I may have mentioned on here before that my first experience with matcha was not a positive one. We had bought a pouch of matcha from a tea store that shall not be named, and Missy spent some time looking around on the internet figuring out exactly how much matcha to use for a cup of tea. Needless to say, it didn’t go terribly well. I took one sip, looked at Missy, and said “Are you serious, you actually want to drink this?”. Except it also involved swearing.
I put my interest in matcha on a back burner at that point. Maybe it was something a future, more refined me would enjoy, but definitely not today.
Then, Red Leaf Tea started showing up and making a huge effort to bring in new customers from Steepster. Reviews started popping up about their fantastic matcha, and the awesome flavors that they have. When the Belgium Chocolate Matcha went on sale, I knew it was time to give matcha another try. I figured, if I can’t enjoy half-priced, chocolate flavored matcha from what appears to be the best matcha vendor around, there was probably no hope.
My order options were:
Size : Small
Matcha Quality: Royal (Premium Grade)
Flavor: Distinctive
A side note: I involved two variables here, which breaks my little scientist heart. However, I thought that the best chance to succeed here would be if I used a better grade matcha, and a more prominent level of flavoring.
For preparing this one, Missy used her battery-powered frother, as opposed to the traditional matcha tools. It may be bucking convention, but it really seems to create a nice, smooth evenly distributed cup of matcha. This resulted in a smooth, but murky jade green drink, which is significantly darker than the matcha-that-shall-not-be-named. This makes it obvious that there is true cocoa powder in here, as opposed to just a flavoring (unless there was a flavoring and a coloring, then all bets are off).
It definitely smells very chocolatey, very sweet without any sugar added. It reminds me of a chocolate cake batter, or possibly muffin batter. There’s the chocolately sweetness to it, but the hint of background… well, I suppose it’s the smell of the matcha itself. Anyway, the matcha smell in the background elevates it a little bit to a baked-good smell, at least for me.
The taste is very smooth. At first, it has a warm hot cocoa flavor to it, absolutely delicious. It is inviting, and comforting, with a subtle sweetness on your tongue (much more subtle in taste than in smell). To me, the first drink was overwhelmingly cocoa flavored, with no vegetal taste to betray the matcha lurking below. Each successive drink makes that matcha flavor come out a little bit more. There is a strangely beneficial aspect to this, and that is that the matcha flavor itself slowly builds on you. It’s very crisp and clean, lightly foresty but without that swampy, seaweed taste that some green tea comes with.
As you get to the end of the drink, there is some matcha that has settled towards the bottom. This is likely because I’m a little bit of a slow drinker, sensitive to hot liquids and such. Or, we really have no clue what we’re doing. Always a possibility.
All in all, I would definitely recommend this matcha, especially if you’re new to the world of matcha. It has renewed my faith in matcha as a viable beverage choice.
You can get it here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/belgium-chocolate-matcha.html
Now… to mix it in with a protein shake in the morning…
10:30pm for lunch? Haha, better late than never I suppose! :)
Well I was in class and then went to the gym and it all sorta worked out that lunch got pushed back. I don’t usually go to bed until 3:00 am so I suppose my schedule is just shifted to be later than everyone elses :P
Lol, I know the feeling – I went a few summers being nocturnal when I was younger. It was fun at first, but then I started getting so lonely being the only one awake!
Haha. This schedule is going on almost 5 years now :P. I even refuse to take classes that are earlier than 11:30 (and even those are avoided if I can) so I can sleep in.
It is so hard to adjust the sleeping schedule eh? I’m not a morning person either. Classes before 10:30am are the devil.
I have lucked out and been able to avoid them for the most part of school. My roommate, on the other hand, is not so lucky. We actually figured out that this semester she wakes up 2 hours after I go to sleep.
I will say though that if I am getting paid, I do wake up early. In fact, when I was working retail I would prefer to go in for 7 am and get 2 hours, customer free, to do stuff than to go in for 9 am.
Haha. I only took classes if they were a) not too early and b) not on Fridays. But I hear you on being paid being a motivation to get up early, although these days, I’d ditch the money for extra sleep. But here’s to messed up sleep schedules!
haha keychange, guess who also has avoided Friday classes :P. My weekend has already begun. Plus Monday’s earliest class is 2:30 so no fear of having my weekend ruined by having to be up early the next day.
I feel so sorry for your roommate, VariaTEA! I’m so glad I have a flexible work schedule. As long as I get everything done I need to, I can work pretty much whatever hours I want. Earlier is better for productivity, but I love being there after everyone’s gone home for the day. :)
I had a friend who was an English major with a math minor. She was very nocturnal. So she would go to her Afternoon and Evening English classes, stay up all night than go to her am math classes then return home to sleep.
I was doing that at one point. Classes in the morning, nap, go to work, nap, etc. I couldn’t do that now though. O.o