Salted Caramel Matcha

First ever matcha home prepared, I didn’t really get it to foam (too much water and no sieve) and I didn’t really get the salted caramel taste, the seaweedy green tea flavour came through though.

I made an iced matcha latte with lunch today using a sample pack of this salted caramel matcha from B&B. I think I read a bad review or something because I’ve been putting off drinking this one for some reason. Turns out there was nothing to be afraid of! While I don’t taste salt or caramel, it’s really a pretty tasty mix. Oddly enough, it tastes most like chocolate. I guess maybe milk chocolate? It’s very similar to a chocolate milk, heavy on the milk.

sample from VariaTEA – hoped that this one would knock my socks off but it was pretty middle of the road. Not a strong flavour and not really the kind of “caramel” that i really like. Still, was a nice treat to have a latte today with work being just a tiny bit quieter.

I made this by mixing it in warm milk and I feel like I should love it but I don’t. It’s got a custardy taste and mouthfeel and has a burnt sugar vibe to it but I’m just not loving it as much as I hoped. Not sure why but that’s where I’m at with this.

I received this tea as a sample the last time I was in store. I am not typically a matcha tea drinker however that may soon change.
I followed the instructions diligently (especially since I do not have a matcha whisk) and am inexperienced making it.
This tea smelled exactly like salted caramel, so much so you would of thought I had some heating on the stove top.
From the first sip I could taste the smooth salted caramel with a medium strength green tea matcha taste. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. I could taste almost a custard creaminess along with the sweet grassy taste.
I have always loved green tea, and I have enjoyed matcha in things such as cookies, ice cream and oatmeal, but drinking it alone has just never been to my liking.
It was very smooth, and easy to drink. I made it without any milk but if I purchase more I will most surely be trying this as a latte.
As much as I enjoyed this tea, I still believe that matcha is something I can enjoy on occasions, rather than a tea I could have every day or even every week.

This was a free sample in my April order. I’ve never had matcha, so this was interesting to try. I mixed the sample packet with a half cup of hot milk, and I must say that this was not what I expected. It tastes like buttery seaweed. It’s a bit salty as well, but I was not getting caramel. I don’t mind being able to taste the green tea, but the saltiness just makes it taste totally like seaweed, which was not good. I shared it with some family members and they said it tasted like creamy fish. I’ll have to try a better matcha sometime to give it a fair shot.

Holiday Tea-son! This was yesterday’s advent calendar tea, but I had work and don’t really have the time to make matcha before work, so I was saving it for this weekend. I got a migraine at work, my medicine didn’t work, and I just stuck it through like I so often do, so today my migraine is waaaaay worse, so… now I am home with a migraine, and am making matcha in one of the brief moments I am awake to force food into my overly-nauseous stomach that doesn’t want food. Meh.

Prepared as a latte with vanilla almond milk, using my milk frother for all the wisking, because I am lame.

It smells nice; surprisingly does have that salted caramel aroma, usually when I see teas marketed as such, they tasted caramelly, but never like salted caramel and then I get underwhelmed. This at least has the aroma right, if nothing else. The flavor… yes, I’d say that is probably more on spot to salted caramel than any other tea I’ve tried with that name before, so I’m impressed! It’s sweet and creamy, and again, very light on the actual matcha flavor, though I am getting a very subtle grassiness from this one, sort of as an aftertaste, beneath the caramel flavor.

Bird & Blend Matcha Advent Calendar 2023 – Day 5

This one is just not my favorite. I’ve had it several times over the years, and still I just find the flavoring to be a bit much. Not only is it quite strong, but it’s also very buttery, and the whole thing is just over the top to me. Plus there’s also cocoa powder mixed in, which diminishes the matcha flavor even more in comparison to the caramel.

Still enjoyed my iced latte, just not as much as the other flavors. :)

315/365

Latte! I’ve been waiting for the autumn before breaking this one out, and since it’s pretty much here I figured I could finally give in. This one’s a blend of matcha, cocoa powder, and “natural flavouring granules” which are tiny white beads. They worried me to begin with, then I decided they might be salt, and then I finally looked up the ingredients are realised it was all good. I whisked my ¼ tsp into about an inch of hot water, and initially it works up quite an inky shade of black. I guess that’s the cocoa powder! I topped it up with boiling milk, at which point it turns an intriguing shade of grey. Fairly unusual in tea, but I it would make a good Halloween offering!

So, anyway. It smells delicious – like chocolate and caramel. It tastes pretty good, too – not nearly as intense as it smells, but getting there. It’s quite salty, which contrasts well with the sweetness (I clearly have a talent for stating the obvious, since that’s the whole point…) but the salt does linger just a little too much for my tastes. The caramel is nicely prominent, the chocolate definitely a secondary flavour, and the green tea remains firmly in the background. It more than lives up to its name, though, and on the whole I’m happy. I could take a bit less salt, simply because it’s the last thing I can taste and it builds up a little too much with successive sips, but that’s just personal preference. I’d happily drink this one again – it’s a desserty wonder!

Latte!

This definitely tastes like caramel – it’s very smooth, and rich and has a great creamyness to it that definitely gives me dulce de leche crossed with those tiny cube shaped convenience store caramel vibes. You know, fancy/elevated caramel meets nostalgic caramel of your childhood. I can’t help but compare this one to Red Leaf Tea’s very popular caramel matcha and maybe it’s because I haven’t had the RLT one in AGES but I think I prefer this one? It’s not as over the top sweet to me, while still having a very accurate/authentic taste.

The trade off here, though, is that as much as I enjoyed the caramel notes of the tea I didn’t get ANY semblance of ‘salt’ in the taste – and this is supposed to be salted caramel, after all. But if you can get over that small miss, I think that as a whole this blend is a total winner.