At the busy entrance of Mt. SAC’s humanities building 26A, hundreds of students pass by a sleek and trendy-looking vending machine that’s packed with drinks in the morning and almost empty by the afternoon.
The Mycha vending machine offers perishable but popular Asian drinks to students like matcha milk tea, Thai tea and even Vietnamese coffee in a cafe-style plastic cup. But can you trust vending machine boba with staying fresh?
The Co-Owner of Mycha Los Angeles, Jessica Kim, said the startup company’s top priority is ensuring the quality of its drinks. Technically, food policy says that Mycha drinks can last seven days in the machine.
“However, for us, for quality and taste, we’d like to set it at three days,” Kim said. “So because of that reason, we make the drinks every single day and we load [the machines] all the time.”
Mycha Los Angeles started in March 2023 and now has the machines in colleges and even hospitals across LA and Orange County like UCLA, most Cal States, Eastern Los Angeles College and Mt. SAC.
Each vending machine usually sells 100 drinks per day while the machine could only fit about 170 drinks inside Kim said. In popular vending machines, like at Mt. SAC, the machine is completely sold out by noon. So, the company needs to maintain a tight routine to keep all these machines — and students — filled.
In the humble beginnings of Mycha Los Angeles,, they began making the hundreds of milk teas in a downtown LA kitchen at around 6 p.m. They brew the teas in large pots, then wrap and seal thousands of cups with the drinks individually. The drinks are chilled in industrial refrigerators for the next day.
In the early morning, a delivery team at Mycha transports the chilled drinks to stock every vending machine around. Because the vending machines are handled electronically, Mycha has a live update of the drinks sold at every machine, so locations with inventories selling fast can be stocked a second time that day. Alternatively, locations that don’t do well will be stocked less to reduce waste.
Kim continued with the theme of ensuring quality drinks with a refund policy on every machine, an unusual practice for a typical vending machine.
“If anyone is unhappy with the taste or they’re unhappy for any reason, they could do a few things,” she said. “They could scan a QR code located in our machine […], they could email us at our Mycha Los Angeles email address, they could message us on Instagram or even contact us directly through our website.”
“All of those mediums we’ll be checking, and if they’re not happy, we’re happy to provide a refund,” Kim said.
The vending machine’s namesake, Mycha, translates to “My tea” in Mandarin and Korean. So, naturally, the drinks found in the machine originate from all over Asia, a product of San Gabriel Valley’s unique Asian-American hegemony.
For example, the most popular Mycha drink is the Roasted Oolong Milk Tea originating in Taiwan. Coming in second and third as top sellers are Vietnamese coffee, which has a special recipe, and Thai tea, which has easy-to-guess origins.
Lee Davis and Sebastian Chimal stopped by the Mycha vending machine in Mt. SAC’s building 26A to grab a drink. They say they are regulars of the machine.
“I tried the Lychee one the other day, and I think it was really good,” Davis said. “It’s small, but it gives you the flavor you’re looking for and a little bit of chewy stuff at the bottom.”
“I wouldn’t buy it usually, but it’s accessible,” he added. “I don’t have to walk all the way off of campus and it’s good.
Chimal bought a Vietnamese coffee at the machine and reviewed it on the spot.
“Comparing this to a Seven Leaves Vietnamese coffee, I would say it’s strong,” he said. “Size is also an important factor, and it’s not too small. There’s no ice overbearing it, the taste is pretty potent.”
“It’s good, but I’d prefer if it was like a little more milk to balance it out,” Chimal added. He rated the drink a four out of five.
