Black Cherry Matcha

WHEEEEEEE!!!!!!! It’s tea day! not like any day ISN’T tea day but today just seems like more than usual. Also, my last note was my 300th tasting note so that’s super exciting. Not nearly as many as everyone else around here but in my head I’m really at 600 since I’ll do one tasting note for 3 cups of th same tea heh.

Anyway still loving this matcha and still REALLY enjoying my morning smoothies. Going to miss having one Friday morning…might have to actually have COFFEE to keep my awake during my all day client visit blech

When I started looking at the Red Leaf Tea website, I drooled over all the dessert flavored matcha. I didn’t give the fruit flavored ones a second glance and really didn’t think I would ever purchase any of them, mostly because I thought I would only be using the matcha for lattes and I just didn’t picture milk and fruity flavor together. I know they go, but I guess my taste buds were being juvenile wanting all the caramel and mocha and pumpkin pie flavors.

Then a couple of people said they swirled the matcha in a water bottle and made a cold drink. What? What! So I tried it with caramel and found that it really does work. On the first sips I thought it was going to taste weak, but the flavor builds and builds. However, caramel is a dessert flavor and I really love it with milk, hot or iced. A lightbulb popped on over my head as I realized that fruit flavored matcha would be most excellent this way!

I was really happy when I saw the Black Cherry flavor go on sale. I got a large tin of it because this is one I think I can entice my son into trying! I ordered the robust flavor level, but I really want to try some of the more delicate flavor levels soon because several people have said they are still plenty strong enough.

You can order it here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/black-cherry-matcha.html

I got the tin because I love the twist off lid. A pop off lid could be a disaster with fine matcha powder, so be careful what you store it in! I have a regular, short tin of green tea from another company with a lid that gets stuck and every time I open it the tea goes EVERYWHERE! You don’t want that to happen with your fine matcha powder!
The Mocha matcha is almost gone, and soon I will have enough tins that I don’t have to order one every time! Then I can afford even more matcha.

As soon as the Black Cherry matcha arrived, I opened the package. The kids sniffed and their eyes grew wide. Cherry candy! The Black Cherry candle from Yankee Candle that my kids refuses to light because they don’t ever want it to go away. What a powerful, sweet, amazing aroma! Not rooibos-y cough syrup, but cherry candy, as sweet as it was when you were seven years old!

I grabbed a teaspoon, scooped it about half full and put it in my bottle. I added less than an ounce of water and swirled and shook it. Then I added cold water to the top and shook it a little again. So 1/2 teaspoon gave me about 15 ounces of drink at least.

Perfection! AMAZING! Fruit flavored matcha, look out! I want all of you! I know my son is going to go wild for this. This is going to be a perfect work-out drink for him, and so easy it is crazy. WOW!

Kind of a sipdown. This package is finished, but there is more in the freezer waiting for me because I got all of the cherry ones to compare at some point and got more of this for that.

Didn’t measure very well because I was just trying to get the stuff out of the tin but it seems to have worked out anyway. I still really really like this, it is my happy matcha. I’m progressing well at work, only 7 matchas left to get through before I can reload.

Third and final matcha of the day. Oh, and I left a bit of french vanilla in my cup earlier and it cooled off and was delicious! Will have to try making them with ice at some point :D anyways, onto this one.

The smell, yes,as DaisyChubb said, is spot on nibs, but leading into a juicier scent of black cherries. But yeah, mostly nibs, now I want nibs!! Haha, so I sifted and whisked 1 tsp of this delicious smelling matcha, which is basic grade, robust flavoring I should add, into hot water and am trying it this way first as per usual. Mmmm the smell is sooo good! I got a tiny bit of that cherry medicine in the smell, but only a bit, and it’s mostly delicious cherries. And as for taste, another delicious matcha! The flavoring is lovely here, nice and fresh matcha with a black cherry aftertaste. I love black cherry ice cream, and this hits the black cherry pretty good, so I can’t wait to try it with the cheesecake or vanilla to add the creaminess! I must say, the fruit matchas are a lot more fresh and natural to me with the matcha, but I really like the dessert ones too. I might add a bit of sugar, as I did with the blueberry, to see if it brings out the cherry a bit more.

Overall, I am really enjoying this one. And hopefully this will give me the kick to continue working on my giant project for my financial class. Another excellent matcha from Red Leaf! :D thanks Sil and ashmanra for the flavor suggestions again!!

ETA: I added a bit of sugar. Guhh. Now this is full on CHERRY. Yess. I cannot wait to mix this with the dessert matchas, as they will provide the perfect sweetness for this one sans sugar. But for now, I will sip this away and be content. :)

Yummeh! Yay for whipped cream, it’s topping all my lattes at the moment. off to work, but here’s my full review, pics, and my crappy response to the fact that I’ve talked to some people who are appalled that you can get flavoured matcha.

Full review: http://www.daisychubb.com/review-black-cherry-matcha-by-red-leaf-tea/

My order came yesterday YAAAY! I mixed it with what was left of my poor cola matcha :D of course the cherry wiped the floor with it but it was the strongest setting so I don’t mind because I still get a bit of cola flavour :D The blackcherry went well with a bit of milk :D

After my peach matcha debacle, I needed something good. So I went for this one. I have never tried it but the reviews are all positive. I have robust flavouring.

The dry matcha smells strongly of nibs licorice. Mmmm. I love nibs.

I made this cold shaken, 1/2 tsp in about 8 oz water with a bit of white sugar.

The taste is surprisingly mild. There is a light taste similar to nibs. But I would describe this one as more black cherry syrup tasting. My grandma makes chokecherry syrup every year and this is almost bang on for what it tastes like. Very delicious. You can taste the matcha but it blends well with the black cherry flavour. I think I will bump up how much matcha I use and see if that makes a stronger taste, but otherwise it is pretty good the way it is.

When my mom was a kid, all medicine was grape flavored. To this day she can’t have any grape candies/sodas/etc, because no matter how well done it is, it reminds her of medicine. I am very much the same way with cherry: anything with real cherries (jam, ice cream, etc) is fine but candy… bleurgh. It could be the best cherry flavor in the world and I by association wouldn’t like it. However, I LOVE black cherries, so I took a risk and got this matcha anyway when it went on sale. As a side note, kids today are lucky: medicines are grape, orange, cherry, even mint! So they can pick the flavor they’ll grow up loathing for the rest of their lives.

My matcha was a small (30g) with the classic matcha base and the delicate level of flavoring. I wasn’t too sure how much I’d like this, so of course I went with the smallest flavor level! Also, it was a stand-alone order that I didn’t have a certificate for, so I kept everything basic. I do have 5 fancier matchas on my kitchen table right now waiting to be tried! But first, me versus my dislike of cherry. Start battle!

Okay, in the pouch this smells really nice and fresh, but I am still getting some weird medicinal vibes. Don’t get me wrong: the flavoring isn’t artificial or medicinal in the least. It’s just my stupid brain! I decided to make this iced in a tall glass of cold water (though I did the hot water + whisking base first along with sugar—what, I like my matcha a little sweet!). I thought this would be the best way to deal with my medicine associations.

Well… it is really good. It tastes like fresh, ripe black cherries. But. Ah, I hate that there’s a but! I am having a REALLY hard time getting over my cherry = medicine thing here. I think iced was the wrong choice, so I am going to go with a latte next time and for now I am holding off on a rating. Because I know this matcha will be fabulous if I just make it the right way! And if you don’t have a secret hatred of cherries you will adore this matcha, I think it’s by far one of the best of their fruit-flavored ones (that I’ve tried, of course!). You can get it here:

http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/black-cherry-matcha.html

Sipdown! Thanks for letting me sample this one, Sil – and those little containers are perfect!

Anyhow, I made up quite the concoction yesterday morning with this matcha. I had about 1.5tsp of it from Sil, so whisked that into some hot milk, and took a sniff… delicious! I was thinking about just making a regular milk latte with it at first (since I don’t have any plain almond milk at the moment)… until I remembered that I had dark chocolate almond milk. Sooooo I made a chocolate black cherry latte. Only problem? 1.5tsp of matcha wasn’t really enough, IMO… so I whisked up another 1-2tsp of cheesecake matcha, plus some caramel matcha (I think… I might have just used cheesecake), and added it in. It certainly looked interesting, swirling dark green matcha liquid into dark brown chocolate almond milk, but it tasted fabulous. Sadly, I forgot to drink most of it, and it ended up being forgetten at my boyfriend’s place… thankfully in the fridge, so I guess I’ll drink it before/after heading to church tomorrow. Yum!

It seems like just yesterday that it was a close race between Pumpkin Pie and Black Cherry for flavor of the week. Black Cherry squeaked by to win, and I happily jumped on the chance to order it. I was a little hesitant, since sometimes cherry flavors can be a little too artificial tasting, but I went with it anyway. As usual, I got the robust flavoring on this with the basic matcha. I took a whiff of the matcha, and I could definitely tell it was black cherry – no question.

This was prepared in a water bottle with 1/2 teaspoon of matcha. I put it in, shook it up, and tasted my beautiful creation.

WOW!! This is really good. I was not expecting much from this matcha, but am happily surprised. This is just as good as Boysenberry, maybe a little bit better. The black cherry flavor is potent, but not overpowering and not too sickly either. No sweetener needed. If you are a black cherry fan, you will not be disappointed. It definitely does not taste like cough syrup. I really want to get some cola matcha and mix this together to see how it would go. I bet it would be delicious.

Definitely glad I decided to take a risk and buy this matcha on sale.

As a reminder, you can buy this matcha here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/black-cherry-matcha.html