It wasn’t until I started making matcha at home that I realized just how fun it can be. Truly, matcha prep has some ritual energy to it. It’s a little meditative, a little scientific, and a lot more approachable than it looks. Now it’s a daily moment I genuinely look forward to… and go to sleep thinking about!

If you’re even a little matcha-curious, this is your sign to try it at home.

“Every neighborhood needs a cafe,” Josh shares right off the bat. As the manager of Calibre Coffee, Josh along with the rest of the team, have made it a point to build something larger than just a location to grab a coffee to go. They saw the opportunity to create a place of connection for the surrounding community and have established themselves and continued to build on that very idea.

To better understand how our specialty menu came to life, we sat down with co-owner Joanna to talk through her process in creating each drink for our opening menu, the stories behind them, and what inspired them in the first place. Cheers!

We hosted our second-ever latte art competition at our Highwood café, and it was an absolutely awesome night. On February 28th, folks from all over Chicagoland, and even some out-of-staters, joined the Tala crew in throwing down behind the bar. Contenders showed up, showed out, and showed us their best pours.

Mastercol – Terra is our first fresh-crop coffee of the new year from Huila, Colombia, arriving after an exceptional run of standout Huila lots throughout 2025. It immediately caught our attention as a double-fermented, single-varietal Caturra from Mastercol—one of our most trusted producer groups and long-term partners since 2017. This is a coffee that feels both familiar and exciting, building on everything we love about the region while offering a renewed sense of vibrancy.

This Thanksgiving marked our 5th annual Tala Turkey Trot, and a never-before-seen change of location! This year, we got to open up Highwood for the morning to have our coffee and doughnuts. A huge shoutout to Gurnee Donuts for providing us with an amazing and delicious assortment year after year. It was extremely cozy and a truly wonderful way to celebrate Thanksgiving morning together!

Our “Behind The Bar'“ series highlights one of our team members, celebrating their unique contribution to the Tala experience. We believe the connection across the bar can be meaningful and impactful. Our team puts a smile on the faces of so many each day by simply serving delicious beverages and being an authentic presence in each person’s day. Learn more about what makes each person on the Tala Team unique with this personal interview.

The ~cosmos~ have spoken. Your destiny? Delicious. Gone are the days of circling your horoscope with a glitter gel pen and feeling known by the universe from a paragraph that told you to “embrace your sparkle”. Lucky for you, we’re bringing back that magic… coffee edition.

Tala Coffee Roasters, in addition to specialty coffee, often hosts a line of cyclists snaking their way through the cafe on weekdays and weekends–opting for more traditional fare like the single shot or Gibraltar. The history between Tala and the cycling community runs deep, extending back to when the Highwood cafe first opened its doors in 2018, and has expanded ever since.