Matcha Outlet

Something minty to end the work day and leave a nice flavour in my mouth for the van ride home. And also not straight tea because that makes me have to pee before we get home and I have a doctor appointment straight after arriving in the parking lot. It will be a squish, but I think I can make it on time. Else I will be late. Oh well. The appointment’s an hour long so being late wouldn’t be the end of the world anyway. If the appointment were yesterday I would have been 20 minutes late because we hit the worst traffic I’ve ever seen on that drive (2 years in). Hopefully there won’t be another accident today.

Anyway, minty as usual. I used a bit less matcha today and it toned down the overpowering mintiness a little so it’s just pleasant rather than pow, although when frothing, it still threw up enough particles to make my eyes water. If you like mint, you’ll love this matcha.

Bleh, just figured out I’ve been burning my matcha all day. Somehow the kettle got reset to 208 instead of 175. No wonder they haven’t tasted quite right. This one continues the trend. Very minty though. Very minty.

This is…really really minty. I can’t imagine what the robust or higher level of flavouring is like considering how minty this is. I’m using it as a palate cleanser before I go home from work but wow this is minty. Good thing I like mint most of the time. The coolness that lingers in my mouth after I take a sip reminds me of toothpaste it’s so strong.

Recipe: 1/2-2/3 tsp mint matcha, ~3 oz hot water (175 degrees), whisk with a fork (did not foam much at all), add some hot milk (1/2 pint minus a couple of gloops for my earlier tea this morning) and 1/2 tsp rock sugar. Stir.

Very minty. I didn’t get the robust flavour on this, just the distinctive, but it is still very very minty. Not that that is a bad thing! Not at all! I love mint. I taste mostly peppermint on this, maybe a hint of spearmint but mostly just peppermint. Hmm, probably should have added a bit more sugar to this one than normal, it’s got a bit of a bite to it. This will (in smaller quantities) be a great mixer matcha. I can’t wait to try it with french vanilla/creme brulee/bavarian cream. Might bring some home to try with belgian chocolate, but I might not. The belgian chocolate at home is made with a black base and the belgian chocolate that I haven’t opened yet from my last order is made with a normal green tea base and I might wait for that one to try mixing a chocolate-mint matcha. Looking forward to it though!

Made as a hot latte, this is VERY refreshing and crisp. It is almost cool on my tongue despite the actual temperature of the beverage, which is a bit of a strange feeling. Beyond minty tea, I don’t really consume hot mint anything.

You can find this matcha (and many MANY others) at Red Leaf Tea, but here’s the mint specific link: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/mint-matcha.html

So I’m trying again today. This time halfsies with Black Cherry matcha, 1/2 tsp total with about…4-5 oz water, frothed frenetically with my electric whisk and 2/3 tsp sugar. Currently cooling a bit from 175 F.

Well, once again, the cola taste just isn’t working for me. I love the smell of it, but it’s not translating to good taste. I think I know what the problem is though, I usually don’t drink a lot of ‘cola’ sodas because the taste isn’t something I’m wowed by, usually drinking Cherry Dr Pepper or Red Mt Dew. Perhaps it tastes like it’s supposed to and I just don’t like it? I’ll have to try it with some seltzer water before I make a final diagnosis, but this is what I’m beginning to suspect. The black cherry half didn’t even perk it up much. I think I’ll continue to just drink that separately.

I know, I know, I just made a tasting note, but this one is different! I just made a cold matcha for the first time! It’s…not as great as I’d hoped. Possibly I’m just mourning the lack of carbonation that suddenly seems to be missing. I think I have too much water, but I just added more cola matcha to my cold water (and shake!) and it got a little bit more matcha-y but not much more cola-y. Guess I’m just disappointed, I had such high hopes and this one smells so good! Mayhap I will try this one traditional style next time.

ETA: Doh, no wonder it doesn’t taste right, I forgot to add sugar! Added about a half teaspoon of sugar to my 16 oz or so of water and it suddenly tastes much better. Might try a full teaspoon next time, if I remember. Usually I just use half, but this is a lot more liquid than I normally have for matcha.

Cola matcha! Back when I first tried the champagne matcha and loved it, I was told…somewhere (in the comments maybe?) that while that flavour was surprisingly awesome and true to descriptions, the cola matcha was even better, and a much weirder flavour at that. So of course, in my next order I had to try it.

I opened the the package last night to put it into a tin to bring to work today and Holy Cola! It smells so much like cola, not really coca cola or pepsi or anything, but it’s definitely cola. So I brought it into work with my black cherry matcha from last night to keep company with my french vanilla matcha (which I also want to try mixing with this) to drink this morning.

I must say, I read the reviews AFTER making this and I think I definitely made a mistake with my first try of this matcha. I made it the way I always make matcha, a hot latte. BZZZT! Wrong! It tastes…okay, but not nearly as fantastic as it smells nor as fantastic as all the other reviews make it sound so I’ll be trying again with cold water before I rate this. Right now it gets a solid meh. I tried some of the little bit of hot water and it tasted pretty good but then I added milk and it all just fell to pieces. Not that it’s terrible, because it’s not, it’s just that the milk sucked all the flavour out and now I’m left with a slightly warm cola milk which isn’t all that appetizing at all. So I’ll have to try again. So warning! Heed your instincts! If you don’t think that warm flat soda will taste good, then don’t try it! Cold matcha is the way to go with this one.

As always, it can be found on the Red Leaf Tea website. Here’s the link: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/coca-cola-matcha.html

Wow! First tasting note for this tea. I feel so powerful!

I bought this matcha when I bought my first batch from Red Leaf last week. It’s not the first one I’ve tried, but the first one I’m writing about as it needs a presence on the site. I bought this as I love to drink grapefruit juice and tea in the AM, but sometimes the drinks don’t mix so well, one hot, one cold, one bitter and sweet, one vegetal. I’m not sure what made me think two things that don’t taste all that great together in two separate glasses would taste very good together in one glass, but alas, they do! The grapefruit flavor is spot on perfect. Not the sugary sweet canned flavor of grapefruit, but the fresh squeezed fully pulpy flavor. I feel like I’m actually drinking a glass of grapefruit juice. I will be restocking and having this for breakfast every day. I’m so happy with it.

Classic Base
Robust Flavor

Made using cold method and only water. The little dude asked if I was having bug juice for breakfast. Of course I said yes. I’m keeping this yummy secret only for myself for a while. I can see my husband hoarding in on this one.

Mangosteen is a pretty unusual fruit. I had mangosteen-flavored things often as a kid, growing up in the city has many advantages when it comes out to trying exotic fruits and veggies! But generally it’s quite hard to find anything that really tastes like mangosteen, usually in teas it’s just flaunted as being a “superfruit” and then drowned out with peach or melon.

Mangosteen is the queen of Thai fruit, sweet and syrupy and at times a little floral even. It does remind me of lychee, though with a fuller flavor (if that makes sense). Usually you eat just the center flesh, but this matcha is made with the outer purple part as well! So it’s not just flavored, but actually uses parts of the actual fruit. Interesting for sure!

The flavor is not what I expected. No syrupy-sweet fruity tones, but a more earthy, nutty flavor. It reminds me of almond and mango rind mixed together! Which isn’t that surprising, given that it’s the rind part (which I will freely admit I never tasted—I go straight for the fleshy heart). Mm, gruesome, fleshy fruit hearts!

Anyway I really enjoyed this one, plus it’s extra good for you with the bits of rind in there. I added a splash of almond milk to bump up the nutty flavors and it really shone! Super unusual but in all the right ways. Thanks so much to Azzrian for letting me try this one out!

Sipdown. Had this as an iced latte and a hot one over the last couple of days. Still had enough flavour to be pleasant but definitely past it’s prime. Still, I enjoyed it and it’s caffeine boost.

Had this twice in the last 2 days. It still smells absolutely delicious but the taste leaves something to be desired. Undoubtedly because of age. Still, black matcha isn’t bad even if the flavouring is mostly gone. I made it at home and brought it in to work in a thermos for the first time rather than making matcha at work from my limited flavours.

The caffeine burst actually made me productive before 6am, who knew that could happen?

Made another cold smoothie. It tastes good but I need to figure out how to strike a balance between the insane amount of froth my blender produces and how blended the ice cubes are. Because there’s less froth this time but it’s much too chunky and I’m practically chewing this half the time.

A quandary. Have any of you out there encountered or fixed this problem?

Attempt #2

I made this into a cold smoothie today. Ice cubes, 16 or so oz of milk, 2 tsp of this, and half a bag of frozen raspberries. Blended it all up and…it didn’t taste very good. It wasn’t bad exactly but it was definitely not good. Aggressively neutral I guess. So after staring at it for a while, I put what was left back in the blender (where more waited for me) and added more ice cubes and also a tsp and a half or so of granulated sugar. After that it was tastier but it still needs either more of everything except the matcha, or less matcha I think. Next time.

Tasty, tasty. Offered some to my mother but she took one smell and turned me down :(

Using the last bit of milk in the house to make this. I’ve been using milk to make cereal instead of tea recently so it disappears too fast. I’ll have to buy more tomorrow after my volunteer shift.

This is tasty, though now I want to try it as a green matcha base because I’m finding that, despite liking black tea better than green, black matcha is not necessarily tastier than green matcha to me for some reason. If I had more milk I’d make a caramel matcha to compare with the caramel green matcha I had earlier this week. Alas.

First matcha made at home! First matcha made with my little electric whisk! (wow is that thing ever whisky). First try of this matcha, having finally brought out my tea tins from RLT to fill. I made this one into a hot latte, with a bit of hot water to whisk it up with, half a teaspoon using my ‘perfect matcha teaspoon’ and 10 oz of hot milk. I think next time I need to make the milk hotter. I actually measured too, in my liquid measure. So this is made as perfect as I am capable. Added sweetener because that’s the way I like it, but not too much.

This is really really good! The raspberry is really nice, light on the tongue and not too heavy and blends well with the creaminess that goes above and beyond the milk added. It’s definitely living up to its name as ‘raspberry and cream’, like most of the Red Leaf Tea matchas I’ve tried. The black base is nicely supportive of this flavour. I’ve always liked pairing fruit and black tea together so I’m glad I chose well when I picked this one. There’s a hint of that bitterness that black matcha sometimes gets, at least when I make it, but it’s in the latter half of the sip and ignorable with the rest of the goodness overwhelming it in the end. Altogether, I’m very glad I got this.

You can find it at: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/raspberry-and-cream-matcha.html

Pumpkin Pie is a flavour that pretty much every tea company has done. Usually in the fall, around Thanksgiving. Before trying Red Leaf Tea’s take, my favourite was from Davids Tea. Now I think I may need to reconsider, because:

1. You can get it YEAR ROUND
2. I’m still not tired of it

2) Is very important, because there’s something about other pumpkin pie teas that makes me stop really enjoying them after I’ve had several cups or the season changes. I think it has something to do with the spices— instead of trying to replicate the flavour of pumpkin pie (which can be enjoyed year round, please don’t judge me!), they put in other spices to make it more ‘seasonal’. And that means, when the sun is beating down, and I drink their tea, it’s like I’m transported in front of a fireplace, and that is NOT GOOD.

This tea is simply pumpkin pie. It’s not overly spiced and it’s perfect. I think it would even be good chilled, like pumpkin pie often is. A little milk and it’s like there’s a slice right there in front of you! Enjoy!

You can buy it here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/pumpkin-pie-matcha.html

I got:
Grade: classic
Flavour: delicate

You can buy it here (which you should): http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/cheesecake-matcha.html

I got:
Grade: classic
Flavour: delicate

This tea’s definitely got that ‘tang’ of cheesecake! It’s very sweet and creamy (I skip the sugar and put a splash of milk in) and I have it frequently at breakfast for a little indulgence. I wouldn’t say it tastes like liquid cheesecake, but that’s probably a good thing! I would suggest not putting in too much matcha powder at first, because the flavour of this matcha in particular is quite strong. Just writing about it makes me want to curl of with a good book and a steaming pot of this delicious matcha! Of the four matchas that I ordered (others were Caramel, pumpkin pie, and english toffee), cheesecake probably had the most matcha-ish flavour. Sometimes I’m not a huge of matcha, but here the bitterness was perfectly offset by the sweet cheesecake flavour. Now I’m thinking of making a matcha cheesecake…why not?! Yum.

I think I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with Red Leaf Tea’s amazing flavoured matchas.

My first matcha from Red Leaf Tea! I also purchased Caramel, Cheesecake, and Pumpkin Pie (All top-rated on Steepster…I had to try them!!)

You can buy it here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/english-toffee-matcha.html

Grade: classic
Flavour: delicate

So from my previous tea-tasting experiences, I’ve come to associate ‘toffee’, ‘caramel’, ‘pecan’, ‘butter’, or any sweet-related adjectives with a single tea taste. Truthfully, if you blindfolded me and had me smell 5 different teas and match them to their name, I’d do it wrong.

The first thing that hit me when my Red Leaf Tea order arrived was how each tea smelled EXACTLY like its name. I ordered English Toffee and Caramel (among others), and they each smelled very distinct and amazingly authentic!

English toffee is delicious! I dislike sugar in tea, so a little milk was all the sweetness I needed. The matcha flavour complements the toffee-ness really well! I’d describe it like sticky toffee pudding with a dollop of green tea ice cream on top! Yummyness! My first Read Leaf matcha has set the bar high and I can’t wait to try more!

This Bavarian Cream Matcha smells great but tastes even better – delicious! I’ve been exploring the world of teas and decided to give matcha a try. And I couldn’t have been happier. This great matcha can be found at:

http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/bavarian-cream-matcha.html

Size : Large, Matcha
Quality: Royal (Premium Grade)
Matcha Type: Organic Matcha
Flavor: Delicate

With the delicate flavor the Bavarian cream taste is light, but this really is some of the best tasting green tea I’ve had. This matcha tea doesn’t have the usual over powering grassy taste often found with some other green teas. It still is a green tea, but very, very smooth. It couldn’t be easier to drink, and the added cream flavor really does make it something special. Although, I am getting hooked on the Bavarian cream flavor so I might bump it up the next flavor level next time.

All you have to do is just heat some water, whisk away a little green matcha powder, top off with as much milk as you’d like, add a couple ice cubes, and you have the perfect way to start your morning – with a refreshing ice cold green tea latte.

I’d highly recommend this Bavarian Cream Matcha from Red Leaf Tea.

I made a SUPER BERRY smoothie for breakfast. Frozen blueberries, cherries, and bananas with plain yogurt, and a touch of OJ and 1/2tsp of this matcha. SO MUCH BERRY! Yum :)

Afternoon pick me up! I’m almost out of this one…only a couple of tsps left! I really enjoyed this flavor though and think I would pick it up again. Not at all artificial tasting. Rich pie-like flavor! Today’s hot latte included 3/4 tsp matcha and 3/4 tsp white sugar whisked in 8oz warm milk. GOOD STUFF. Plotting a matcha order as soon as I have enough money :)

I had this before work this morning as a hot latte with brown sugar. Perfect on a nice cool autumn morning! :)

Ooh look what I lost in the fridge and then found again! Tasty afternoon snackage as a blended latte with ice, milk and honey! Yum :)