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I’m a bit one dimensional with all these matcha tasting notes but seriously – COLD matcha lattes are my new favorite thing. I will be upping both my matcha and my milk consumption because of these beautiful things.

This time I increased the amount of matcha to 2 tsp. for 14 oz. liquid, just to get more of a matcha flavor. I got a really nice sweet caramel and also the vegetal green tea flavor. Ugh. I need to order more matcha. There are so many yummy flavors I want to try!

I’ve done it! The ultimate cold matcha recipe. In a mason jar add the following:
1 tsp matcha, 1 tbsp hot water, whisk.
Then add about 12 oz. milk and some creamer to sweeten, if desired.
Close the lid and shake to combine.

This was so good. The matcha is older but I still got a lot of coffee and chocolate and a cup that was empty far too fast. Next time I may make this a few hours before I want it to let it sit in the fridge and see what happens to the flavoring. But I’m pretty sure cold matcha lattes are my new favorite thing.

Had this earlier in the day to finish up my work week. Prepped with a bit of creamer at the below parameters.
In the past I’ve been kind of meh on this, mostly because of the smoky undertones. Today’s cup was one of the better ones I’ve had- chocolate and some marshmallow and an indistinct smattering of spices, little to no smoke. Occasional sips seemed to pull all the flavors together nicely, with others equally disorganized.
I like chai, and I like the idea of a s’mores tea, but I don’t think the two work in combination. Still a meh, then. Possibly one I’ll give away, should anyone want to give it a try.

Note #700 and it’s a tea I’ve had for a while but never tried.

I think I was just nervous because it had a coffee like scent to it. And well, Dublin cream? It just sounds like it would be coffee-esque. I have an on-again/off- again relationship with coffee and since I’m liking it okay of late I figured I may as well just suck it up and try this for breakfast.

Steep notes: 1 tsp. leaf to a cup, below parameters. Creamer to sweeten.

That creamer really does make it seem like I’ve having a cup of coffee. French vanilla coffee, even. Strange. I did take a sip plain and it didn’t taste like much of anything (vague hints of vanilla at best) so I wonder how much of this is the tea and how much is the additive.

Anyway, I liked this. I just don’t feel like I actually drank tea this morning.

Hmm, for my first steep of a steepster select tea I went with the directions on the packaging. It was supposed to be the equivalent of one serving, right? Because I got two packages of each of the 5 teas and I thought you got two servings of each varietal.

Given my tasting of this I’m not sure though.

It came off REALLY astringent when prepared according to the package directions. There wasn’t really any mint, mayyyybe there was cloves, but no other spices. Just an astringent black tea. It smelled amazing dry – earthy and malty like a strong breakfast black (assam, mainly). But something just gets lost in translation between scent to taste.

I have one more of this to try so I guess I’ll give it a try via Gaiwan and shorter steepings to see if that makes a difference. This one was a meh, though, which makes me sad because it was the one I was most looking forward to out of the box.

The other night I REALLY wanted peanut butter tea. That is so random of me – especially since I’ve never had it before. I think I was just looking at the 52teas website and saw the Chocolate Peanut butter cup tea and the craving just kind of hit me. Oh well. I didn’t have any and it wasn’t like that was going to change so I had to find something else to grab.

Not only did I want a peanut butter tea, I wanted it latte style. So I decided to try a matcha latte cold. Without mixing the matcha in boiling water first. Surprisingly this worked out better than I thought – I figured I’d at least get some clumping but really the mixture turned out quite well. I couldn’t sweeten it (I do know from experience that sugar and cold do not work) but the milk and caramel and richness of the matcha made something decadent and beautiful anyway.

I am really thinking my matcha consumption may go up now that I know I can do this relatively easily the cold way – since I am a huge cold beverage drinker. And they have peanut butter pie matcha…hmm…this might mean some ordering needs to happen soon….

I suppose the fact that I’m still drinking the ORIGINAL pouch of this, some 3 years later, should show you how slow of a tea drinker I am. This is why I cannot have a huge stash of tea – as it is it will probably outlast ME at this point.

That said, I am actually within one to two cups of finishing this. In its heyday, the smell of this was my favorite – custard doughnuts. Now its a bit more chemically, but with the help of some creamer its still quite a strong vanilla tea. I can’t fault the tea for being old, though.

It is my favorite vanilla tea, and one I’m genuinely sad was a limited edition.

Iced this becomes much more fruity and much less caramel. An apple green is essentially what I got, tart and vegetal. Quite refreshing, though I rarely drink iced greens.

Still, I can’t see myself drinking this regularly. But its always nice to try new things – especially in sample sizes!

Steeped some of this hot and set some up to cold brew in the fridge, so I could decupboard the whole sample that I got from Sil a while back. This has been a week of sipdowns, and that is such a good thing!

The main flavors I’m getting here are the tartness of an apple, the surprisingly rich caramel flavor, and then a vegetal green tea beneath it all. I know there are supposed to be a lot of other fruits in the ingredients, but its possible I could have lost them due to scent/flavor contamination from being in a drawer with other teas. That’s the main reason I’m coldbrewing, too – to see if I can pick up on those other flavors with the different brew parameters.

This is really good though I agree that the caramel and apple seem like it would be better suited to a black tea base. Still, it works for my afternoon cup today.

Drank this this morning. Seems like it was a different world then, and it kind of was. This morning there was still snow and ice on the trees – now everything is practically melted away. I’m not complaining…I missed the sun these past few days.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with this tea. Its like I’m expecting it to let me down or just not measure up to the expectations I’ve set for it. And then I smell it, freshly steeped, and I can just feel all my nerves and tensions uncoil. Its nostalgic, though I don’t know what it is, exactly, that I’m remembering so fondly.

This morning I tried it with creamer and the lemon got lost momentarily, but as it cooled peeked out again. Lemon meringue indeed. I love this more and more with each cup.