Two Hills Tea

Into the blender:
1 banana
1 tsp matcha
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 c. milk
5 or 6 ice cubes
Blend. Drink. Yum.

In my opinion, too bitter to drink plain, but it makes a decent matcha latte. I made mine with 1 tsp of matcha and 1 tbsp honey dissolved in 2oz hot water, then added 6oz of frothed milk. Pretty good! But it’s hard to go wrong with that much honey and milk. :)

I’ve had this pouch (sealed) for awhile, so age may have altered the flavour but I’m really underwhelmed by this tea. The amount of the mix they recommend is too little for the amount of water and I ended up adding almost 3 tsp to get it to the point where it didn’t taste like super-watery matcha. Now it tastes like still-rather-watery matcha with loads of sugar added to it and a bit of lemon flavour. I’ll fiddle around with the ratios before I rate this tea but as it stands I’m not a fan.

My friend at work discovered this tea at her local grocery store. It’s actually a matcha latte mix. The cost was extremely reasonable, and it turns out her local store was selling a 100g tin of this mix for a few bucks less than what they are selling it for on the company’s website. It smelled so amazing, and she offered to pick some up for me. The other day, while I was working from home, she told me she put a little present on my desk, and it turned out to be a tin of this! Awesome timing, too, because I still can’t drink hot liquids, so all my black teas are off-limits right now. It’s been really hard! Aaaaahhh! Thank goodness for friends who bring you iced tea!

So, this mix is really delicious! There are even tiny bits of coconut! It tastes like a macaroon! Yum! I made it as an iced latte with unsweetened almond milk. Creamy deliciousness! Having this almost makes me forget about my beloved black teas….well, it really doesn’t, but it does make me feel better!

Shared a bit of this and then decided I needed to try more without reading previous notes. This time around — shorter steep, almost all ginger, barely any leaves — and it’s much more palatable. Very ginger-y, without any bite (odd). Getting zero orange sadly, and there’s barely any puerh in here. Meh. It’s okay. I’ll be okay finishing it, or sharing the rest. Won’t restock.

Quarantined and away from home, so I grabbed some of this from London Drugs, expecting little. I think it should be called Ginger Puer or something along those lines — unsure why it’s called Detox. Anyway…

This is one STRONG tea. Holy moly. Three minute steep (forgot to rinse, and should have), and I’m bouncing off the walls. VERY strong ginger in here, the most bite I’ve found so far. When I opened the bag it looked like powdered ginger with some tea added (seriously) so I knew this would be potent stuff. I still should have rinsed this first, because it’s smelling a bit musty to me. Now, I realize this is a puer, however this isn’t a “good” smell, or one that I normally associated with puer.

Next time: trying it with a shorter steep and a rinse first.

Sip down. This was just too sweet on its own. It’s better cutting it with regular or French Vanilla matcha to kill some of that sugar.

I found this on sale at London Drugs yesterday so I thought I would try it out considering the fact that I a) love coconut, b) have yet to try Red Leaf’s coconut matcha, and c) have also yet to try their matchaccino stuff.

It’s kind of weird to drink pre-sweetened matcha, but in a way, it works. I rarely sweeten my drinks, even matcha, since I find that sweetened soy milk is more than enough. This is too sweet to enjoy with sweetened soy though. Wow. This tastes more sugary than coconutty to me. I think if I had it with cow’s milk or unsweetened soy or almond there would be a better balance.

I’m glad I picked this up. I’ll be an easy one to consume. And come on. Coconut.

A very nice green tea but fussy, definitely time it so you don’t oversteep. Love the freshness and rich green colour.

I made some of this up last night to taste again. I definitely prefer my matcha as a latte, and the lemony flavour doesn’t go with milk. As my package had been open for > 6 months, I decided to throw out what was left.

If you like matcha lemonades, you might like this one. When it goes on sale the price is extremely reasonable, and would be worth picking up to try.

I think I’ll be sticking to plain matcha, and making up my own blends by adding smaller amounts of sugar, and some high quality food flavourings.

Finished the last of this yesterday. 3 tsp with 1.5 cups of So Good soy milk. I really enjoyed this matcha mix, but found it a little too sweet for my liking. Yes, that sounds odd given my massive sweet tooth, but I’m much happier with my matcha from Red Leaf where I can control the sweetness level.

Try #2 this morning: 2.5 tsp of matcha, little bit of hot water to get it dissolved, and 1 cup of 1% milk.

Yup, milk is definitely the way to go. (Or soy, almond, coconut, or rice milks that are unsweetened) I was much happier with my latte today. I downed it faster too so that it didn’t have time to get all cold on me. The only sad thing is that I don’t have any more milk in the apartment :( Now I’m going to have to find something else for my next cup of tea.

As a side note, please read my most recent blog post. It’s not tea related (other than the fact that I mentioned this mug of matcha latte); it’s about the Indigo Adopt a School program to bring books to students across Canada. I’m determined to spread the news as much as I can because I love reading, and I can’t imagine not having enough books in the school library.
http://missmylin.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/adopt-a-school/

I’m so excited! I’ve been wanting to try my hand at matcha for a while now but didn’t know how to get started. Then, I was at Nutters, an organic grocery here in Red Deer, and I found a whole section on matcha. Woo hoo! After spending way too much time reading all the packages, I thought this would be a good starting point.

I love matcha lattes, but they can get crazy expensive at the chain coffee shops. I also love coconut, so the instructions on the back on this bag really appealed to me. Got myself a chasen while I was there too.

I was actually a little nervous while preparing the latte this morning. I really didn’t want to screw up. I don’t have a proper chawan, but I have a wide mouth latte mug so that had to do. Followed the instructions to a tee, using heated So Delicious Original coconut milk.

Wow is this ever sweet! And I like sweet. But this was very unexpected. I checked, and sure enough, the first ingredient in the tea is cane sugar. Plus the coconut milk is sweetened. Gotta remember that next time. The combination of coconut flavour in both the tea and milk is very nice. My latte cooled down super fast though. Not sure I like that. There was a lot of tea accumulated at the bottom of the mug. Does that mean I didn’t whisk it enough? Probably, because it got very grainy near the end of the mug.

I liked this quite a bit, particularly since it was my first time making matcha at home. No bitterness, just yummy tea. Definitely have to tone down the sweetness somehow. I ordered some matcha from Red Leaf last night, so I’ll be able to try caramel and royal matcha soon.

Pepper! Tastes like Pepper! And Green Tea. Description says subtle. NO WAY! Not in the least. I bought in bulk…enough for one cup…glad I didn’t buy more. Not even sure if I can finish the cup.

This tea isn’t awful but I don’t think I would buy it again. The smell before, during, and after isn’t appealing at all.It’s a grassy Celery meets mold smell. It has a nasty after taste but the taste while you are sipping it’s that bad. As you sip it it tastes like Celery primarily with a little bit of nuttiness underneath. Whereas the tea taste itself is doable if desperate I can’t seem to get past the smell and aftertaste…

The best thing about this Tea is the fancy name. Very unremarkable taste, I’ve had better tasting greens from Liptons. Disappointing.