No Coffee Robot, Yes Expensive Matcha at MUJI Market
Chelsea Market in New York City is home to the first and only MUJI Market in the U.S.
MUJI is a Japanese lifestyle brand that has low cost, simple but quality products.
Short for Mujirushi Ryohin, MUJI (無印良品) has store locations worldwide offering stationery, clothes, snacks, skincare, and home goods.
The stores in Japan carry an extended selection of body care products, home storage items, kitchen appliances and bicycles.
MUJI Market is similar to other American locations with the exception of the cafe and seating area where you can order and eat Japanese snacks and small meals.
What’s on the MUJI Market menu?
Not surprisingly, there are several matcha drinks available, to the point that matcha has its own section on the menu:
- Matcha shot
- Matcha americano
- Matcha latte
- Strawberry, mango, yuzu honey variations and more
If you’re one of the few people who didn’t come here for matcha, you can get hojicha, a black sesame latte, chai or different types of coffee like an espresso or a cold brew.
There are options for syrup (like apple) and non-dairy milk (soy, almond or oat).
For food, there’s a mix of sweet and savory.
The tamago egg sandwich is pretty popular and I plan to try it next time.
Other sandwich options:
- pork katsu
- yakisoba
- and the ebi katsu which is a seasonal item
Ebi means shrimp in Japanese but I don’t know what else is on the sandwich since it wasn’t in the display window.
My guess is that the sandwiches include Japanese milk bread (shokupan) but it could just be regular white sandwich bread.
The mini gyudon (thinly sliced beef and onion on a bed of rice and quinoa) and the karaage (fried chicken) nanban bento are some of the other savory menu items.
I didn’t try any of the sweets but you can choose from the matcha and adzuki (red bean) dango parfait, the matcha muffin and the dorayaki (pancake sandwich with various filings) among others.
What I ate: Reviews & photos
Now that I’ve recited most of the menu, let’s talk about what I ordered and my overall experience.
First up is the matcha. Because that’s what you care about most. Probably.
MUJI Matcha Latte
I got the iced matcha mango latte with oat milk.
Side note, two of the matcha lattes are spelled ‘macha’ without the ‘T’. I think they just ran out of that letter.
Anyway, the total price for the matcha latte is $10.50 USD before tax.
The mango portion of the drink was fantastic. It was actually the best part of my exhausting, cold AND rainy day, made complete with aching feet and shoulders after hitting 17,000 steps.
However, I cannot think of any matcha latte, tasty or not, on this planet that is worth $10, regardless of what’s going on with America’s economy.
And this matcha, overall, isn’t something I’d get again. I didn’t like the taste and it was gritty.
I’ve had a lot of matcha drinks and desserts that were delicious and not as pricey.
A light & early (girl?) dinner at MUJI Market
For actual food, I ordered the karaage onigiri ($5.75 USD) and the miso soup ($6.25 USD).
This is barely a meal so if you’re hungry, order something like the bento, which is a larger serving compared to what I got.
A common complaint about onigiri (from random people on the internet) is that there’s too much rice, but I’m pretty happy with the karaage, sauce and rice ratio.
Because I can’t just eat like a regular person in public, I accidentally dropped part of my onigiri into my miso soup.
My unintentional food mashup tasted pretty good and was the saving grace for the miso soup. I don’t plan to order the miso soup again.
I’m not in a hurry to try the food or drinks here again, but I really appreciated the staff’s customer service, especially since I was ordering near closing time which is 5 pm, Monday through Thursday.
Where’s the coffee making robot?
The main reason I trekked to Chelsea Market was to witness the specialized coffee craftsmanship that only comes from AI-powered robots.
That was sarcasm.
But I would have saved myself the disappointment if I had used the MUJI Store Locator. It tells you that the Portland (Oregon) location is the only U.S. store with the robot barista.
Instead, I made the mistake of looking at the Artly website, which lists both New York City locations (Chelsea Market & the Hudson Yards Concept Store) as places where you can get your coffee made by Artly.
After checking reviews, it seems that by Fall 2025, the robot barista was removed from the Chelsea Market location.
If you want to see another robotic arm that makes lattes, I documented my experience with Sawyer the coffee robot in Tokyo, Japan.
Will I come back, though?
Actually, yes.
I haven’t been to all of the MUJI locations in the city but MUJI Market seems to have more snacks and kitchen tools that I haven’t seen at other stores.
That includes the BALMUDA toaster that was popular several months ago with influencers who insist on collecting every new kitchen gadget.
This is also the first time I’ve seen a drink cooler in NYC, although they are quite common in store locations in Japan.
