By the Lee Brothers and childhood best friend Jeff Kim at Pixlcat Coffee & Butter Mochi — the first butter mochi café in the United States, baking seven flavors fresh every morning in San Francisco and Boston.
Most bakeries that offer matcha anything use culinary-grade matcha powder. It’s cheaper, it’s fine for baking, and most customers won’t notice the difference. We do it differently. Pixlcat’s matcha butter mochi is made with ceremonial-grade matcha from Uji, Kyoto — the same quality you’d whisk into a bowl for a traditional tea ceremony.
You can taste the difference. And you can definitely see it.
What Makes Ceremonial-Grade Matcha Different
All matcha is made from shade-grown green tea leaves, stone-ground into a fine powder. But the similarities between culinary and ceremonial grade end there.
Culinary-grade matcha is made from older tea leaves harvested later in the season. It’s more bitter, less complex, and has a duller green color. It works fine when you’re mixing it with sugar, milk, and other strong flavors — which is why most cafés use it.
Ceremonial-grade matcha comes from the first harvest of the youngest leaves, which have been shaded for weeks to boost chlorophyll and L-theanine. The result is a matcha that’s vibrant green, smooth rather than bitter, and has a layered flavor profile — vegetal, slightly sweet, with an umami finish. It’s the matcha that’s meant to be the star, not a background flavor.
At Pixlcat, our matcha is sourced from Uji, Kyoto — the region that has defined Japanese matcha production for over 800 years. We use the same quality in our matcha butter mochi that we use in our matcha lattes.
Matcha Butter Mochi: What to Expect
Pixlcat’s matcha butter mochi is the deepest green you’ll see in any bakery case. That color comes from the quality of the matcha — ceremonial-grade powder keeps its intensity through the baking process in a way that culinary-grade simply doesn’t.
The flavor is earthy, slightly bitter, and more concentrated than a matcha latte. When matcha is baked into the butter mochi batter — alongside coconut milk, butter, and mochiko rice flour — the heat transforms it. The bitterness softens, the vegetal notes deepen, and it develops a toasted quality that you don’t get from a cold drink. It’s still unmistakably matcha, but it’s matcha in a form you haven’t tried before.
This is the flavor for people who already love matcha and want more of it. If you’re new to matcha, try a matcha latte first and work your way to the mochi. If you already know you love matcha, this is what you’re looking for.
How to Pair Matcha Butter Mochi with Coffee
This is the one Pixlcat flavor where the pairing choice matters most. Matcha butter mochi with espresso creates a fascinating contrast — the coffee’s roasted bitterness against the matcha’s grassy bitterness, with butter mochi’s sweetness bridging them. It’s our most complex pairing.
If you want something smoother, try matcha butter mochi with a dopo panna latte in honeycomb or vanilla. The sweetness of the whipped cream softens the matcha and lets the earthy flavor come through gently.
Or go full matcha — order a matcha butter mochi with a Pixlcat matcha latte. We make ours with the same ceremonial-grade Uji matcha, organic milk, and no added sugar. It’s matcha on matcha, and it works.
Where to Get Matcha Butter Mochi
We bake matcha butter mochi fresh daily:
- San Francisco: 519 Clement St, Inner Richmond — open daily at 7am
- Boston: 32 Cambridge St, Charlestown — open daily at 8am
- SF Ferry Building: Saturdays, 8am–2pm
$5.50 per piece. Naturally gluten-free, like all Pixlcat butter mochi.
Now shipping nationwide — order Matcha butter mochi at pixlcatbuttermochi.com. UPS ground from Boston, ships Mon–Wed. BYO 6-piece online boxes start at $39 across six flavors including Matcha.
Want to give it as a gift? Check out our butter mochi gift box guide. Ready to order? Here’s every way to buy butter mochi.
See all seven flavors → Pixlcat Butter Mochi Flavors
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