Matcha, take three. I was going to make a matcha latte this morning but discovered that my milk had gone sour. So I decided to try again, this time with just sugar.
Today I pre-warmed my bowl with some boiling water before letting the rest cool off in my saucepan (oh yeah, because in my new apartment I don’t have any kind of kettle lol). This of course left the inside of my bowl wet, so then I was concerned about the match I then sifted in “oversteeping” I dunno, does matcha oversteep? Anyway, I put in a sprinkle of sugar as well, and then after the water was cool enough I poured just enough in to loosen up all the matcha on the bottom. Then a few more ounces to whisk in. After that I tasted it and, yup, bitter. I poured in a bit more water and a bit more sugar, whisked harder (satisfyingly got lots of foam!), then tasted. It wasn’t bitter, but it was very earthy and not exactly what I was looking for. I want caramel! Maybe I just had to have it in a latte? I think I realized that it seems like most people use more water (or milk) in their final product; I heard one person say that 1tsp of matcha should make an 8oz bowl. This never sounded like it would make that much difference to me (what would it do, just make it weaker?), but at this point I figured why not, and I dumped probably enough water to make about 8oz into the bowl, and color me surprised! It wasn’t so earthy at all, just light and pleasant, and a third sprinkle of sugar (so, probably a tsp total?) really brought out the caramel. It was so satisfying to make a delicious bowl of matcha without milk. Well, by the time I finish this tin of matcha maybe I will have truly figured it out.
