Also bit and picked up a tin of this matcha during Bird & Blend’s free international shipping promo. There were actually a lot of their matchas that I wanted to try, but they’re pretty expensive and I hadn’t budgeted for that unexpected tea order so I restrained myself and only picked up the one that I was the most curious about.
I’ve had my fair share of mint matchas now, and I’ve never really been wowed by any of them. I think the mint matcha from 3 Leaf Tea stands out as the most enjoyable one in my mind, but that one still wasn’t nice enough to make me really want to go out and purchase it. However, a spearmint matcha sounded really interesting to me: only thing better, in my mind, would be a wintergreen matcha which I know Red Leaf Tea used to carry but I don’t think it’s a flavour they stock anymore.
There are a few other ingredients blended into this, like nettle and tulsi – so I was a bit worried they’d affect the flavour and texture of the matcha a lot. Unfortunately, I think Bird & Blend matcha has a lot of texture issues (being gritty/mealy) which is a shame because they generally REALLY nail the flavour aspect.
I actually split my first cup of this with a coworker because she’s obsessed with just about anything that has nettle in it and she was so fascinated by the idea of a matcha with blended up nettle.
So, a few observations about this matcha just from that initial tasting:
1. It’s less sweet and creamy than I anticipated based on the name
2. And more herbaceous in general than the marketing/copywriting seems to imply
3. No texture issues!!
However, despite the fact this is very much a herb forward mint with supporting herbaceous elements from the nettle/tulsi (the tulsi is actually surprisingly flavour forward) and less a creamy mint I still thought it was very nice! I don’t think this is the rich/sweet mint I was envisioning for lattes, but more of a relaxing and therapeutic/stress relieving kind of mint.
I was into it, even though it was very different than what I expected.
