A new matcha concept is setting up shop on Lane Avenue, promising something beyond the flavored lattes that made its sister brand a hit. AstroLab, billed as a more specialized, education-driven offshoot of Milky Way Matcha, holds its grand opening Friday at 1600 W. Lane Ave. in Upper Arlington, operating for now alongside the original Milky Way counter that has anchored the spot since June.
The launch was first detailed by The Lantern, which reports that Milky Way Matcha founder Jason Lam will host Friday's opening. Lam, who also serves as creative director of Fukuryu Brands, told the outlet he wanted to bring matcha closer to Ohio State students while sharpening the focus on flavor itself. Fukuryu Brands is the Columbus restaurant group behind Milky Way Matcha, Fukuryu Ramen and several other food and beverage concepts.
AstroLab is designed to let customers choose among different matcha cultivars, each of which can produce distinct flavors and aromas depending on where and when the tea was grown and harvested, per the same account. Lam described AstroLab as a more elevated counterpart to Milky Way, with staff trained to help customers select flavor profiles based on their preferences rather than simply handing over a pre-set drink.
From a Grab-and-Go Whim to a Deeper Dive
Milky Way Matcha's first location opened in July 2024 after Fukuryu Brands went looking for a grab-and-go concept to complement its food-focused business, according to The Lantern. Lam has said the matcha bar started almost on a whim and quickly took off, built on approachable drinks and consistency between locations. That original shop sits inside Dublin's Bridge Park, a 30-acre, $600 million mixed-use district developed by Crawford Hoying along the Scioto River that holds more than 200,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, according to Columbus Business First.
The second Milky Way storefront held its grand opening at 1600 W. Lane Ave. on June 13, launching as a walk-up window serving matcha drinks alongside treats like taiyaki and butter-teok, 614NOW reported at the time. That site sits inside The Lane, a mixed-use development built in 2013 less than two miles from Ohio State's campus, combining luxury apartments with ground-floor retail and restaurant tenants. Izakaya Ryu, an izakaya, is also located at the same Lane Avenue address.
Persimmon, Sweet Potato and a Push Into Education
AstroLab will lean on house-made flavors inspired by Japanese ingredients, including persimmon and yaki imo, a traditional slow-roasted sweet potato street food typically sold from stone-roasting carts during Japan's cooler months, according to Japan With Love. Matcharista Isabelle Sansait, a 2023 Ohio State alumna who has worked with Milky Way Matcha for about a year, told The Lantern that different cultivars can taste drastically different from one another, and that she has worked to explain those distinctions to customers in a more digestible way.
Where Milky Way primarily relies on a single cultivar to keep its menu consistent across locations, AstroLab is meant to take customers deeper, with staff required to explain cultivar differences clearly without overwhelming people new to the concept. Lam said AstroLab allows for more intentional, specialized work than Milky Way's flavor-forward approach, drawing on relationships he built with farmers and millers in Japan through earlier research and development trips, per the same report. The shop plans to eventually share details about each matcha's farm, harvest and region of origin, and down the line hopes to offer customer blending classes and on-site machines for milling tea leaves into matcha.
Milky Way's own supply chain already leans on that kind of provenance: the brand sources its organic, stone-milled green tea leaves directly from partner farms in Japan's Kagoshima, Shizuoka and Kyoto prefectures, according to Milky Way Matcha Bar. A May 6, 2026, Instagram post by Sonia Chinikamwala discussed her use of KOATJI, a plant-based milk brand that uses fermented koji rice and oats to create a dairy alternative.
Courting Students and Eyeing a Permanent Home
Lam said the Lane Avenue location was partly aimed at Ohio State students from the start, and The Lantern reports the shop has seen more Ohio State customers since students returned for the fall semester, alongside Upper Arlington families, high schoolers and workers from nearby businesses. Milky Way is working with Ohio State student organizations to grow its campus presence, including plans to partner with the East Asian Student Union and the Vietnamese Student Association.
For now, AstroLab will remain next to Milky Way at the Lane Avenue address, but Lam told The Lantern the long-term goal is a permanent home of its own in the Short North or German Village. Sansait said she hopes customers come away noticing AstroLab's educational bent, as the concept tries to push people toward appreciating matcha beyond trendy flavored drinks and toward sourcing, grinding, origin and cultivar.
That ambition tracks with a broader shift already playing out in other major U.S. markets. Kyoto-born Hatoya opened its debut American location in Las Vegas in March, offering cultivar-specific, hand-whisked matcha preparations, as Hoodline reported. The global matcha market itself was valued at roughly $5.1 billion to $5.42 billion in 2025 and is projected to climb as high as $10.85 billion by the early 2030s, according to market research cited by Grand View Research, a trajectory that helps explain why specialty concepts like AstroLab are betting on education and traceability as their next differentiator.
