Matcha Outlet

This matcha does not foam well. I tried twice to be sure it wasn’t a user error, used much less water to powder ratio the second time and got the same result. The foam simply dissolves very quickly after whisking it. The color is a sort of sludgy algae green.

The taste isn’t bad. It’s a subtle grassy kind of taste with little notes of weeds, hay, and earth. It’s not bitter at all, which is nice.

This seems like kitchen-grade matcha to me, so I do not recommend it for anyone looking to drink it by whisking in a chawan. Maybe those looking for something to mix into lattes or desserts would like this one. It has a rather straightforward grassy taste with little hints of sweetness that linger on the tongue.

Yes! This is the good stuff! And at a price that doesn’t break the bank!

The dry powder smelled like toasted sesame seeds and honey (African Benne Cakes?). The infusion produces a sweet wet grass smell. The description on the website is accurate in saying it is like the smell after a summer storm. You know that scent of rainwater mists whipped up off of tree leaves and grasses being ruffled by the rain and wind? That’s the smell!

In the flavor there’s a hint of minerality in the finish reminiscent of rainwater. The taste is mostly grassy and dewy, and there’s a lingering sweet finish.

If you like rock oolongs or just rock flavors in general, this may be the matcha for you. It really has a nice wet stone taste to it.

I dig it. This was one of the more interesting and layered matchas of Red Leaf Teas, and it is evocative of refreshing and cleansing weather. The energy of wind and rain is definitely what I feel from this.

If I could change anything the lingering sweetness could be a tad sweeter, and the flavor could be a little more rich. There’s no bitterness at all though, and for me that is a major plus when it comes to matcha.

So I’m about a week or two into my newfound exploration of matcha. I am learning little-by-little, and if someone has a great resource about learning to prepare and drink matcha, please feel free to leave it in a comment or message me. Anyway, what I learned with the last bowl I made is that there is definitely a right way and a wrong way to whisk it for the right foamy texture. Lots of sites give a basic instruction for how to do this but I’ve found a couple of key points that really would have helped me more if only someone had mentioned them. They weren’t pointed out on any sites and I picked them up through observation of videos and through trial and error. More on that later. I will probably make a Youtube video to show the tricks, as it is easier to show than tell. What I learned this time is that the way you drink it is just as important as the way you prepare it.

I tend to close my lips quite a bit when I drink tea, and suck a little stream of it in so as not to dribble or slurp. With whisked usucha matcha, if you do this you are likely to sip at the liquid and leave behind a lot of the foam till after the liquid is gone. This is a mistake. Drink with your mouth open more and suck in the foam and water evenly. Not only will the texture be more silky and velvety, but the flavor will be MUCH less intense/bitter and more sweet and complex.

This was probably my second favorite of the matchas I’ve tried from Red Leaf tea. The dry powder had little hints of sweet lime scent like the one that was my favorite (Tanabata Matcha), but the flavor of this one was more like sweet grass and not much of a fruity taste. In fact, after adding water to the matcha it mostly smelled grassy and the little fruity hints in the scent were pretty much gone. There’s a touch of bitterness in the finish of this matcha, but as I mentioned, if you drink the foam and liquid evenly it really cuts this down to an enjoyable balance.

The more and more I experiment with matcha, the more I think most people who say they’ve tried it and don’t enjoy it just aren’t preparing it right, or haven’t had a good quality one. If you get it right the flavors can be even more sweet and forgiving than a lot of sencha out there, and I’ve met at least a few who like sencha but not matcha.

This was a fun matcha. A little sweet and not overly vegetal or umami-rich. I am finding I prefer my matcha this way. On the other hand, this one wasn’t remarkable. It was sort of an “everyday” kind of tea to me.

The dry matcha powder smells like autumn leaves and spices, cinnamon primarily.

The taste of the whisked matcha is really interesting. Take a really good white peony and just imagine that flavor stacked upon itself until its no longer a delicate white tea, but a woodsy, earthy, mushroomy brew with a rich, strong flavor. There is not much in the way of bitterness though it is a little astringent on the tongue. The flavor is really intriguing though. It’s like an autumn walk through the woods. The mouth feel is really thick and creamy and there are tiny hints of chrysanthemum flower in the taste.

This is a nice alternative to matcha for those who don’t like the flavor of the traditional green type, and even for those who do, I think this would make a wonderful late summer or autumn seasonal drink.

The dry matcha in my warmed chawan smells fruity and sweet.

After whisking the matcha, the smell is more vegetal and nutty with maybe a little hint of popcorn. The matcha tastes a little roasty and very umami rich like spinach with an accompanying bitterness that lingers on the tongue. It’s got a hint of fruit flavor hiding in the background, but mostly what comes through is a roasted taste. It is rather biting on the tongue.

Up to that point I was indifferent about it, but the drying texture of it is rather offputting to me. Nothing bad on Red Leaf Tea, I have rated another of their matchas “100” in another review.

I prepared this traditionally in a chawan with whisk.

The initial smell is very mild and sweet, like sweet bread or a field of wheat. The onset of the taste is bitter but only lightly so compared to most matcha I’ve tried. The taste evolves from grassy at first to mild and grainy like sweet bread or sweet greens (baby butter lettuce?).

This tea was very relaxing. It reminds me of the tall prairie grasses of late summer. I live in the great plains region of the US, and there’s a very distinct sweet smell in the air as the grass reaches its full growth in late summer, a mix between that which is fresh and green and that which is becoming golden and drying out. This matcha seemed to capture that essence for me, so I feel at home and at one with the nature around me when I sip into this tea.

This was easy to drink and had just the right amount of bitterness for those who like a little bitter taste in their tea. I have noticed lots of lower grade matchas can be offensively bitter to me, but this one complimented the flavor and was enjoyable. I wasn’t waiting for the bitterness to pass to actually taste something.

The dry matcha in the warm chawan smells sweet and citrusy like limes and other tropical fruit.

Oh my goodness this matcha is laden with sweetness. The taste also comes with a slightly fruity aftertaste that reminds me of limeade or key lime pie, the flavor of fresh lime that has been in some way sweetened. There is absolutely no astringency in this matcha at all. The flavor is so sweet and mellow, not overly grassy. It has a hint of dandelion flavor in the finish.

Wow, I am pretty new to matcha. This is probably the fifth one I’ve tried in the traditional method with a whisk and bowl. For the first few I was worried matcha just might not be for me. The taste tends to be so overpowering and bitter most times, but this matcha is just so incredibly refreshing and sweet! I love it! This has set the gold standard for matcha for me. I’m eager to see if anything else in my matcha sampling journey lives up to this one. I’ve got just shy of 20 samples, most are from Red Leaf Tea, so I’ll keep adding reviews as I try them.

The price tag on this tea is not to be taken lightly, but neither is the quality of the flavor. Time for me to start saving I guess.

Let it be known, I am pretty new to matcha.

Prepared the traditional way in a chawan, this matcha smells and tastes a bit like toasted cereal grains. The flavor is tangy, robust, and astringent. There’s a strong grassy taste.

I am getting acquainted with matcha slowly, so my ratings and descriptions may be a little inadequate for now.

I have this in the robust flavor level.

That makes this perfect.

Shaken in milk…….omm nom nom.

It really have a great bavarian cream flavor.

Sipdown (95)!

Looks like my double digits aren’t staying very long; I had a really good mail day today and my Secret Pumpkin package from Anlina arrived as well as my package from VariaTEA! I just need to enter all the new teas into my cupboard…

This one I’m finishing off as a smoothie/milkshake of sorts!

- 1 Frozen Banana
- The last of this matcha (about 2 tsp.)
- 1 cup of milk

It’s pretty good! The banana helps cut down on the chalkyness/mineral notes in the Boysenberry quiet a lot and just compliments the flavour in general.

Sample comes from Starfevre.

This is a matcha that I certainly would not have ordered from the site – but that sorta makes it the perfect one to receive a sample of; something that pushes my comfort level without making a commitment to it.

I made it in milk which was a weird concept for me; last time I had a berry matcha was Acai and I was definitely too chicken shit to do it in matcha on its own (though I did do it AND cheesecake). This wasn’t terrible though; just weird. The Boysenberry flavour definitely came out, but there was also a somewhat strong chalky/mineral flavour that combined with the berry reminded me of chewable children’s vitamins.

Hmm; gonna try something different next time – just not sure what.

Well, I still can’t make matcha correctly. I tried it the way I make hot cocoa. Perhaps I used too much of the powder. It certainly smelled good, but the cookies and cream didn’t come out in the flavour until I added a little sugar.

Oh goodness this is unique. I prepared this the traditional way you’d prepare matcha, in a chawan with a chasen (whisk), got it to a nice bubbly froth. It tasted just as you’d kind of expect, very much leathery, earthy, dirty puer taste, but not dirty in the bad sense. It actually had a clean finish taste-wise, but a sort of powdery dirty mouthfeel. It’s kind of intense and dark, bitter like coffee.

While this tea is unique I almost wonder if it wouldn’t be better in some kind of interesting puer matcha latte or something. I think it lacks the complexity you get when steeping shu puer the normal way, plus you don’t get the many repeated infusions you would normally get with puer. I’m sure there’s an audience for this tea, out there… I’m just not sure who it is.

Sipdown (214)!

Finished this one off just straight in hot water in my newer, smaller chawan. I’m really enjoying this one that I bought locally; it’s the perfect size for smaller portions which works well for me when I’m in a “sample many things” kind of mood, and it fits my hand size a little bit better too.

This matcha is a pretty hard one to say good bye to, to be honest – but it’s important to me that I clear out some of my older matcha before I open up the majority of my newer matcha I recently ordered from Matcha Outlet. FIFO; right? First in, first out.

It was sweet and very floral, with a lovely grassy and vegetal background from the matcha itself. I’ll admit, it shows it’s age a little bit but it’s still like 90% as solid as when it was just purchased. I hope that anyone who tries the last bit I added into the GCTTB will enjoy it! It’s served me well, that’s for sure.

Hooray for new and exciting tea infused cooking!

We had a staff meeting/potluck at DAVIDsTEA yesterday so I decided that in addition to the tea eggs I was bringing, I’d try my hand at doing a “Matcha Brittle” so I was also bring a Vegan friendly option ’cause I know like three of my coworkers are vegan. Plus, dessert!

The recipe I used was an altered one which was originally supposed to make hibiscus brittle; but who wants hibiscus brittle!? Yuck. So instead I just swapped out the ground hibiscus for matcha instead. This was my first time making a brittle, and I have to say that I’m definitely going to need to try the recipe a few more times to perfect it ‘cause I did something wrong and my brittle didn’t completely set. It did harden to the point where I could shatter it, but it’s stayed quite sticky despite that and when I moved it into a plastic tupperware container to transport to work all of the shards kind of melded together. So it wasn’t a total success. I wonder if maybe that’s because instead of regular white sugar I had to crush down sugar cubes (it was the only sugar I had) so the texture/melting point of the sugar MAY have been affected?

That said, while this isn’t the prettiest brittle (it’s kind of vomit green), it does TASTE really good. It’s a lovely mix of sweet candy notes/champagne and semi acidic lemon (the brittle is lemon infused as well) in addition to lots of floral and grassy notes from the matcha. I was worried the champagne flavour wouldn’t come through alongside the matcha/sugar but it does, and it’s really lovely. Even though it’s a bitch to break off a piece, I keep coming back to the rest of it because it’s so yummy. It’s a great balance of sweet sugary candy/champagne and grassy matcha.

And everyone at the potluck seemed to like it too, other than the damn stickiness/chewiness of it. That was sort of a bitch.

Trial and error, for sure.

Also; I was eating some on the bus to work this morning and I shit you not I was actually accused of eating ‘edibles’ (put infused candy) because of how gnarly the appearance of the brittle is. No pretty jade greens for this candy…

This is a queued tasting note.

Haven’t been drinking a lot of matcha lately have I? I definitely need to work on that, since I have a fair bit sitting around…

Whisked this one up into cold coconut milk. Very frothy; and really smooth. Champagne matcha is mostly just sweet with a bit of a floral note – not a lot of really distinct flavour. So this was kind of just like a sweetened coconut milk beverage with undertones of the matcha base and light floral notes.

But it was still super good.

I’m so tired.

So, today (Wednesdays in general, actually) is the only day that I have absolutely no availability at work; all other days I’m available from 8AM until whenever. The reason I don’t work Wednesdays is because I have class on Wednesday and I don’t like having to schedule around it on top of doing my classwork, which I normally finish just before class. That said; there was a department audit today at work and I was asked if I could possibly come in on my day off as extra relief so that we weren’t busy during the audit and everything was smooth sailing.

So, since there was no cupping this week in class, I came in from 7:30AM to 3PM. Basically, I broke both of my “availability restrictions”. Why did I do that? OVERTIME. That’s an eight hour shift of pure, solid overtime since I’m already working a 40 hour week. And around Christmas? Everyone can use a little overtime pay. However, on top of also coming in really early I happened to have closed last night too so I didn’t leave until around 9:45PM. I got home at about 10PM (obviously didn’t go to bed IMMEDIATELY either) and to get to work on time I was up at 6:30AM. SO DAMN TIRED, GUYS!

But yeah; when I did get up I made myself a super concentrated matcha milk “shot” using this matcha. It was gross and lumpy because of the amount of matcha in such a small portion of milk but it actually didn’t taste too bad – very sweet though. I think I needed that sweetness so early in the day though.

And man, that matcha buzz was a savior.

This is a queued tasting note.

Bought some plain Milk2Go so I’ve been bringing a bottle with in my lunch for work all week along with some matcha. This wasn’t all that extraordinary: just sweetened milk? Maybe a little floral? But it was nice to have something cold on break after an exhausting morning carrying in dressers, wardrobes, and other large pieces of furniture.

Matcha Soda!

Personally, I feel like champagne should be reserved for celebrations, but I was honestly craving the sort of nondescript sweetness of this matcha, which can really only be described as “champagne” so I made up some matcha soda,with a little sweetener in it but not as much as I’d use for a normal tea soda.

I don’t really have anything to celebrate at the moment – if anything I have more stuff that I should be freaking out/stressing about than anything else. Initially I was really stressed/panicky about having to replace like $200 worth of food, and then about the cost of either repairing or replacing a broken fridge but I’ve kind of found my zen about it now. Or maybe I’ve just reached a level of stress where it was easier to just choose not to care anymore. Possibly both?

Regardless I’m really happy I chose to make this today without having ‘cause’ to because it was really satisfying. Sweet, bubbly, maybe a little floral? But lovely.

Sipdown (103)!

It seemed like such a missed opportunity to not make this one into a matcha soda so, to switch things up, that’s how I prepared the last of this one. I mean, champagne is meant to be bubbly right? So bring on the bubbles!

Taste wise; this was ok overall – it definitely tasted like champagne; but not as good as it was in milk. Also, there was an oddly floral quality to the soda version that wasn’t so present in the milk one. Both ways are tasty and sweet; but contrary to my expectations milk is superior. Next time I order matcha (probably not for a while; I still have lots from my last order to get through) this is gonna be included!

I’m really liking this new trend of brewing cold shaken matcha milk to work with me; it’s quicker than steeping tea in the morning, and tastes so so good. This one is so so good too; sweet and delicious! I’m happy I sent a sample to VariaTEA so she can enjoy it too!

I’m confidant I’ll be ordering this in my next (probably far off) matcha order. Bumping my rating up a touch.

I really, really hate posting out of order – but my small swap with Starfevre arrived today and when I opened it I just KNEW that this was the perfect tea to celebrate my 2000th tasting note with, even if I’m not having it in the “right order”. Wow. So many notes in what feels like such a short period of time…

I made this one whisked into cold milk because, when I was talking to Starfevre about this back when she was packing it for me, she told me she prepares it in hot milk. That seemed weird to me for champagne as a flavour, but I trust her and that’s how I typically take my matcha anyway…

It was actually really good! I wish I hadn’t been so cautious with the amount of matcha I used because I think this could have been far more flavourful; but it was sweet and surprisingly smooth. A little hard to describe; but champagne itself is sorta hard to describe other than “it tastes like champagne and is bubbly”. Obviously this wasn’t bubbly. I look forward to my next cup with an increased ratio of matcha to milk!

When done right this is so amazing. The first time I tried I messed it up pretty big. Wrong amount of matcha, wrong amount of milk… milk way to hot… It was pretty mad. But this time around I made sure to research what I was doing and I went to Ikea to pick up a frother. And it works great! Hopefully it lasts longer then things usually do from there…

Anyway. Great flavor. Even though it was a bit more bubbly then I meant to make it, it still tasted great. The caramel comes out so nice but still leaves room for you to taste the green tea. So much yum.

Thanks to the wonderful VariaTEA for passing down a sample of this! This is a major backlog. I drank this like three months ago, and both times were quite tasty. Incredibly creamy and velvety, I tried it both hot and cold, and it was great both ways. I was hoping for some spice, particularly nutmeg. However, I didn’t get any. While it’s not a favourite, it’s one I would actually order if I were getting those 5 + 2 free matcha deals and couldn’t think of anything else. I can see it seamlessly blend with any other flavours.