Green Apple Matcha

Granny Smith is my favourite kind of apple! I love how in a candy apple, it peeks out and holds its own with a juicy tartness! The flesh is refreshing and never mushy as with some unnamed Red/yellow varieties. Second only to the Granny Smith is the Crab Apple! Ohhh Crab Apple trees of my past, how I miss you! How is it that each of these flavoured matchas reminds me of my childhood in some way? Haha way to be Matcha, way to be.

When I opened up my matcha package I was greeted with the strong scent of apple! I knew my only challenge with this tea would be making it tart instead of just sweet. It’s easy to sweeten a tea – just add sweetener! Has anyone tried the Hibiscus Matcha from RLT? I am really curious to see if it is tart – because it would be the PERFECT addition to this apple tea!

I used my usual 175 degree water – ah, perfectly smooth, vibrant green and SO much frothy foam. Of course I’m not surprised by this – I’ve come to expect this level of quality with my Red Leaf Tea orders and, as usual, am not disappointed. The scent is strong (I went with the normal amount of flavouring) and very apple-y. It is akin to an apple candy, but not super sweet like you would expect it to be. Actually, it’s more in between a Granny Smith apple and an apple candy (minus the tartness). I added a bit of sugar and drank it down – my matcha cup is always empty before I can blink it seems!

I would be lying if I said I didn’t buy this solely to mix with the Caramel Matcha. Inspired by the infamous aisling of tea who came before me, the Caramel and Apple matchas were meant to be together. Now Red Leaf Tea has a great system where you can order your own mix of flavours! I’m tempted to make an order of Coca Cola and Cherry – it may just make my summer matcha list ;) That said, I probably still would have ordered these two teas separately. I like the option of playing with my own ratios and finding the perfect combo! I definitely have enough of these teas to play to my heart’s desire. Now if only I could find an easy way to add a tartness to this matcha – that would add the perfect 3rd dimension to the caramel apple matcha mix! You can find this Green Apple matcha here at Red Leaf Tea: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/green-apple-matcha.html

One last note about this tea – as I’ve said before, I’m collecting fruit matchas for all of my smoothie needs. I’ve tried this one in a few different combos. So far it goes really well with both Blueberry and Mango. I can’t wait for my next order, where I will most certainly try out some tropical matchas and find my paradise gateway matcha. Hello vacation in a glass, momma’s coming for you.

Just to remind myself how awesome regular matcha is, I made a cup of this even though it is now 10:30. And I’m exhausted. And I have to work tomorrow. That’s matcha love my friends.

I just love this so much. Green matcha, the original, so tasty. This green apple flavor is pretty alright too. :) I got this matcha for a couple of different reasons. 1) Someone (I forget who) on Steepster had the awesome idea for caramel apple matcha and I totally wanted to try some. 2) My sister loves green apple flavored things. I hung onto to this packet for a while without opening it because I know that matcha can deteriorate quickly once exposed to air and I didn’t have a suitable tin to store this matcha in. I just waited and waited until one day I realized I could use these little plastic containers that Azzrian had actually given to me so that I could send her matcha. We later decided that some other containers were better so I was told to keep these since she never used them anyway. Yeah! Thanks Azzrian! It’s not really the best storage for matcha because the lid doesn’t fit all that snug, but matcha! Best reason for everything. So anyway, I’m trying this matcha now!

The color is a bit dark, like olive green and the powder isn’t a bit gritty like the red matcha. yaay! I can’t have much now. I’m going to chill it for tomorrow morning when matcha makes sense, but I just had to have some before bed.

The green apple flavoring here has something that reminds me of that mango matcha that I really didn’t care for. Something weird like play dough and flowers. But it is not as prominent as it was in the mango. The green apple flavor here is quite nice too. It’s somehow like the candy version of green apple, but the freshness and greenness of matcha makes it less sweet and cloying and more like real apple. If only it weren’t for that odd playdough flavor… It’s pretty good.

I think this would be better sweetened, but we will save that for tomorrow. Drinking matcha reminds me of the beginning of my tea journey. The first teas I drank had to have sugar and/or milk or honey. It just wasn’t good without additions. Then I found teas that were better without additions and now I only rarely add anything to my teas. Matcha though, I find I don’t enjoy them as much unless I add sugar or milk or both. Unflavored matcha is something I can enjoy without additions, but when it’s apple or caramel, I find myself reaching for the sugar. This is odd since I had a apple flavored green not to long ago and enjoyed it thoroughly without additions. I suppose the matcha flavor is stronger and more intense. Then again, if I use less matcha, it tastes watery. I’ll work on weaning myself off the desire to sweeten my matchas. I think I’m getting there already since I’m sipping at this matcha and going, “Mmmm, creamy sweet matcha…” :) Small sips!

Enough rambling! Time for bed!

If you want to have some green apple matcha, you know where it’s at!
http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/green-apple-matcha.html

Edit Had this chilled this morning. So refreshing! The flavor is still weird to me but I enjoyed it a lot more cold. Didn’t even want to add any sugar! Raising the rating!

Ok, so I clearly enjoyed my first matcha from Red Leaf Tea, the Madagascar Vanilla. But vanilla is not a terribly adventurous flavour, so for my second, I decided to branch out a little, and bought this one (found at http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/green-apple-matcha.html)! I was spurred to pick this one mostly because of aisling of tea’s idea (& successful attempt) at making a caramel apple blend, which sounds heavenly to me. Of course, I don’t have the caramel yet, but it’s next on the list!

Anyways, sniffing the bag’s contents, I got pretty excited because there was a distinct green apple aroma coming from the bag. Unmistakeable. I can’t tell you whether it was a “real” green apple or green apple flavouring sort of aroma because I enjoy both, but it was delicious. So I heated up some milk, dumped some matcha in… and whisked it. Yes, that’s right! I actually did it properly this time, thanks to Azzrian’s immense generosity in sending off her travel whisk to me! (So, this was by far the highest quality latte with the fewest chunks of matcha I have ever consumed!) Anyways, I didn’t really measure out the matcha (I was going for “strong”, since it was midnight and I was headed to the lab to do some things I neglected earlier, thanks to an ill-placed nap), but had thought I’d used at least a good teaspoon or so. However, when I mixed it with the almond milk, I literally could not taste the green apple – it was completely overpowered by the almond. Easy fix – heat up a bit more milk and mix a bunch more matcha into it! This time: success!! And by success, I mean I created one of the most delicious drinks EVER! I swear they accidentally gave me the “there’s matcha in this?!” grade of flavouring… because that is exactly what I was thinking the entire time I was drinking my latte! All I could taste was delicious green apple, and creamy almondy sweetness. Zero matcha. Zero bitterness. (I did taste the matcha-mixed milk prior to mixing with the almond milk, and it tasted bitter, so clearly there was some flavour masking going on.) And… did I mention that I didn’t add a single drop of sweetener? So my delicious latte was only about 120 calories worth of amazing, assuming matcha is essentially calorie-free.

The only somewhat concern I have is the amount of matcha I felt I had to use to get a drink that tasted like green apple. I didn’t measure it (I will next time) but it felt like more than I had to use with the other matcha I’ve tried. I could be wrong though. Another thing as well (ok, I guess I have two concerns) – I do almost get the impression that because of the flavouring in this matcha, there is less actual matcha, and that’s contributing to the fact that I can’t taste “matcha” in spite of how much powder I felt I used. I don’t know how it’s flavoured, or what the matcha:flavouring ratio might be if the flavouring comes in powder form, but I have to wonder about that. But all that said…. this was absolutely delicious and gave me a much needed treat (and presumably caffeine boost) to get through my work this evening!

Backlog:

A yummy Matcha. A bit sweeter than I expected … I expected a tarter apple flavor (like Granny Smith) although there is a crisp tartness to this, it’s much sweeter than I thought it would be. Perhaps it is the combination of the apple notes and the Matcha that soften the tart notes of the apple a bit.

It’s still really delightful. This is good in smoothies (I’ve had a few of them over the last couple of weeks!) and it’s also good mixed with the caramel Matcha! YUM!

So far, I have really enjoyed all the matcha flavors I have tried from Red Leaf Tea. I have liked them most in a smoothie, I like them shaken up in cold water, and I like them warm. The desserty flavors like English Toffee and Caramel have been my favorites in cold water, but I thought I would try this one since fruit flavors make sense as an iced tea.

Not so much, there is something about this flavor that just throws me off. I don’t think it tastes much like apple I suppose, it tastes like some kind of apple flavored candy but for some reason that kind of artificial apple taste mixed with matcha is not settling well on my taste buds. This is the only one of the 5 flavors that I have tried that I didn’t like. I think I will probably appreciate it more in a smoothie because I won’t taste it as much but it will still give me the energy (which is the reason I started drinking matcha).

I would recommend other flavors before this one, but honestly this has really great reviews from tea bloggers that I really trust and purchase based on like DaisyChubb It is quite tangy like it’s description says, I just cannot seem to find a taste for it. However, if you’d like to give it a go based on it’s otherwise fabulous reviews you can get it here:
http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/green-apple-matcha.html

So I am mightly impressed with matcha. For a few weeks now, I’ve been having a cup almost daily, and I have to say I’m seeing benefits. I don’t know if it can all be blamed on the matcha, but the matcha is the only real change I’ve made recently. When a tea company makes claims about the healthiness of their teas and how this tea will make you skinny or that tea will calm your anger, I tend to just laugh it off. Just another marketing ploy, I mean, really, it’s just tea. It’s delicious and better for you than soda (if you don’t weigh it down with tons of sugar and cream like I used to do), but it’s still just tea, not some magic potion that’s going to solve all of your problems.

Well. Since matcha came into my life, I’m more alert (obviously) and my system seems…cleaner. I don’t feel bogged down by the terrible foods I sometimes indulge in, and somehow my system seems less responsive to my dairy allergy. Don’t get me wrong, it still makes me sick, but it’s not the gut-wrenching “I’m gonna die” feeling I’m used to, it’s more of a “Oh man, I forgot and ate dairy again”. On the whole, I just feel healthier. Which is awesome. Everyone can afford to feel a little bit healthier, am I right?

Anyway, this tea (found here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/green-apple-matcha.html) smells amazing. Like juicy Granny Smith apples, sweet and tart all at the same time. I want to dip this tea in caramel. The flavor is perfect. It’s exactly what I expected this tea to taste like. It’s very juicy, my mouth is watering after every sip, and it’s tart without being stomach-turning sour. I am having a really hard time not adding some of my Red Leaf Tea Caramel matcha to this. They’re just begging to be blended. In college, I was big fan of the Caramel Apple shot, which is basically one part sour apple Pucker to one part butterscotch Schnapps. This seems like a good alternative for me to take to work and not get fired! Though now I’m wondering about matcha cocktails…

I love these matchas that are encouraging me to mix and match, play with different blends, bake…I love it! I wish I had the time to just lock myself in my kitchen with my matchas and experiment to my little heart’s content.

This is my favorite out of the four flavours I ordered. It tastes exactly like a green apple candy, and goes really well with vanilla almond milk. This morning I mixed in 1 tsp of matcha with a half a cup of DavidsTea White Tiger, and then added hot Almond Milk to the top of my glass. Yum! It is sweet and tart at the same time. I tend to prefer fruity flavours so I knew I had to try this one, and I have to say it is a winner :)