Summer Vacation! It occured to me I still haven’t made any matcha during my “stop” in Japan, so I figured that a matcha latte was in order for my morning tea today. I picked up two flavored matcha latte mixes on the cheap from a past Lupicia mottainai sale, strawberry and caramel, so I decided to go with strawberry. Opening the bag and sniffing, it just smelled like matcha, that sweet grassy scent, perhaps a little sweeter than usual from the added sugar since it’s a latte mix, but I didn’t really notice the strawberry. Ah well. It was mottainai for being on the best buy date at the time, and that wasn’t going to stop me from free tea. I’ll still try it!
The directions just said to spoon whisk two teaspoons in one cup of milk and then microwave it, but I knew I could do better; I put the teaspoons and the cup of milk into my milk frother, pushed the “warm” button, and let it do it’s centrifugal thing. Bing! Matcha. So easy. My big mug holds two cups, so I let it have a second go, too. I use vanilla almond milk for my tea lattes (except for a few rare exceptions where I go with chocolate almond milk or coconut milk instead), and my finished drink now has a noticably sweet strawberry cream aroma.
Mmm. There is a fairly rich matcha flavor here, very grassy that lingers a bit on the back of the tongue. It still has a bit of a bite to it, despite the drink having some sweetener present, so it seems to be a fairly strong matcha. Despite not being able to smell the strawberry in the dry matcha, the flavor of it is very noticable, and pleasant, in the brewed drink. It’s sweet and reminds me less of rich berries and more of strawberry marshmellows or strawberry mochi; a sweet, fluffy-textured strawberry dessert. Pairing with vanilla milk may have something to do with that, giving it a really creamy sort of note. It’s an interesting juxtaposition with the sharper, slightly astringent grassy note of the matcha.
Flavors: Astringent, Biting, Candy, Creamy, Grass, Strawberry, Sweet
