Matcha au Lait - Plain

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t pure green tea matcha. It’s the tea mixed with a little sugar. As a result, the powder is noticeably grainier than other matchas I’ve had, with granules larger than even Lupicia’s other latte mixes.

When mixed with milk, it tastes rather like green tea ice cream. Sweet and creamy, but with the slight bitterness of green tea. It’s nice.

The little packet doesn’t make it clear that this has sugar added, though it’s pretty obvious from context and they do include that information in the online description of it. The powder is dull green and clumpier than regular matcha. The instructions are… optimistic. It basically says to combine powder with milk, stir 10 times, microwave, stir 10 times again, and voilà! Admittedly I used oat milk instead of regular, but I don’t think that was the issue. It just wasn’t dissolving well with a spoon. Eventually I switched to stirring with a fork, which helped, but it definitely took more than 10 stirs to get everything fully dissolved. (This was a good reminder that I need to replace our broken frother.) The finished beverage is still a dull green. Not greyish, but definitely more washed out than some of the better matchas I’ve had. I think we can reasonably conclude that this blend uses culinary grade matcha. Which is fine for a latte, I suppose. It’s just sort of generally nondescript. Not bad, just not very interesting. It tastes like every matcha latte you’ve ever gotten from a coffee shop. I can confirm the caffeine content here is pretty high. By the time I was nearing the bottom of the cup, my hands were shaking even though I had recently eaten.

Sipdown! (21 | 295)

So I picked up the autumn sampler pack of these Matcha au Lait mixes at the Lupicia store in Honolulu, because pretty packaging and yay autumn things! It came with plain, caramel, and chestnut flavors. It seems like this plain one is just matcha with some sugar added.

They give instructions for preparing it in the microwave, but I’m not really a hot latte fan these days, so I prepared it iced. I added just enough warm water to dissolve the sugar (which seemed like it was superfine, and dissolved very quickly) and then topped it up with cold oat milk for 150ml of liquid total, and poured over ice.

I’m honestly very surprised at how not-that-sweet it is, especially at this concentration. Every other sweetened matcha I’ve had has been too sweet for me, but this one is actually nice. It’s similar to the amount of sweetener I would add to an iced latte myself.

The matcha flavor is nice and strong due to the relatively small amount of liquid, and it’s grassy with a touch of bitterness at the end of the sip. Nothing amazing for sure, but it makes for a pleasant morning beverage. Excited to try the flavored ones!

It lacks flavor and takes a few tablespoons to actually make anything! I do not recommend this, ever.