Toronto’s matcha scene has a new viral contender — is it worth the buzz?
The matcha slushies at one Toronto cafe have been taking the city by storm this season, but are they all they’re cracked up to be?
We decided to investigate.
You know and love classic convenience store slushies, and west-enders in Toronto have been having a love affair with Bellwoods Brewery’s Jelly King slushie for years now, but matcha slushies are the latest icy blended beverage taking the city by storm, and we have Brockton Village’s Gateau Ghost to thank for that.
Owner and founder Jayden Park, who cut his teeth working in luxe Toronto kitchens like Buca and Alo before opening his own place in 2024, has been the driving force behind the cafe-restaurant concept’s latest viral creation, and he tells Dished Toronto that the idea came to him when he was sipping on another slushie staple in the city.
“I love Bellwoods’ beer slushie,” Jayden explains. “I sit in their patio often, I get the beer slushie, and I go to the park, and I was like, ‘Is there anything we can do similar to it?'”
Another beer-based slushie was out of the question, so Jayden assessed Gateau Ghost’s own best sellers and realized, given the absolute moment that matcha lattes have been having recently, that would be the perfect option.
Easier said than done, it turns out.
Fareen Karim
“I thought it would be easier than it actually is to make it because [I thought you would] just put liquid in the machine and it would turn into a slushy,” Jayden explains. “But apparently not.”
First, the sugar content has to be just right to achieve the perfect slushie consistency while ensuring the drink actually tastes good. Then, there was the task of achieving the perfect strawberry-matcha flavour combination.
“Originally, we [were] just gonna do frozen matcha and strawberry, cold foam on top, but when I actually had it, I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t really get a lot of strawberry,’ so then we thought, ‘Okay, we have our house made strawberry puree. Let’s just put that on the bottom and put the slushy and strawberry on top,’ so it gives a similar experience like when you have a strawberry matcha latte here.”
The result is something directly out of a strawberry and matcha-lover’s dreams, and certifiably worth the hype.
The slushie, which is made using ceremonial grade matcha, is prominent without being overpowering, and the strawberry puree packs a major punch with each sip. The strawberry flavour tastes real and fresh, while the topping of pink-tinted cold foam gives just a whisper of Instagrammable artifice to wrap the whole package up.
Fareen Karim
It’s almost more like a dessert than an everyday cafe drink, though. You might be more inclined to swap out your after-dinner ice cream for one of these bad boys than you would your morning coffee, although there’s plenty of caffeine packed in there to give you a decent jolt.
Then, there’s the price. At base level, for just the slushy (which is vegan on its own), you’re looking at a $11 price tag. To add either strawberry or vanilla cold foam, that’ll be an additional $2.
While $13 before tax or tip for what is essentially a matcha latte may be staggering to some, Jayden feels strongly that quality matcha drinks — particularly those that require as much labour and machinery as these slushies do — are worth paying for, particularly as matcha prices continue to skyrocket worldwide.
“[Customers] don’t really think about the price of matcha,” Jayden tells Dished Toronto, “they don’t need to think about it. They know that, like, ‘This is how much I used to pay for this certain drink, and now it’s more expensive.’ They might think that we’re just being greedy, so that’s the hard part.”
In Jayden’s own experience, people seem perfectly willing to pay top dollar for even simple alcohol-based cocktails, but are decidedly less so when it comes to cafe drinks. In the case of the matcha slushie, it’s about the same price as you’d pay for a standard bar rail drink, but includes several more moving parts and labour.
Jayden’s argument is this: amid rising matcha prices, particularly considering the volume of high-quality matcha required to make the slushies, the individual price is actually quite fair.
Fareen Karim
“I don’t expect anyone to understand, but it’s just my opinion,” Jayden says. “Anyone who’s running a business can relate to it, I think.”
The folks at Gateau Ghost are no strangers to going viral for their visually striking treats. In fact, that’s kind of how this whole thing came to be, as Jayden built the business first as a pop-up that made major waves across social media before he opened his Brockton Village brick-and-mortar last year.
Still, Jayden tells Dished Toronto, the team wasn’t necessarily prepared for the slushies to take off quite as much as they did.
“I know sometimes people have to wait, because we didn’t know that we’re gonna get this much attention on this drink, and we have this one machine to make it,” Jayden tells Dished Toronto.
“We try to do our best to meet their needs,” he elaborates, but sometimes the demand is just too high for the single slushie machine and small cafe team to meet. Still, they plan to keep the slushies on the menu for at least the rest of the summer.
“Our plan is [to] have it all summer,” Jayden says. “We might need to get another machine, but it’ll be available.”
As for the future, Jayden’s already dreaming up various new flavour combinations and matcha-centric drinks to experiment with, like matcha tonic, “but who knows.”
Matcha, Jayden says, has been a staple in Asian cultures for centuries, so the possibilities for what can be done with it are endless, and, even though its popularity in North America has really surged in recent years, he doesn’t believe that it’s a fad.
“I think matcha is always gonna be around,” Jayden says. “Everybody’s gonna always love it.”
Gateau Ghost
Address: 974 College St., Toronto
Phone: 647-398-9109
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