382 Tasting Notes
Decided at some point that perhaps my shivering isn’t from chilliness but from caffeine overdose (seems unlikely unless my hand shook while scooping matcha into my smoothie, but better safe than sorry!) so I’m switching over to decaf for a bit. Have a surprising amount of rooibos samples left over from my teafrog order from the beginning of the summer, so may as well make some headway there.
I like love, but I like caramel cream more. Maybe it’s the orange, perhaps I do not like the combination of orange and rooibos as much as I thought I did.
Mmmmm, delicious morning matcha smoothie. I was thinking as I made this that besides the health benefits of the matcha, I am also getting more dairy than normal AND that I usually don’t have bananas either, so technically thanks to matcha, I have also increased my calcium and potassium intake! Hurray!
lol! I can thank my calcium increase to chai. Yay for tea encouraging healthy eating! Have you tried the banana matcha?
It’s a little pricy for me I’m afraid. I mean, I know it’s for 2 oz and that the price of matcha has gone up, but budget cuts at the university mean my fellowship got cut and I won’t have a ta-ship until next quarter so….my tea budget is a lot smaller atm.
I see a light at the end of the giant tin of foxtrot tunnel! Not that I don’t love foxtrot, but turns out that I am not immune from becoming bored with it. It doesn’t help that chamomile is such a distinctive taste and tends to show up in a bunch of other teas as well. So…soon it will be goodbye, foxtrot – hopefully before my teafrog order gets in so I have at least one tin ready for it. It’s been swell, but I’ve moved on! I’ve embraced a method of tea drinking more befitting to my extremely short attention span. One in which I eschew such silly labels as “a staple tea” (except for Earl Grey, I will always love you Earl Grey!) and live in the tea moment (don’t worry, I’m not writing carpe tea-em again. Oh wait I just did. Sorry!) I’m a free spirit, foxtrot! You can’t tie me down!
We’ll always have Yokohama though.
OMG guys
Just….WOW. wow wow wow wow wow.
Used this in my breakfast smoothies this morning, a bit of almond milk for sweetness, some yoghurt and banana for thickeners and the result? SO GOOOOOOOOD. I cannot BELIEVE how good. The flavor of the matcha balances really well with the banana and I think I may actually like it MORE than I have liked the smoothies I made with real strawberries, which seems just weird. I think it’s because real strawberries have this tang about them that combines with the sourness of the yoghurt (I use plain) to it’s detriment. Since it’s just strawberry flavor though, you just get the strawberry without anything else. S’nice!
Also, somehow it just seems smoother – I think the combination of yoghurt, banana and matcha is a real winner. Clearly, my instincts about this being a great “mixer” matcha were spot on :D I think after just ONE of these I am addicted.
I’m very tempted to give this a 100 – but my mental block against giving 100s prevents me. (What if I find something even more awesome? I can’t take that chance.)
Decided to try to make a pitcher of this iced. My birthday packets were HUUUUUUGE, so it’s not like I don’t have the tea to burn :P
It brewed up light, really light. Worryingly light. Despite this, however, it has a surprising amount of flavor. (Yay!) The cold brewing has really smoothed it out, making it really seem like a lighter version of golden monkey. I’m kind of sad at the loss of the spicy undertone, but it still makes for a really refreshing somewhat sweet somewhat malty summer beverage. I like it!
I have been, not to put too fine a point on it, staggeringly jealous of the people who got to try the 52teas mandarin and strawberry matchas. And now I get to try it myself. First of all, it smells amazing exactly like strawberries and not at all like strawberry flavoring – as we all know, I’m sure, there’s a difference.
For my first try, I decided to just go straight. The matcha dissolved easily and was much darker in color than I’m used. I think someone else mentioned olive? That sounds right. This stuff seems a little more concentrated than my ceremonial DoMatcha – I had to add a bit more water than I normally did before the taste wasn’t overwhelming. The taste itself is, I’d say, mostly strawberry, kind of moderated by the matcha flavor, creating a well-rounded, although largely strawberry dominated, whole. The whole, however, at least in my case is better suited to being mixed with stuff (smoooooothiiiiiiiiieeeeeees) than in being drunk straight. I guess I’ve been spoiled by the amazing smoothness that is DoMatcha. Mind you, I don’t drink very much straight matcha unless I am really sleep deprived in the morning so I don’t really feel like this is a disadvantage. I would probably venture to say that this will be MOAR fun to mix with stuff than the DoMatcha was – if only so that I will no longer feel the guilt of mixing something labeled “ceremonial” with all manner of stuff.
So, from this tasting, I am mostly sensing potential. Delicious smoothie potential! Delicious lemonade potential! Delicious latte potential! So….gonna hold off on rating for the moment, since I want to have a clear idea of the full range of this matcha’s potential, because I think if I rated it now, I’d go lower than I’ll end up at eventually.
