoto. The company has been making matcha since 1861, which makes it 165 years old this year and not the 160 that gets copied around.

Their record is the part that is hard to argue with: 22 first prizes at Japan’s national tea competition, and 18 tea names conferred on them by grand masters across five schools of the tea ceremony, Omotesenke and Urasenke among them. They are a wholesaler rather than a shop, supplying over a thousand retailers, which is why the name is unfamiliar even to people who drink a lot of matcha.

And Samidori is theirs in a way the others are not. The third-generation head of the company, working with a farmer named Hirano Jinnojo, selected it along with two other varieties, and Kyoto Prefecture later made all three recommended cultivars. So the cheapest matcha on the board at ₱270, the one most people order because it is the cheapest, is the one the house helped bring into existence.

The counter is set up like it means it. Scales, a gooseneck kettle you set to a temperature rather than boil, bamboo whisks standing in a holder, the tins weighed rather than scooped. Whether that changes your drink at ₱270 is a fair question. It certainly changes how long you wait for it.

This is the tea house’s own cafe, and Cebu is not the first one abroad

Two things get told wrong about this place and both are more interesting corrected.

The first is that Atelier Matcha is usually described as a Tokyo cafe that buys good tea. It is not. It was co-founded by a director of Yamamasa Koyamaen himself, and the company calls it its first cafe. That is a 165-year-old wholesaler opening a counter for the first time, which is a considerably better story than a sourcing deal.

The second is the first-in-Asia line that goes around whenever a Japanese brand lands here. Cebu is the first Atelier Matcha in the Philippines, and that is genuinely something, because Manila usually gets these first. It is not the first outside Japan. Ho Chi Minh City opened in April 2025, roughly seven months ahead.

The whole board, photographed at the counter

No price list for this shop is published anywhere else, so here is all of it.

Matcha, straight and hot or iced		Matcha with milk
Ousu, Samidori	₱150	Matcha Latte, Samidori	₱270
Ousu, Ogurayama	₱210	Matcha Latte, Ogurayama	₱340
Ousu, Tennouzan	₱290	Matcha Latte, Tennouzan	₱480
Matcha Water, Matsukaze, iced	₱150	Hojicha Latte, Kogashi	₱270
Shot Tasting Set, three teas, hot	₱390	Oat milk on any of them	+₱30

Parfait drinks and coffee		Food and sweets
Matcha Affogato	₱270	Matcha Cookie	₱240
Matcha Macchiato	₱310	Matcha Panna Cotta	₱290
Matcha Cream Strawberry	₱340	Tamago Sando	₱320
Matcha Cookie Cream Shake	₱340	Matcha Cream Croissant	₱320
Matcha Brown Sugar Kinako	₱370	Matcha Tiramisu	₱390
Matcha Mango Pudding Shake	₱390	Basque Cheesecake	₱420
Matcha Peach Melba	₱410	Miso Bolognese Udon	₱540
Matcha Caramel Mont Blanc	₱410	Fish and Chips	₱570
Espresso	₱110	Ebi Katsu Burger	₱590
Americano	₱160	Mentaiko Carbonara Udon	₱590
Latte, flat white, cappuccino	₱180	Salmon Mentaiko Bowl	₱620
Spanish latte	₱190	Garlic Butter Steak Rice	₱790

The food is where the room stops being a tea counter and starts being a restaurant, and the pricing follows. A steak rice at ₱790 and an udon at ₱590 are Ayala prices, not cafe prices, and they are competing with everything else in that mall rather than with the tea. Come for the matcha. Eat if you are already there.

Finding it, which takes a minute

It is in the Garden Row at Ayala Malls Central Bloc, on the IT Park side. Glass frontage, black doors, a green chevron sign, and underneath the name in small letters: by Yamamasa Koyamaen. That line is the whole pitch and almost nobody reads it.

Inside it is one long room under an arched timber ceiling, a green tiled counter down one side, marble tables, plants at the window. It is quiet in a way IT Park generally is not, which is most of why people stay.

Going

• Where. The Garden Row, Ayala Malls Central Bloc, Cebu IT Park.
• Coordinates. 10.3295° N, 123.9068° E, read off the EXIF of the frames on this page.
• Hours. Listed as 11 AM to 11 PM daily. That is a long day for a tea counter and every listing carrying it appears to trace to one source, so treat it as unconfirmed. Checked September 2026.
• Opened. Around the middle of November 2025. No exact date has been published.
• Order first. The ₱390 tasting set, or the ₱150 straight Samidori.
• Order second. Whichever latte the tasting set told you to.
• Paying. Cash, GCash, Maya, card.
• No phone number is published. Email is the only listed contact.

It is not the only serious matcha in this city. The Matcha Tokyo is out at Oakridge in Mandaue and pours organic tea from Japan without naming the leaf, and Your Daily Go in Banilad runs a single-source Okumidori. Atelier is, as far as anything published shows, the only place in Cebu that makes you choose one by name and charges you differently for each.

Questions people actually ask

How much is Atelier Matcha in Cebu?

Matcha lattes are ₱270, ₱340 or ₱480 depending on the tea. Straight matcha starts at ₱150. Parfait drinks run ₱270 to ₱410, sweets ₱240 to ₱420, and food ₱320 to ₱790. All photographed off the printed menu in January 2026.

What should you order at Atelier Matcha?

The Matcha Shot Tasting Set at ₱390 on a first visit. It is three teas side by side, it costs less than one Tennouzan latte, and it tells you which of the three lattes is worth your money afterwards.

Why are the matcha lattes different prices?

Because you are choosing the tea, not the cup. Samidori is the light everyday one at ₱270, Ogurayama the balanced house blend at ₱340, and Tennouzan a thick-whisk ceremonial grade at ₱480. The milk and the labor are the same in all three.

Is Atelier Matcha the first outside Japan?

No. It is the first in the Philippines. Ho Chi Minh City opened in April 2025, about seven months before Cebu, and Tokyo and Kamakura came before that.

Who is Yamamasa Koyamaen?

A matcha house in Ogura, Uji, making tea since 1861. They hold 22 first prizes at Japan’s national tea competition and 18 tea names from grand masters of five ceremony schools, and they helped select the Samidori cultivar. Atelier Matcha is their own cafe.

Is Houjicha matcha?

No. It is roasted green tea, ground to a powder. It sits on the same counter and in the same red tin, and it makes a good latte, but it is a different drink and it does not carry the cultivar choice.

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Photographed at Atelier Matcha, Cebu IT Park, on 13 January 2026. Prices read off the printed menu photographed at the counter that day. Coordinates read from the frames. Hours, opening period, branch history and the Yamamasa Koyamaen record checked September 2026.