A Morning With Littlefoot Matcha, Raleigh's Favorite Walk-Up

For two years, Anna Sullivan moved through Italy, Japan, Amsterdam, South Korea, New York, and Dubai with a singular focus on finding the best matcha in the world. She’d tried it before at the usual trendy cafes, but it wasn’t clicking for her. Then, a small cafe in Italy shifted her frame entirely. Three drinks were on the menu: two coffees and one matcha. “If you only have a few things and matcha is one of them,” she told us, “it has to be good.” It was delicious. She spent the rest of her travels chasing that standard.

Japan came close to delivering it consistently. “I don’t want to say you can’t have a bad matcha in Japan, but it kind of feels that way. They really care about quality and consistency, and obviously it grows right there.” She traveled back, building on a clearer sense of what matcha could be at its best.

She grew up in Wilson, North Carolina, 45 minutes east of Raleigh, where weekends meant driving to Crabtree Mall because there was nothing else to do. After college, she moved back to Raleigh with more curiosity than money. So naturally, she walked the streets of downtown and learned the city the way you learn a place when you have nothing but time. She eventually moved to New York, convinced that’s where her marketing career needed her to go. After two years of travel, a visit to her sister brought her back to North Carolina, and she chose to stay.