Apple & Pears Matcha

Bird & Blend Matcha Advent Calendar – Day 16

I figured this is a good one to try with water instead of soy milk. Apple and pear sounds refreshing and crisp. So I prepared 1 teaspoon of matcha with 8 ounces of 175° water. I was very surprised by the dark red/brown color! Apparently there’s beetroot powder in here.

Hmm. Well I like the added flavoring in this one. It’s definitely apple & pear candies, with a likeness to green apple Jolly Ranchers. I’m surprised that even prepared this way, the matcha doesn’t have much of a flavor to it. I get a light roasted green tea note that reminds me of bancha. Maybe a little bit of wet grass?

There is a big wallop of bitterness at the end of the sip, though, and some astringency. Unfortunately I don’t really have anything to compare this to, since I generally have my matcha with milk. So I’ll leave off a rating until I try the rest of this one that way.

The Bonne Maman jam for today is Rhubarb (Rhubarbe) spread. I do like rhubarb, though it’s not super common here in the States. My grandmother makes strawberry-rhubarb pies, which is why I’m familiar with it.

This is very tasty though! A nice balance of sweet and tart with a lovely rhubarb flavor. Nom.

354/365

If you’ve seen my photo on Facebook, you’ll know this turns out the most unattractive colour – for a drink – known to man. It’s brown. Beige-brown, admittedly, but still. I wasn’t sure how this one would work hot, so I prepared it as a shot; ¼ tsp whisked into cold milk. Despite appearances, it tastes nice. It actually reminds me of Haribo tangfastics – the apple and pear flavours are super artificial, but I actually quite like it. It’s sweet and candy-like, and (really speaking) not at all like matcha. There’s no hint of green tea here, which is a bonus if strong, grassy matcha scares you. I know it does me.

I had the same problem with this one that I’ve had with most Bird & Blend matchas – it blends well initially, but seems to separate out pretty quickly. There’s also a strong carob flavour, and it has those white flavouring “beads” that confused me so much when I first tried their Salted Caramel Matcha. It’s a little powdery in terms of texture, maybe exacerbated by my preparation method. I suppose in a shot, there’s a fairly high matcha to milk ratio. The quantity of milk would obviously be much greater in a latte.

I’m happy with it on the whole, though. It’s a matcha I can see myself drinking on a morning, and I could do with some of that at the moment!

Had this one on #matchamonday – I just didn’t remember to post it on IG like I usually do. Admittedly, my mind has been elsewhere and I’ve fallen a bit behind on all the fun daily posts/themes here on Steepster and on IG…

I forgot how much I liked this matcha, but it was so fresh and effervescent feeling/tasting! I also forgot that there was beetroot powder in the blend and so when I poured water over the powder and it turned a red brown colour I had a legit moment of panic because why the fuck did my matcha just turn red!?

Anyway – so much crisp and juicy red apple and fresh dewy orchard pear. It was lovely! Yum yum yum. Need to remember to drink this much more often, clearly.