Gotcha Matcha & Espresso | 401 S Tryon

Description: One of two Gotcha Matcha & Espresso locations in Uptown Charlotte, this one is inside Three Wells Fargo Center at Suite 140, right by The Green park. The entrance can be tricky to spot from the street since it is inside the office tower's ground-floor retail area rather than a traditional storefront. The shop itself has a few seats inside, and there is a good amount of seating in the hallway outside the storefront within Three Wells Fargo, so finding a place to sit is not usually a problem

Expect the same core menu of matcha lattes, espresso drinks, refresher teas, and pastries, plus some cool additions like Earl Grey matcha, lemon pound cake matcha, Vietnamese iced coffee, Ube cinnamon roll, and the Ube bagel with Ube cream cheese. The space has a brighter, more storefront feel with easier walk-up access compared to the original 200 S Tryon location, and it works well for a daytime coffee run, a casual meet-up near The Green, or a short laptop session. Their other location is about two blocks north at 200 South Tryon.

Comments: This is their second location in Uptown. It's by The Green inside Three Wells Fargo center, as laid out in this Instagram post. They've got a full coffee shop menu in addition to loose leaf teas and plenty of sweet treats. It can be tricky to find, but look for the signs, and ask anyone around because they can usually point you to it.

Let me get to what's most important though. If there were an award for the most creative cinnamon roll in Charlotte, this spot would win. Magnificent. Extraordinary. Sublime. Transcendent. A revelation. Per this TikTok post, as well as their menu, and my own first-person account, they have what are called "Ube cinnamon rolls." I'm something of a cinnamon roll connoisseur, yet my visit here was my first time hearing of such a thing. So, I asked the staff, and did some research of my own, and discovered that Ube cinnamon rolls are "a Filipino-inspired twist on the classic American cinnamon roll, characterized by its vibrant purple color and a unique earthy, sweet flavor."

I can attest to their brilliance, specifically because of how different these are from a standard cinnamon roll. They are extremely generous with the purple Ube icing, and the roll itself has a sort of brown bread base, maybe even wheat, that comes across as a tad healthier than white bread, maybe to offset the extravagance of the Ube. It's also huge.

So altogether, you get a massive cinnamon roll with colors that pop and flavors that pop, where the Ube icing is sweet but not the overwhelming buttercream sweet you may be used to in cinnamon rolls. It's just different, in a good way. I really think you should try it, then contact me to let me know what you think. I want to hear from you if the topic is cinnamon rolls.

What a splendid thing this is. For cultures around the world to bring their own unique flavors to the beauty that is a cinnamon roll. This is what we need y'all. Coming together worldwide over ways to bring your own flair to cinnamon rolls. Yes. Cinnamon roll diplomacy. I dig it.