I snagged this matcha during a sale! This is the fourth matcha I’ve tried from Red Leaf Teas http://www.redleaftea.com/
As a quick rundown, Red Leaf teas matchas are very flexible and you can select the strength of the flavoring, matcha quality or type of matcha. I’m a fan of “Robust” flavoring as you get a big hit of flavor with a good matcha base. What I ordered:
Bavarian Cream Matcha
http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/bavarian-cream-matcha.html
Quality: Starter (Basic Grade)
Flavor: Robust, because I wanna drink some strong vanilla custard!
Small tin
I really recommend to get a tin with your order, unless you already have good sealing tins. The matcha comes in a non resealable gold foil bag.
If you don’t have much in matcha preparation gear, the most important thing is to sift the matcha. I use a fine mesh tea strainer. I do this for every matcha I prepare. Other gear you need is a ½ teaspoon and a small whisk. The bamboo whisks work amazing but a small wire one will do in a pinch.
Matcha is very flexible in preparation – I often make iced lattes with a blender bottle intended to mix protein powder drinks, which is fast, easy and achieves lots of froth!
The smell of bavarian cream matcha is strong creamy with a hint of lemon. The lemon was a surprise to me as I was expecting more of a vanilla custard cream puff taste. The colour of the matcha is a rich green.
For a traditional cup of hot matcha, I used just under 1 teaspoon, whisked in a little 180f hot water to bring to a nice froth and a little extra hot water to taste. For this matcha, I found the froth was just not happening for me today. I’m thinking with stronger flavored matchas the froth isn’t as easy to achieve since I can get a great froth with my delicate caramel matcha, but my robust cheesecake matcha preforms similar to this one robust bavarian cream one.
The taste of the traditional matcha is creamy, smooth with an excellent green tea base. A lemon taste lingers in my mouth after my sip. Sweetened with a little white sugar, the citrus turns brighter, like a lemon drop candy. To me, it was more lemony than custard.
For my favorite iced matcha recipe, I added just under a teaspoon of sifted matcha, about 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar, 4 ice cubes and about 300ml of soy milk to my blender bottle and gave it a good shake. I got 1.5 inches of tasty foam. The taste, AMAZING! Very creamy custard taste! The lemon taste is now subdued, but there in the background to add interest and dimension, like adding lemon zest to a pie. I can’t taste much matcha surprisingly, but I don’t care as drinking about 90 calories of custard is total win!
Overall, of all the flavored matchas I’ve tried so far, this one is now hands down my favorite latte! For traditional prepared matchas, it’s pretty good, but find it not as close to its intended flavor as the lemon comes out more than I like. I can see Bavarian Cream matcha going well with cheesecake or caramel matcha.
