Most mornings, Yazmine Vargas-Root and Tyler Root can be found whipping up matcha behand the counter of their business, Matcharía, on South Street. It’s been open since December of 2024 — but until a few weeks ago, it was called Matchacita.
One morning in September, Vargas-Root and Root received a cease-and-desist letter from a café in Chicago named Matcha Cita. The café, which also sells the popular green tea matcha as its signature product, gave the couple a specific amount of time to change their business' name or face legal action. Vargas-Root said it was disheartening.
“It had a lot of meaning to me, and so being forced to change it kind of really — yeah it just broke my heart," Vargas-Root said.
As a Latina woman, Vargas-Root said the name was especially important to her because it had its own meaning in Spanish and alluded to nostalgic family memories.
"It's like an an inside joke kind of thing that I share with my mom. We love to gossip," Vargas-Root said. "We would go on like breakfast dates or coffee dates in the morning and so it would always be like - 'oh do you want to go get a cafecito and chismecito?'"
That translates to "a little coffee and a little gossip" in Spanish, which then lead to the name "Matchacita", which means "little matcha" in Spanish.
After meeting with a lawyer, the couple said it became clear that they would have to move on from their original name. After a moment of sadness, Root said they quickly sprang into action brainstorming new names.
“We like to represent a very unique image in the Kalamazoo area. So, we really wanted to make sure we maintained a very unique name that would be recognizable and that people would be able to say," Root said.
The couple said they came up with around 50 to 100 different names in the initial brainstorming phase. Then, they took the final options and asked the community for their opinion in an Instagram poll. Vargas-Root said it was painful moving on from the original name, but the community involvement helped.
“I don't think there will ever be a name that would have as much personal meaning to me, but we thought that this would be a great way to kind of get the community included," Vargas-Root said.
Over 1,200 people responded to the poll — and yielded a decisive response. With 53% of the vote, "Matcharía" won by a landslide and is now the official new name of the pink-and-green-decorated matcha spot.
"Tyler and I were down on our luck, sad - 'why even go on?' And then everyone is like, 'No, you got this. This is great. We love this.' And it it really lifted our spirits really quickly," Vargas-Root said.
Now, the shop's rebranding is almost entirely complete — after a few weeks with a makeshift sign, the shop's new permanent logo was affixed to the window at the end of October. Root and Vargas-Root are back to business as usual, whipping up matcha and other treats in their brightly-decorated shop on South Street. And their new name is here to stay.
"This time we made sure to double check that it was available," Vargas-Root said. "We triple-checked. I probably went on the trademark website like five times just to make sure that we were good."
