I’m so confused by this tea. I wanted to fall madly in love like everyone else seems to have. But I’m trying to figure out if I even like matcha, let alone vanilla-flavored matcha. I’ve only had matcha one other time, and it was in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. It was part of my Japanese Civilization class in college. I think I liked it back then, but that was a long time ago…
Anyway, back to this matcha. It’s good. It’s spinachy and grassy. It’s noticeably vanilla. It’s very naturally flavored. There’s no weird aftertaste or funk. So, why don’t I love it? I tried it straight. I then added a tiny bit of sweetener. Then I tried frothing it in my milk frother. Finally, I added a little splash of skim milk. All of this tweaking helped squelch the grassiness. I’ve never really been of fan of green tea grassiness.
I think I would love this if I used it in cooking/baking. I can imagine amazing vanilla-flavored matcha icing on cupcakes (see DaisyChubb’s killer recipe here: http://www.daisychubb.com/recipe-chocolate-cupcakes-with-matcha-buttercream-chocolate-ganache/). I bet vanilla-flavored matcha scones would be good too. But this matcha by itself? Hmm, I think it’s something I’d have to learn to love. I don’t love it right now. I like it, and it’s definitely interesting. But it took me a good hour of slowly sipping on it to finish the cup.
Big thank you to Ninavampi for sharing her beloved matcha with me! I’m glad I got to try this before investing in a 30g bag. I think I’d enjoy a fruit flavored matcha more. So I’ll probably buy the strawberry one next with the strongest flavoring it comes with, which I believe would be “There’s matcha in there?!” I’ll let y’all know how that turns out, whenever I’m allowed to buy tea again that is. ;)
