
WILMINGTON — Dramatic, rich and smooth: That’s the overall takeaway of coffee — and decaffeinated — drinks served at a new South Front District shop located in the Yoga Salt lobby.
Sesa O’Connor opened Cafe Mata during July 4 weekend — a years-in-the-making idea that has finally come to fruition. O’Connor has been teaching yoga for 15 years and leads classes at Yoga Salt, owned by Tamal Dodge, as well as on the Crystal Pier weekly.
The two entrepreneurs have been lifelong friends, reared within interconnected families.
“His parents are my godparents, and my parents were his,” O’Connor said.

The two discussed launching a breakfast cafe in Yoga Salt for years. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, they paused plans.
But in the last year, O’Connor and Dodge began having those discussions again. Rather than deal with a full-fledged cafe, they decided to scale down plans with a coffee shop first. Should Cafe Mata’s outpost find success, the long-term goal is to open a standalone cafe version as well.
Having lived in both Hawaii and California, O’Connor landed on the name Cafe Mata in homage to her upbringing in the yoga communities. Her parents — a Japanese mother and Irish father, who passed away in 2018 — were devoted to the spiritual practice, spending a great deal of time at an ashram during O’Connor’s youth.
“And dad always called my mom Mata,” she explained, which means “mother” in sanskrit. “And in the yoga system — as well as in a lot of cultures — the Earth is seen as our mother.”
This plays into the plant-based menu featured at Cafe Mata as well. Fair-trade, organic coffee is procured from a local roaster, Smooth Pressed Coffee. Only nut-based “milk” is used as creamer, including almond and oat. O’Connor said as the coffee shop gains more traction and customer feedback, she will likely add macadamia and cashew nut varieties.
“We just wanted to bring good quality and keep it as delicious as possible, but also keep it as healthy as possible,” O’Connor said, admittedly hypersensitive to caffeine. She has a strict rule: no caffeine after 11 a.m. or she’ll become an insomniac that night.
“But I love a good cup of coffee, and being from the West Coast there is great coffee everywhere,” she said. “I wanted to bring something different to Wilmington.”
Cafe Mata, lavished in black-and-gold, has a wall menu featuring roughly 20 items. The left side is pumped with high octane flair and the right side caffeine-free.
From the decaffeinated items, the ube latte has been a hit, she said. It pops with a purple hue and a sweetness naturally imbued by the inclusion of Japanese sweet potato.

“It tastes like caramel — like cereal milk,” O’Connor said.
Also featured is the sakura, made of cherry blossom powder. O’Connor described it like “roses and strawberries had a baby — it’s very floral.”
However, all decaffeinated drinks can become caffeinated with the addition of an espresso shot.
The most popular caffeine drink — also becoming Cafe Mata’s signature drink — is the Midnight Dream. Two shots of espresso are mixed with activated charcoal, made from the husks of a coconut shell.
“It’s highly detoxifying,” O’Connor said, “and surprisingly very smooth to be so rich — and dramatic to look at, with its deep, dark tone.”
Offered iced or hot, Midnight Dream tracked well during Cafe Mata’s opening day, which welcomed in more than 100 people on July 5.
For less pungency, the Japanese iced coffee sips much like iced tea. It’s slowly poured and flash-chilled over ice — “very clean, very pure tasting,” O’Connor said. “It has zero acidity.”
Herbal tonics are also featured in the Nagomi or Okita lattes, which consist of adaptogens like ashwagandha and cordyceps mushrooms. Nagomi — meaning inner peace and balance — is a fusion of Eastern medicine from Japan or China and Ayurveda from India.
“It’s kind of like matcha,” O’Connor explained, which Cafe Mata also serves, “but it has a light zinginess and it’s really good with our chocolate syrup, made from a bar of chocolate. It’s good for clarity and focus and is great if you have a high stress job — it calms the central nervous system.”
Tea lovers will find jasmine or Thai varieties, sourced from Numi tea. The Thai iced tea does not include preservatives, loads of sugar, or faux yellow or red dye that gives it the expected orange tint. Instead, O’Connor said she adds an all-natural root to the black tea to give its classic coloring and avoids condensed milk.
“We sweeten everything with agave and the only animal product we do use is local honey, but I was able to source it and she has a relationship with her bees and takes care of them, so it’s not mass farming,” she said.
As well, the coffee shop serves homemade baked goods, all vegan, including truffles, brownies, matcha rice krispies or quinoa crispies, and raw cheesecake.
Dodge and O’Connor also make many of the baked items personally, in a commercial kitchen in nearby South Front Apartments. They source muffins and cookies from local vegan baker Golden Dawn and gluten free donuts from Cravings.
Cafe Mata is open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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