This is my first matcha, so I won’t give a score. Many thanks to Lala for sponsoring my first adventures in matcha.
I prepared this in the traditional fashion with bamboo whisk. 0.5 tsp in about 4 oz water.
The strong orange aroma provides a strange contrast to the veggie aroma of the tea. This continues into the taste as well. The two very different flavors never really melded for me. I was a bit shocked at the bitterness, though I recall reading that this is a feature of matcha. There is an acidic component of the finish that I suspect is due to the orange flavor (it seemed like citric acid).
Overall, I wasn’t impressed. That may be the tea or possibly just I don’t like matcha. Lala anticipated this possibility and generously provided a few more samples, which I will review in the next few days.
This matcha was also a classic grade matcha, so it is a much lower grade and may be bitter due to that. It will be interesting to compare this to the ceremonial grade (which should not be bitter at all).