Aiya

Iced Latte Sipdown (2624)!

This was a stick pack of matcha that my coworkers brought me back from Expo West earlier in the year. I ended up using it to make an iced latte with some almond milk, and honestly it was very good. Instead of cane sugar, which is the sweetener in most of Aiya’s sweetened product offerings, this has stevia in it. That made me a little nervous but, at least when prepared in this manner, I didn’t feel like the matcha had that unpleasantly lingering artificial sweet taste at all. Instead this was very smooth and creamy with a fresh, buttery umami profile. Quite flavourful!

I do think I still prefer the taste of a cane sugar sweetened matcha, but if you’re sugar sensitive then I think this is a pretty viable alternative!

Iced Latte Sipdown (2583)!

It’s been a hot moment since I’ve done this, so I thought I’d do a “Teas I Drink In A Day” roundup a few days ago – no theme. Just whatever I wanted to drink.

This was one of the stick packs that my coworkers brought back for me from Expo West this past March. Honestly, the most interesting thing about this tea in my opinion is the marketing positioning of it as “roasted matcha” versus just calling it a hojicha powder which is, really, what it actually is. I haven’t decided yet if I think that leveraging the familiarity of the word matcha in this was is brilliant or not.

I started by just making this into an iced latte using some oat milk and it was good though it did just taste like your standard hojicha latte but a bit sweeter. I decided to have some fun with it and I added a couple scoops of some very dark chocolate gelato and let that get a bit melty in the latte for what ultimately ended up being a very, very rich “hojicha chocolate milkshake”. So dang good though! The roast and the chocolate were like childhood best friends being reacquainted after not seeing each other for more than a decade. They had both matured in their years apart and had spouses, kids, and office jobs now, but putting them back together in the same room had instantly converted them back to rambunctious eight year olds climbing monkey bars at the park. Fun and spirited!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5RdiYtuAuR/?img_index=2 (2nd Pic)

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECaalhmm2TA

Iced Latte!

Two weeks ago we have a team of people from DT out as Expo West running a booth, and when they came back they were kind enough to give me a bunch of tea samples that they’d picked up from other booths – including a bunch of single serve packets of different matchas from Aiya!

Since this is a cane sugar sweetened matcha without flavouring I decided it would probably make for an excellent matcha latte base, and I was right! I whisked it up with some cashew milk and the tiniest bit of maple syrup and it was smooth as silk with a fresh, vegetal taste and the tiniest hint of maple. So creamy! Definitely a very good cafe-style iced matcha latte.

Honestly, I had a great experience with this one today and bumped my previous rating up a few points. Really tasty!

Forgot to add this morning matcha.

Really leaning on the cut grass flavors on this mixing.

Seaweed and spinach, makes a mild foamy head when whisked with a chasen. Some bitterness on the tongue but not much. It’s a bit one-noted for me but the quality is evident.

Not quite sweet in body but savory when the ratio is correct. Seems like it would make a nice latte, but I would rather enjoy straight.

Clearly we drank a lot of matcha over our trip, but in addition to all of the fun and creative matcha beverages in cafes it was nice to make the time to just drink some proper Ceremonial Matcha. Aiya’s matcha is always impressive, but their ceremonial grade it particular is just very smooth with a really fresh, aromatic floral sweetness to it as well. It was very nice to have something that felt almost “grounding” in between all the packed in days of tasting.

I probably should have tasted this matcha on its own first but it was an older tin so I wasn’t sure if the flavor had degraded at all and I was in the mood for a latte. And I’m generally skeptical of “ceremonial grade” grocery store matcha since it seems like almost every ground tea, no matter how low the quality or if it’s even actual matcha, is labeled ceremonial grade matcha in the US. My skepticism didn’t stop me from rescuing several tins of Aiya ceremonial grade when a local store discontinued it, though.

After going through a pouch of the Jade Lead culinary grade that I probably should have used for baking or something instead of lattes, the Aiya was super smooth. Both in flavor and texture. At least until I got to the lumps in the bottom because I forgot to sift the tea and my milk frother didn’t manage to break up all the clumps. Aside from the lumpy bits in the bottom of my cup, it felt smooth enough to make me think Aiya might grind their matchas finer than some of the other grocery store or budget-friendly brands. There wasn’t really much powder that settled to the bottom of my cup, which also makes me think it’s ground more finely (maybe? I dunno. Chemistry and physics were never my favorite things…but it seems like larger particles would be heavier and more prone to settling out). I made my latte with quite a lot of matcha and no sweetener and there was no harsh bite. I wouldn’t say it’s award-winning top quality but based on my latte experience I think I could probably stand to drink this one straight as “thin tea”. And if not, it’s pretty good as a latte.

137/365

I didn’t have the highest hopes for this one when I opened the sample, primarily because the leaf is really finely shredded, and in that past that’s not yielded good results for me. I was expecting it to brew up very strongly very quickly, and while I like a green with depth of flavour, there’s a line.

Fortunately, I was wrong. It’s actually fairly slow to infuse, although I had to put it in a bag because the leaf was too fine for the holes on my infuser. Possibly that had some effect, because the bags I use are pretty thick. If it did slow things down, it was only for the good.

In the end, I gave this one 2 minutes in water cooled to around 175. It brews up a clear green, and is very vegetal in terms of scent. It’s pretty similar flavour-wise – deeply vegetal in the way of wilted spinach and asparagus, with a mild pepperiness. What I love about this one is how smooth and buttery it tastes. There’s absolutely no bitterness, even though it sits firmly on the savoury side.

If you like a buttery, vegetal green with a lot of flavour, this one’s for you.

Long ago, I found out that my neighbor was using his 30 minute lunch break to come home and let his dog out. Since he lives more than ten minutes from work, well, you get where I am going. I told him that I would be happy to let his dog out to play with my dog so neighbor can have an actual lunch break with actual lunch since I work from home and have more flexibility. For this service that I perform, my neighbor blesses me now and then with something from the store where he works. (I also make home made yogurt for his dog to take her supplements in.)

This week he gave me matcha and a portable essential oil diffuser! What fun!

I wouldn’t have had high hopes for matcha like this, but I saw that the only review was a good one.

Pouring it into my matcha bowl, the powder is deep army green, not as bright and vibrant as my favorites have been. The aroma is quite good, though! When I whisked it up, it did froth, but not as much as Harney’s or DoMatcha. But that isnt surprising since it is really designed to mix without frothing.

Now it is deep green liquor. And the taste is good! Again, it isn’t at the level of Harney’s best but it is easy to drink and I enjoyed it. I imagine that prepared as a cold, shaken matcha it can hold its own with any out there. I will easily finish this over the next couple of weeks.

Ceremonial matcha is always a winner for lattes during the winter

This. Is. Awesome. It’s everything I love about green tea — that seemingly disparate flavors and scents harmonize. Here, a the vegetal quality gets smoothed out by both a velvet mouthfeel and the “sweetness” that good matchas are purported to have. It’s really its own variety of green — lush, wet grass and moss, a hint of seaweed, faint butterscotch, and what I imagine to be dewy tea leaves on the branch. For reference, Aiya says that its Premium Matcha is made from the same gyokuro. The result of processing the tea into matcha powder brings out robust spinach-like aspects, while retaining the sweetness. (I do a “thin” unfroth-y preparation.)

I love both, depending on my mood, but the whole leaves yield such an amazing, bright green liquor and silky smoothness that I reach for this more. It’s expensive, but well worth it. I brew it according to the instructions, which uses a very low temperature and 4 minutes brewing time. I no longer have the tin, so I can’t remember which temp it is, so I recommend following Aiya’s instructions. Hotter temps (165˚F +) ruin this tea with bitterness. And shorter brewing times (1.5-2 mins, as with Aiya’s sencha and genmaitcha) do not bring out the qualities of this precious leaf.

My past experiences with Genmaicha were never really good. I always thought the rice grains were too strong of a taste. But I was really surprised at how good this blend was. First, the matcha makes the liquor a beautiful very vibrant green color. I think the matcha smooths the taste of the rice grains out and turns this blend to have a very light and nutty aroma.