HOSE c/o ENOKI xo
Reflections of Home is where the heart is
Another Reflections of Home in the books! Congrats to Shirley and Tommy of Enoki for putting together an amazing summer weekend market. Still coming off a high from seeing all of our friends from the previous one and making new ones.
Seeing the duo come together, switching shifts of taking care of their gender ambiguous child, Enoki, on the Basilica Hudson grounds was a B2B DJ set. Tommy was so proud for the market to come to life and seeing Shirley stand on business as usual came so natural to her.
When arriving on the stones of where we set up last time. We didn’t change anything differently. It was all muscle memory. I feel like I could do pop ups all day everyday with Enoki. It feels like I can actually make Matsar a real thing and do what my dad dreamed of me doing, buying my third car (used to have 2 in Philly, my beloved mini van that one day was mysteriously towed for the best to car heaven and my Nissan Altima, where if you’ve seen YouTube videos of Altimas you know I’m out here hitting ramps on i95) and claiming it on my tax returns.
Speaking of my father, you know that I’m locked out of my Venmo and for payment in order to buy our matcha, we have been using his Venmo where customers can send payment to. Over the course of the weekend, I asked my dad how did we do for both days and said it was good and I’m proud of you. Asian parents. Maybe being banned from Venmo was a good thing.
We did good because we introduced bundles that newcomers of matcha have the chance to buy a high quality setup of a #7 combo of freshly milled ceremonial grade matcha with a custom engraved Matsar chasen whisk, and artisan ceramic bowls made by Kim Gim from her new collection. Throw in a Matsar half teaspoon to dose out your matcha and you’re on your way. Invite your friends over for matcha.
If we were to do one of those videos of how much it costs to run a business, what eats into our profits is renting a car from NYC and driving it to upstate NY. Immediately after I picked up our car from Turo, the gas tank wasn’t full, had to fill it up, then got a parking ticket for street cleaning. Having a car is a luxury but it does bring back memories of when I used to hotbox and drive around mindlessly in the suburbs.
After setting up we check out all of the food selections. We were in love with all of it. What did we get? We got the halo-halo from lamisa, pickles from A Pickle Story, Bhowanie Blast and Korean Wild Pear from HOSE, Filipino skewers from Siraulo, flan flavors from GATAS, onigiri by HIBINO, snacks from Sitsirya. Could have blown a whole bag on delicious eateries for days. The next magic trick I pull out of a hat is hopefully get a marketing budget that is Anthony Bourdain style and a camera man that is following me try all these different food vendors. Isn’t that the dream? Also have to add personal trainer to the budget as well.
Chicken and duck eggs from our friends, The Healing Acres.
HOSE
Anthony, Gecile, and David are freaking sweethearts. Hell, they’re vibes are off the charts.
HOSE stands for How Our Systems Work.
When first meeting them at the first Reflections of Home, I was on my best behavior trying my best to not step on their toes. No hojicha, no problem. We have it on ice at the house ready for whenever they want it. Can’t you see how bad I want to collab with HOSE?
Gecile. She holds it down. Got drinks on lock. Add David into the mix and its 1969-1989 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dream team scoring every bucket wit their drinks to customers. I want to try all their drinks. Every single one. Menu front to back. This time around they got print outs of their drinks which really added that hometown advantage and reminded me of all the bubble tea spots that have photos of their drinks. Photos are key. You need them. Can’t always be second guessing. That’s just not how systems work.
Back in the city, I ran into David at a clothing pop up and we just gassed each other up one by one on what we were trying on. I swear I wasn’t going to buy anything but I bought the sickest checkerboard pullover sweater by Connor McKnight that was co-signed by David. We all need a David in our lives frfr.
We can’t wait to hopefully get dinner with gang this week to talk shop on how HOSE and Matsar can collaborate with exclusively them with our hojicha and matcha in the back of Enoki. Fingers crossed.
Reflections of Home
We cross paths with the daughters of KADO FARM at a recent pop up market we did in Bushwick, Brooklyn and turns out that their family is from Izumo Shimane, Japan from the farms of where we get our matcha. We connected right off the bat. Okasan tasted our matcha and it was good to see that it tasted like home.
Tommy heard this and dropped ad-libs: “Reflections of Home!” in-between our conversation. Perfect timing.
Didn’t expect starting Matsar would connect us with the food and farm world. It has opened doors, meet new friends, and take us on all these different experiences. I remember when I wasn’t going to do it. I was going to give it up. Hang the towel before it even began. Glad I did it. One of the best decisions I ever made.
SWAG
We also got SWAG during the market. As in new Matsar hats in.