Disheartened after my first experience with matcha, I did not feel up to writing a tealog for Strawberry Matcha last night. I think I can safely say that matcha is not my cup of tea, which makes me frowny-faced since I was so excitedly looking forwards to this tea arriving and a bit surprised since I’ve more than liked all the other new-to-me tea types I’ve tried.
Sight
Powder: Light olive.
Tea: Dark green, slightly olived.
Smell
Powder: Strawberry marshmallows in kid’s cereal or strawberry Nestle’s Quick.
Tea: Less strong, strawberry flavored syrup (like they use in coffee drinks).
Taste
Powder: (Yeah, I tasted it.) Not much taste, a bit bitter.
Tea: BITTER! Strong, strong essence of green tea, like green tea concentrate. I can catch a hint of strawberry. Not enough to be able to tell if it’s as fake tasting as the smell or if it tastes closer to real strawberries.
I don’t think I’m going to rate this tea. I’m clearly not a matcha fan. So I have no idea how this one would compare against other matchas. And I don’t think it would be fair to rate a tea company badly because I ended up not liking a type of tea I’ve never tried before. I will try it once more to see if it grows on me at all, which I doubt. And I might try latte-izing it like Sophistre did. But I imagine I’m going to be offering the rest of it to someone here on Steepster in the near future.
Edit – I forgot to put in that my preparation method was 1 tsp in 5 oz water.
Preparation
Comments
I find a scoop (about a gram) in 8oz water to be light, creamy, but still a bit grassy and vegetal like you’d expect. Or at least I enjoyed the mandarin matcha that way. It could get a bit chalky in texture if you don’t use enough water.
I just got some of this same matcha the other day, but haven’t prepared it yet. Think I’ll try it tomorrow based on Cofftea’s suggestion.
Matcha is not for chrine. =)
Cofftea ~ If 1 gram is about 0.21 teaspoons, than I used WAY too much matcha. (I know that’s an inexact weight to volume conversion but I don’t have a scale.) So I’m going to try a 1/4 tsp matcha to 8oz water. Possibly tonight after dinner.
I’m still thinking that might be closer to what you drink though? And therefore a better representation to what matcha should taste like than what I did before? It’s definitely quite a bit less than 1 tsp in 5 oz.
This might be a really good matcha to try with yogurt (as Cofftea suggested in another post).
Now… I think I want some Matcha. Two days in a row… hmmm…
LiberTEAS… the matcha flavor in yogurt is very faint so it’s my personal opinion that I wouldn’t want to waste this one.
Don’t feel bad. Matcha is not for everyone.
I find a scoop (about a gram) in 8oz water to be light, creamy, but still a bit grassy and vegetal like you’d expect. Or at least I enjoyed the mandarin matcha that way. It could get a bit chalky in texture if you don’t use enough water.
I just got some of this same matcha the other day, but haven’t prepared it yet. Think I’ll try it tomorrow based on Cofftea’s suggestion.
Matcha is not for chrine. =)
Cofftea ~ If 1 gram is about 0.21 teaspoons, than I used WAY too much matcha. (I know that’s an inexact weight to volume conversion but I don’t have a scale.) So I’m going to try a 1/4 tsp matcha to 8oz water. Possibly tonight after dinner.
Different matchas have different densities so 1g may be more or less of a percentage of a tsp.
I’m still thinking that might be closer to what you drink though? And therefore a better representation to what matcha should taste like than what I did before? It’s definitely quite a bit less than 1 tsp in 5 oz.
This might be a really good matcha to try with yogurt (as Cofftea suggested in another post).
Now… I think I want some Matcha. Two days in a row… hmmm…
LiberTEAS… the matcha flavor in yogurt is very faint so it’s my personal opinion that I wouldn’t want to waste this one.
And plain yogurt is already kind of tart. I think the flavor of the matcha might be lost in vanilla or strawberry yogurt, like cofftea said. Or you’d have to use quite a lot and then you’d be all hopped up on caffeine. Unless you want to be hopped up on caffeine.