Matcha Outlet

Drinking matcha at almost 8pm to fuel my late-night study session, which I’m having to drag myself through at a painfully slow rate. I’ve had a lot of issues lately and a lot of things on my plate, meaning I needed a month-long extension on my final essay for the year. Well, that month is almost up – my essay is due on Monday, no more extensions available, and where am I at? 10,000 words. Yep, that’s right. 10,000 rambling, non-sensical words for a 2000 word essay. Sigh. Why have I done this to myself, you might be wondering? Because I’m a fudging idiot. To make matters worse my grade for the year is secure. It can’t be changed no matter the mark I get on this assignment, but I have to pass each essay to pass the module. I need the lowest pass possible and I’ve been torturing myself with this for 2 months now. I don’t know. I have two more days to trim down 80% of my essay, and turn what’s left into something which makes sense enough to pass. So, matcha.

Almost done with this for good now, since Matcha Outlet don’t stock the fun flavours any more ): drinking this hot this morning… with a spoon of coffee in it. Don’t judge me! I need the caffeine hit. My mam was pretty concerned that my coffee was green, but the resulting concoction was actually pretty great. Kind of like a caramel latte, only with a matcha aftertaste! This is too sweet for my tastes now hot, but mixed with the coffee it’s tempered a little bit though still very sweet. I’ll probably finish it off iced, which is how I prefer to drink this.

I’m having one of those days where you just need a lot a lot of caffeine to get going. I opened a new bag of this this morning, and the SMELL! Mmmm. I forgot how much I love this. I think I’ve only ever drank this hot once before, I just think it’s perfect iced. This morning I whisked a scoop of powder into 6oz cold milk and then topped it up with hot water. Warm, this is very sweet! But still so so delicious. It had definitely given me the energy boost I needed, and curbed my sweet tooth in the process! I love that this is a healthy treat (:

I am currently enjoying my first ever matcha(ccino) courtesy of my mystery box from MissB! I’d first like to say that she was brilliant with it, and very generous and I’m sure she must have scrolled through my wishlist to pick out all of the teas I wanted, including this one, when I didn’t even ask her to. So thanks, MissB!

I’d secondly like to say that this is completely delicious and where has it been all my life?! I made it up this morning as soon as I was dressed (after having hopped out of bed half an hour earlier than I usually manage at the thought of trying this) using 250ml of cold milk and 14g of matcha powder, which I whisked in a jug and then poured into a glass. I underleafed and overmilked (?) ever so slightly, because I had a feeling that I would love it and even an extra mouthful would be appreciated. Which it was. The caramelly taste is lovely, and just sweet enough that you don’t need added sugar – MissB added a note saying that this is pre-sweetened, and for me, they’ve got it just right. There is a slight grassy undertone which i can detect at the end of the sip if I really think about it, but as I’ve never had matcha before I don’t quite know what I’m looking for.

I have enough matcha left to make one more drink before it’s gone, and on one hand I really want to try this as a hot latte, but on the other, it’s so good as it is that I don’t want to risk it! So torn.

A great way to start my day, particularly when I can’t stomach eating so early on, and also need a caffeine hit to wake me up. I can’t believe that a) this is actually healthy, and b) that I wasn’t drinking a really expensive smoothie! Thanks so much for sending me some of this, MissB, it looks like I’ll be ordering from Red Leaf pretty shortly!

Sipdown!! (202)

Thank you Roswell Strange (and aisling of tea) for sharing this with me. Today I prepped it as a tea soda only to immediately determine I far preferred this as a matcha milk. As a soda, the subtle cotton candy flavor was drowned out by the flavor of carbonation where as in milk the flavor was highlighted and had an awesome creamy quality. So, despite this cup being a letdown, I will cherish my memories of the tasty cotton candy matcha milk.

Thank you Roswell Strange (and aisling of tea) for yet another sample of matcha to try. I am having this as a matcha milk and though the start of the sip is delicious (think cotton candy ice cream – YUM!), it quickly goes downhill when the flavor becomes very grassy. If only the cotton candy flavor could last through the whole sip. I wonder how this would be on a white base…

Thank you Roswell Strange (and aisling of tea) for a generous sample of this tea. Once I had the milk and everything ready for matcha milk, I decided I should probably go ahead and make some. This was the first one I grabbed and so I got to work on prepping it. As I drink it though, I am noticing that more than anything, this tastes like cloves with a hint of nutmeg and not much else. It is not bad but I think there are many other matchas I far prefer. It is still nice to have variety though and this would probably be more appealing in the fall (as opposed to one of the first days where the temperature climbed above 10C).

Thank you Roswell Strange (and aisling of tea) for the chance to try this matcha. A while back Cavocorax sent me some Pumpkin Pie matcha on a white base so I was interested in seeing how this differs. What I am finding is that the pumpkin spices I enjoyed so much in the white matcha are still present but they are toned down by the presence of a slightly vegetal component from the base. Personally, if given the choice, I would probably get the white matcha version again over this but it still nicely captures the pumpkin spices.

Having this as a latte: 8oz nonfat milk at 150F. Two chasaku scoops sifted, added enough 175F water to make a paste.

I just don’t like this flavor. It’s not chocolatey to me, but more this weird chemical cream note and something floral. The matcha is nice and not bitter, but can’t overcome the flavoring. I have a sample of the carob so maybe that’s the chocolate/cocoa flavor I’m looking for.

Royal grade match, distinctive flavoring.

Hmm…this smells more floral than chocolate, and tastes more different than either. It has a weird after taste. Not sure how I feel about this one so reserving rating til a few more brews.

Made with about 3/4tsp sifted powder to 8oz of 180F almond milk. Definitely too hot to start.

Thank you Roswell Strange (and aisling of tea) for the chance to try this matcha but I just can’t seem to get this one to work. The cola milk was horrible and today I attempted to recreate Vanilla Cola (I combined French vanilla matcha and cola matcha as a tea soda) but all I got was a cup full of fizzy grass. It got dumped and I just don’t know what I am going to do with the rest of the sample. Any suggestions??

Thank you Roswell Strange (and aisling of tea) for the opportunity to try this matcha. If only I didn’t convince myself Cola Milk had potential because prepped this way it is a whole lot of NOPE!

Had this as a latte with rice milk for the sipdown. Lovely. Boosting the rating a couple points as this matcha grew even more on me as I figured out my matcha-liquid ratios. I think I may prefer rice milk to skim or almond. Will likely be buying this again, but I’m going to try the Madagascar Vanilla first as a comparison.

Having this with just water and not liking it. Vastly prefer the flavored matchas as lattes. As a latte this is wonderful; smells delicious and tastes vanilla-y, creamy, and doesn’t drown the matcha.

ETA: as I got to the dregs I finally got some more matcha flavor instead of the warm water taste. I may try some of the Red Leaf matchas again plain with just water but using a bit more matcha. This was two chasaku scoops to 175F ~10oz water.

I apparently use way more matcha than others when making lattes.

8oz heated plain almond milk, 1 heaping chasaku scoop plus 2 almond size ones. Frothed with a handheld, battery-operated frother. This is the Royal grade matcha and distinctive flavoring.

The smell of the vanilla is wonderful. I don’t taste it as much as I smell it, but that’s fine as it’s still a creamy, sweet cup. There’s a slight bitter taste, but it’s no where near as bitter as the sample caramel matcha I tried (the bitterness got better as the matcha cooled). When I first tried it with just one big chasaku scoop there was still too much of a milk flavor.

I made this the same way I do all of my MATCHAccino, using a magic bullet, 2% milk, and a scoop of MATCHAccino mix. It can be prepared hot or cold, but I make it cold out of morning laziness, I just don’t want to spend the extra time heating up the milk. It’s a well established fact that I’m not a morning person and this week I’m fighting off a case of what I have dubbed the baby plague (my son drags home some of the worst colds I’ve ever seen!) Just a few seconds in the magic bullet and the milk froths up beautifully and I have an ice cold latte to enjoy with minimal amount of cleanup. The Irish cream flavor is sweet and creamy, but I could really taste the matcha this time and the vegetal flavors obscure the Irish cream. This was a little disappointing, but still a pretty tasty morning treat.

You can read the rest of the review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2014/3/18/tuesday-tea-irish-cream-matchaccino-red-leaf-tea.html

Sipdown (118)!

Well damn it took an excessively long time to sipdown this weird matcha. And, I never did find a way to prepare it where I really enjoyed it. Some were better than others, that’s for sure, but nothing was great.

This time to polish it off I made a small, slightly overleafed cup in cold milk (because I need to use up the milk I have right now). It tasted ok; but weird like anticipated. I gave Tre a sip of it and while he didn’t like it, he did “give some feedback”. He said it tastes like cinnamon candy and at first I told him he was crazy, but then when I went back to finish the cup I could see that actually – now that he had said it, it sorta did in a very weak way.

That actually made it easier to finish the mug.

Go Tre?

Ok! Pizza order has been placed, and I just finished tweaking my Tumblr theme so time to get started on backlog and do some tea drinking. Ooh, here’s my pretty updated Tumblr for those on Steepster who use Tumblr: http://guyfierithirdandfinalantichrist.tumblr.com/

BEWARE: I have autoplay now :3

Anyway, this was added to vanilla milk! I’m not sure what I was thinking: Vanilla Cola, I guess. But tea frens’ this was bad. REALLY REALLY bad. It was so incredibly sweet; I felt like I took a swig and instantly had diabetes. And it tasted super fake and chemical-y too; so it was dumped.

Wah wah wah. What a shame.

I was attempting to feed my brother because, apparently, one of the duties of hosting is actually feeding the minors in your care. He wouldn’t pick what he wanted to eat, though so I jokingly said that if he didn’t pick then I’d just feed him straight, powdered green tea.

That resulted in each of us having a small spoonful of this one straight. No water, no milk, nothing…

Ick. Yuck. Never. Again.

Matcha buzz before work? Hell fucking yes.

I made this as matcha soda; but instead of my usual 1/2 tsp. of matcha I opted for a full 1 tsp. and skipped the pinch of sugar. Extra buzz and extra flavour can only be good, right? Turns out that’s correct; I’m feeling much more alert, and on top of that I think this is actually tasting better; more “cola” like – though still a little off. And by off, I’m mostly meaning grassy.

Also, I couldn’t resist: I took a “work selfie” today to “commemorate” my sorta first day working. Technically it’s the first day/grand opening of my new store, so that kind of counts right?

https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t1.0-9/10155074_10202267130093605_1080906179_n.jpg

I’m wearing my lucky Swiss Cheese earrings!