Smoking Tiger Coffee Lab, Monterey Park

Smoking Tiger is a cute cafe with great drinks and excellent baked goods.  It was so hard to chose from the many sweet scones, but I could not resist the vivid purple ube scone.  It was very tasty.  I love ube.  The scone had some mochi bits, which added a contrasting chewy texture to the soft scone.  I had an iced hojicha latte.  It was delicious and huge.  I like everything about hojicha, including its earthy color.  For those unfamiliar - hojicha is a Japanese green tea, like matcha, but the leaves are roasted.  It loses the grassy and bitter notes of matcha.  It is smooth, low acid, slightly sweet and slightly smoky.

My friend had a hot coffee latte and a blueberry scone.  I didn't sample either of those.

The cafe also offers some savory pastries and cookies that looked great.

There are three locations in the greater LA area.  We went to the one in Monterey Park.  This is a quiet residential area with two blocks of restaurants, shops, businesses and a movie theater.  Smoking Tiger is in a small strip mall with a parking lot across the street from the Ralph's.