Mmm! My first couple of sips, I wasn’t completely sold on this, but, I decided to try it with a splash of milk to go latte with this, and that made all the difference in the world.
Without the milk, I didn’t taste much of the bake-y cookie/cake/bread-y kind of taste I was looking for to distinguish this as a gingerbread Matcha rather than just a spiced Matcha … but the milk helps bring out that bready/cookie kind of taste that I wanted.
The spices are strong, making this a bit more like a gingersnap than what I’d expect from gingerbread. But that’s OK, generally speaking, I’d rather eat gingersnaps than gingerbread because most gingerbread tends to be more of a sweeter, cake-ier kind of treat with a muted ginger flavor. When I eat ginger cookies or gingerbread … I WANT ginger! (The best ginger cookie I’ve ever had, in case you’re curious, are these Ginger Snapdragons from Liz Lovely: http://hungryinportland.com/2011/04/26/ginger-snapdragons-from-liz-lovely/ … oh yeah, and they’re VEGAN! Hey, TeaEqualsBliss did you see that?)
Anyway… back to the bowl of Matcha that sits in front of me. If you have this Matcha, I recommend trying it latte if you haven’t already. It takes it from yum to SUPER-DUPER-YUMMER-ISTIC! And if you haven’t yet taken the plunge and bought this Matcha, you can do so here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/gingerbread-matcha.html By the way: what are you waiting for? The holidays? They’re just around the corner! Imagine adding some of this Matcha powder to your favorite ginger cookie recipe – that would be AH-mazing!
This has a strong ginger flavor, but, it’s not a super-spicy ginger, it’s warm, but also sweet. There is a brown-sugar sweetness to this in the background, sort of molasses-y, just like in real gingerbread. There is also notes of cinnamon that meld delectably with the ginger to create a very warm and festive flavor that is very holidays-y-ish to me.
And the matcha is not overwhelmed here, it adds a very pleasing, smooth, creamy taste to the cup (err… bowl) that is not overwhelmingly vegetative … it’s more buttery than anything and I think that this buttery, slightly vegetative taste really lends itself well to the bakey-cakey kind of taste of the overall flavor.
I ordered this using my go-to specifications: basic/classic Matcha with distinctive level of flavoring. And I don’t think I’d change a thing with these specs … although I am curious about how this might taste with a black Matcha base as well as a higher grade of Matcha. But as it is, I really like this a lot. Very comforting and yet invigorating at the same time.
