WELCOME IN — Part Three

by Cat Kerr

This is the last of three parts in a series of memoirs about the year I spent working in a matcha café.

Part 3: Making Meaning

Sen no Rikyū, the 16th-century Japanese tea master known for developing the aesthetic and order of the Japanese tea ceremony that persists today, taught seven rules for sadō, the way of tea:

1. Make a satisfying bowl of tea.

2. Lay the charcoal so that it heats the water efficiently.

3. Arrange the flowers as if they were still in the field.

4. Suggest coolness in the summer and warmth in the winter.

5. Get ready ahead of time.

6. Be prepared for rain.

7. Treat your guests with the utmost consideration.

The atmosphere inside our modern matcha café in Orlando was a far cry from the chashitsu where Rikyū’s many philosophical progeny have practised tea for centuries. Unlike those tearooms, our café was never intended to be a place where someone could sit in stillness to reflect on a cup of tea. The café was noisy; a rich soundscape of machines, music, revelling weekenders, and all the buzz of Little Saigon spilling into our shop. Especially during the busiest hours, there was movement from every direction inside — staff making constant laps between the kitchen and front-of-house; customers pacing as they tried to find an open table. Many orders were for takeout, when customers wanted matcha on the move as they went about their commutes, errands, and work, rather than pausing for the sake of tea.

Still, between my matcha-whisking, tea-steeping, soft-serve-swirling, cash-counting, order-announcing, and floor-sweeping at the café, sometimes Rikyū’s seven rules came to mind. We weren’t trying to follow those rules — I don’t think Minh, the owner of the café, had ever heard of Rikyū. But I liked to think about the ways we were sort of following those age-old rules, with our own twist. 

Satisfying bowls of tea: The tea was what we did best. Of course our matcha came in cups, not bowls, but customers were always telling us how much they loved it.

Heating the water efficiently: There was no charcoal to be seen, but I imagine Rikyū would be pleased to see our electric kettles, which could take water from tap cold to the perfect temperature for matcha in a matter of minutes. I’d call that efficient. 

Arranging the flowers: There was a huge monstera near the order counter and several other indoor plants all around the café — small pots at eye level and vines hanging from higher places. With some imagination, you could gaze upon these plants and feel as though you were right there in the field (or jungle) like Rikyū instructed.

Coolness in summer; warmth in winter: Most of our drinks were served with ice to cool down a hot, humid summer day. Central Florida doesn’t have much of a winter, but we had those few chilly days in January covered, offering hot matcha and hōjicha lattes.

Getting ready ahead of time: During our closing routine every night, we restocked supplies and ingredients for the next day and set some items to chill, freeze, thaw, or soak overnight. We never ran out of anything.

Preparing for rain: Of all possible mishaps, I wonder why Rikyū was so specifically concerned with rain. Or maybe the rain was just a symbol for any unexpected circumstances. But in the case of literal rain, we were ready for that too, with absorbent floor mats that we’d roll out near the front door on drizzly days. We were not prepared for the café’s first hurricane, though, and part of the shop flooded. But we learned our lesson and started putting out sand bags after that, whenever there was any threat of a storm.

Treating guests with the utmost consideration: This was perhaps our most important rule because it’s what Minh wanted the café to be known for. We knew our customers by name. We knew their favourite flavours and their food allergies. When someone came in for the first time and didn’t know what to order, we were happy to have an entire conversation to help them choose something from the menu that they’d really love. But we also had regulars at all intervals — some came every week, some once a month, some just whenever they were in town — and we always remembered them, no matter how long it had been.

For a while, we had a regular customer named Amber. When Minh first met Amber, she told me she had met my double: Amber was a millennial vegan with cats. As far as I could tell though, our similarities probably ended there. She was an artist, and a lot more worldly than me.

Amber came to the matcha café multiple times each week for a few months. She sat at the booth all the way in the back of the shop and sketched or journaled. Minh or Kelvin, Minh’s partner, usually sat to chat with her.

But Amber’s stint as a regular ended soon, when she decided to move to California for art school. A few days after her last visit, Kelvin told me about a card she had given him and Minh before she left. 

“I don’t know what it says, though,” he told me. “I haven’t opened it yet.”

“What are you waiting for?!” I asked. So he went and got the envelope from his makeshift desk in the back-of-house area. But after a quick glance, he shook his head.

“I can’t read this,” he said. He couldn’t decipher Amber’s small and script-like handwriting. I held out my hand and asked Kelvin to let me try. 

“‘Minh, Kelvin, and the matcha café,’” I started reading out loud. Kelvin crossed his arms over the table and leaned in to listen.

“‘I just wanted to thank the two of you and the staff I grew to love so much. You really don’t know how much you helped me this last year. After my dad passed away, I was always trying to find ways to get out of the house, and the café became a safe space away.’ — Wait, Kelvin, did you know about her dad dying?”

“No, I had no idea.” His voice was somber. I continued reading.

“‘I knew when I went in, I would always see friendly faces. I’m genuinely grateful for the endless talks about life, new menus, and what everyone wanted to do with their futures. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point you all became friends and people I genuinely cared about. I want to see you all succeed in whatever it is you want to do. I’m really going to miss coming in for my yuzu matcha. But mostly I’ll just miss always getting to see you guys. Thank you again for becoming a part of my life.’”

For centuries, matcha has been an interdependent relationship between host and guest. Without the guests, there could be no service at all. But the hosts are the ones who make meaning for the guests, by the way that they serve.

————

I served tea at the matcha café for one year, and then stepped off the bar to help Minh with many other things behind the scenes instead. Six months after that, Katie, the last barista standing at that point from the original team, decided it was time to move on.

The whole “second-generation” staff, as we called them, along with Minh, Kelvin, Katie, and I, gathered at the café late one night after closing for a farewell party. After we ate, someone called for a speech in tribute to Katie and Jenna, another team member who was leaving at the same time. There was some debate about who should give such a speech, before Kelvin authoritatively declared that “HR should do it,” with an upward nod in my direction.

“Oh yeah, I guess that’s me.” I blushed with the attention on me. “HR, PR, marketing, barista of course…”

“Personal assistant, hiring coordinator!” Minh chimed in. By now we were both laughing at the absurdly long list of fluid and made-up titles I had accumulated over the last eighteen months.

“Legal assistant, web manager… and errand runner!” I added. In fact, just that morning, I had picked up 10 cartons of oat milk when I saw them on sale at the grocery store and then dropped them off for Minh. It wasn’t the first time I’d done something like that.

I couldn’t come up with anything poignant for a speech on the spot, but I opened my laptop and presented all the photos I could find that included Katie or Jenna, starting with the first photo of the team on opening day in our crisp, green, cotton aprons fresh out of their packages.

Amid the nostalgic slideshow, I wondered what it might be like for the more recent hires hearing the stories of each photo for the first time without having been there themselves. I looked around: Two of the new girls had broken off into a side conversation, and a third was looking at her phone. Maybe they were bored or felt excluded. I announced that I was ready for a real speech now. Minh slapped the table a few times to get everyone’s attention, then told them to stop talking and listen up. 

“Okay, a real speech…” I began, scrambling to gather my thoughts.

“I want to thank you all for listening to our stories,” I said, addressing the second-generation team members, “because here’s the thing: We have a lot of fun thinking about old times — relatively old, anyway — and I know you weren’t there, but those moments were the foundation of this place. We do things like this party because since the early days, we intentionally wanted that kind of community here. Katie and Jenna have contributed a lot to that...” The speech trailed off when I turned in their direction to acknowledge them, and I couldn’t look them in the eyes. The sense of loss and the weight of having to say good-bye were sinking in. I turned back to the other team members.

“We’re passing all of this to you. These are your roots now.”

With the music silenced and the house lights off, we all filed out the front door in the dim red glow of the exit sign. Katie locked the door behind us for her last time with a bit of ceremony. She returned her key to Minh — a key she had carried in her pocket all these months — and we applauded.

Minh, Kelvin, and some of the new staff would return the next morning. They’d flip on the lights, cue our jazzy playlist, and rev up the machines to awaken the café. The routine hadn’t changed much since the café first opened, but every day was a new opportunity for the team to offer their own notions of what it means to welcome someone in.