This matcha pop-up stand is bringing original beverages to Baton Rouge
Drink your greens with Matcha Rouge 🍵🍓
Matcha Rouge is reimagining the matcha scene in Baton Rouge.
Emily Schoonmaker started the pop-up matcha stand alongside her husband Eric back in May. The couple has a lot of experience in the coffee industry, with Schoonmaker working at some local coffee shops out of college and Eric serving as the chief operating officer of Rêve Coffee Lab. The two also have a love for the drinks themselves.
“I always like to say that we’re tastemakers,” Schoonmaker says. “I guess we’re like big foodies. We love any kind of anything with the flavor profile.”
With experience in the coffee industry and a passion for creating fun drinks, the idea to pour that love into a business stuck with the couple. Rather than serve customers coffee, Schoonmaker wanted to specialize in concoctions made with the green tea powder known as matcha, which is much less universal than its cafe cousin.
“In bigger cities, they have matcha-specific cafes,” says Schoonmaker. “No one was really doing that around Baton Rouge, and so we [wanted] to bring the matcha ritual to everyone.”
Schoonmaker also believes in matcha as more than just a trendy beverage. With rich antioxidants and slower caffeine absorption, matcha has many health benefits that make it a good everyday alternative to coffee, says Schoonmaker.
Though Matcha Rouge is still young, it has hosted pop-ups at many local businesses and events, including Evolve Studio, Anthropologie and HerringStone’s. These events not only allow Schoonmaker and her husband to meet more of the community, but they also allow customers to learn more about matcha.
“I wanted to do a pop-up so I could be involved in the community,” Schoonmaker says. “I love to … go to different places and be there, meet new people, serve them matcha, kind of educate them on matcha too.”
Though Matcha Rouge mainly does smaller, local pop-ups, Schoonmaker’s goal is to expand to larger occasions like weddings and branded events.
Matcha Rouge serves both classic matcha lattes and specialty matcha flavors specific to each pop-up. Some past flavors, which Schoonmaker and her husband created together, include strawberry milk, banana pudding and coconut matcha lattes, as well as Louie’s Birthday Matcha in honor of their son’s first birthday.
All drinks are made using high-quality matcha that Matcha Rouge sources from local supplier Matcha Moto, who works directly with farmers in Japan. Additionally, Schoonmaker and her husband create all of Matcha Rouge’s flavor syrups in house, making their drinks that much more original.
Because the business is still so new, getting the word out has been a learning curve, says Schoonmaker. Still, Matcha Rouge has already brought together many matcha lovers from around Baton Rouge.
“I’ve had a couple of pop-ups where we’ll go to the location and I’ll have people come specifically for the matcha drinks,” Schoonmaker says, “and so that’s really encouraging, and that has kept us motivated to keep going and keep doing it.”
Schoonmaker says she and her husband are very grateful for all of the support the community has given them as they grow their business, and she loves getting to share her love of matcha with customers.
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“Because we kind of just started, already having some people that are supporting us is huge,” Schoonmaker says. “I’ve had people come to every pop-up, even if they’re in different locations. They’ll come. The same people will come by just to support.”
By the end of the year, Schoonmaker hopes to be doing bigger events and eventually get a new pop-up cart. In the meantime, however, she is happy to be sharing her passion for matcha with the community.
“We love what we do, and we are excited to serve Baton Rouge,” she says.
For more information on Matcha Rouge and updates on its pop-ups, visit Matcha Rouge’s Instagram.
