Equitea Matcha Studio

Equitea Matcha Studio opened at 311 W 28th Street in Remington in late December 2025, the first bricks-and-mortar home for a tea brand that Baltimore Magazine calls the city's first matcha house. It comes from Quentin Vennie, who grew up in West Baltimore and came to tea through his own health: he has written and spoken openly about years of anxiety, depression and prescription drug dependence, and about wellness practice as the thing that pulled him out of it. He is a certified yoga instructor and served as a vice president of the Yoga Alliance Foundation. He founded The Greenhouse Tea Co. with his wife Erin in 2020 and launched Equitea on Father's Day 2022; Gwyneth Paltrow found the brand on social media and became its first investor and a co-owner. The studio began as a pop-up on North Howard Street in February 2025 before taking the permanent space.

The room was designed by the artist and plantsman Hilton Carter, and it is built for staying rather than queueing — a listening station with vinyl, a lot of plants, and natural materials made by local artisans. The matcha is treated with the seriousness the format deserves: whisked into a paste for twenty to thirty seconds against water held at exactly 175 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the difference between a smooth bowl and a bitter one. The drinks run to iced matcha lattes with strawberry purée, hojicha lattes built on roasted green tea and oat milk, cold brew lattes, and matcha sodas, with drinks around the $6 mark. Everything here is alcohol-free by nature rather than by substitution, and there is nothing infused with anything else — no THC, CBD or functional additives anywhere on the menu, which is worth stating plainly in a state where that is no longer a safe assumption. Open Wednesday to Saturday from 9am to 4pm and Sundays 10am to 3pm.