Momo Tea

OK, so I’m officially catching up on tea reviews, I guess. Picked this up at the Toronto Tea Festival (boy, was THAT whole weekend a blast!) and just started digging into it recently. The flavoring is a bit overpowering when you first open up the bag, kind of astringent with a super strong apple scent, but I think it makes the taste hold up well after brewing. Just don’t get your nose too close to the bag! Super fresh apple and green tea flavor, which makes a nice pairing. I manage to get 3 infusions (one minute each) out of this, which I think is amazing for a flavored green tea.

#mugtober

I picked this one out for the “sweet and sour” prompt. Yuzu alone fits that pretty well, but I thought sencha was a nice person nod to the prompt in the sense that it’s something that’s typically a negative (or “sour”) experience for me but, in the case of Momo’s blends, something nicer/sweeter. This was a good cup too. Grassy and oceanic up front but with that brighter, almost sunny citrus note to freshen things up and balance out the umami.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0hdBnCfTIQ

Iced!

I don’t typically drink sencha at all, but I make an exception for Momo’s flavoured sencha blends. With that said, when I have them chilled it’s usually cold brewed and not iced. So making this one iced actually put me a little outside of my comfort zone in terms of beverage prep. I wasn’t sure exactly how much tea leaf I should go with or time I should steep it for to hit my sweet spot when it comes to the intensity of the oceanic/grassy flavours. Basically, I’m trying to minimize how forward that taste is.

Ultimately I think I landed on a good leaf amount (about 4 tsp for a 16 oz iced tea) but I do feel like my three minute steep time should have been a little shorter as the final brew was very grassy and buttery without as much of the bright, zesty yuzu. I have no qualms about the quality of the final cup – it was smooth and I think to a bigger green tea fan it would have been quite refreshing. I just need something a little more scaled back for my own tastes.

oday seemed like a perfect day to enjoy some kōridashi (aka “ice brewing”), so I’ve got some tea all set up and steeping!! The wait is the hardest part, but when I’m finally able to enjoy my first sips of that silky smooth green tea with the pop of bright and citrusy yuzu top notes it will be well worth it!!

For my tea friends who more frequently brew kōridashi style tea, have you ever tried it with tea types other that green teas? I’ll be the first to admit this is a method of brewing I’m less well versed in, and I’ve really only ever seen it done with Japanese green teas. However, as most of y’all know, I don’t exactly drink a lot of those – so I’m just wondering before I go and get too experimental if anyone has had success trying a something else!!

EDIT: And, once all the ice had melted, it sure enough was a ultra refreshing and velvety smooth brew with that perfect sunny and complex yuzu citrus flavour. So good!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5tNkN1Oe5X/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUw3LPM7OBU

Made this at the start of the weekend!

I was craving a deeper grape type of flavour, and I almost went for DT’s Galactic Grape since that’s been a summer favourite this year. However, I really needed caffeine so I opted for this blend instead. It did make me realize just how few grape teas I have in my stash, though. I mean, ultimately I did still have options but it wasn’t like I was drowning in them. Anyway, I kept my water temperature cool and the steep time short and I was rewarded with such a smooth, rich grape flavour. Very coating, with just enough natural sweetness to it to satisfy that craving I’d been experiencing. I don’t love a lot of sencha, but something about Momo’s is just… chef’s kiss.

Though I notoriously am not a fan of straight Japanese green teas like sencha, I did end up buying two from Momo Tea. I’m only half surprised though – I was super impressed by them at last year’s Toronto Tea Festival. They seem to be only of the only sencha dominant blends that I not only tolerate but actually really enjoy.

I think this one is new and I don’t recall it at all from last year. It’s a grape flavour, and let me tell you that the grape stands out! It’s somewhere in between a more sweet purple grape and a floral leaning muscatel grape. Very Japan-coded interpretation of the flavour, which I say in the most complimentary way and which of course also obviously makes sense because Momo specializes in Japanese teas. Just sweet and bright enough without being in that candy/sugary zone. And the sencha itself is very smooth and buttery, and makes for a great canvas to the flavour!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/C2s0PrrOpqr/?img_index=1 (Fourth Pic)

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfPkl7lol7g

Sipdown (2184)!

Yesterday I finished off a sample of Momo Usucha, aka “thin matcha,” that I received from Momo Tea at TO Tea Festival this past January!! It whisked up a beautiful bright green with a thick layer of froth, and a perfectly rich and velvety mouthfeel! In addition to a beautiful umami flavour I found this matcha to be particularly creamy with notes of freshly churned butter complimenting the notes of fresh, leafy collard greens and snow peas. So tasty, and perfectly evocative of the Spring!!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrtxABeI3Ze/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewE4qzvWEGY

Started my morning with this tea because I was feeling something light and summery. As someone who has historically really struggled with sencha forward tea blends, this was probably one of my favourite discoveries from Toronto Tea Festival at the start of this year! It’s become one of a veerrrryyy small club of green tea blends I drink on a regular basis. The green melon flavour is just so dang good, and the green tea so smooth!!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv-rPisuJ3g/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUjuTzTeDk8

Geek Steep S3E3 – Star Trek: The Next Generation

Yes, I am behind on my Geek Steep tasting notes again as is perpetually the case this past year. I guess one perk of that is that I’m not spoiling the episodes and/or my pairings for anyone listening biweekly?? Sure, lets go with that.

This is the tea I drank while we recorded the episode. I don’t drink sencha. It’s just, like, not my thing at all. In fact, it’s one of my least favourite tea varietals out there. So, I mean, talk about ‘boldly going where I haven’t gone before’. I had a chance to sample it at The Toronto Tea Festival though and my mind was blown and my biases challenged. I mean, Momo definitely does have a very positive reputation and I was not ignorant of that. A lot of my IG friends who don’t typically touch flavoured teas seem to include Momo as a rare exception to that rule, so I did expect quality and quality is what I got.

The sencha is smooth and buttery but not aggresively oceanic, and it creates a very light canvas for a truly PHENOMENAL green Japanese-style melon flavour that wins me over every time I make this tea. So, I just kind of wanted to give both the tea and the company some love on the podcast.

Like sweet green melon candy from Japan. Still so crazy to me just how much I love this sencha blend! It feels very atypical for me…

Just a touch over brewed on my part which brought forward a little of the more spinach-y and oceanic notes of the sencha, but ultiamtely was still very enjoyable with that sweet and creamy Japanese/white apple flavour. Like a fuji apple, I guess? Subtle floral undertone too. Even with the overbrewing I found myself wishing I had made a larger mug of it.

This week I really did my best to indulge any tea craving I had given that starting tomorrow a lot of my tea drinking will be dictated by advents. I was really feeling something sweet and apple-y and this tea definitely fit the bill. I’m not sure if an apple flavour of Hi-Chew exists, but this is exactly the style of apple flavouring I’d expect one to have. Mmmm!

Cold Brew…

Ooohh boooyyy I have a lot of feelings about this tea. As some of you know, Sencha is notoriously one of my all time least favourite kinds of tea. So, when I was at the Toronto Tea Festival and saw Momo’s booth I was very tempted to just totally skip over it. All they were sampling was their sencha line and I just was so confident that I wouldn’t like it. However, that felt so strongly against the spirit of what the festival is supposed to be so I tried a couple samples and they were damn good. So good, in fact, that I bought a bag of two out of the three teas I sampled – including this one, which is apple flavoured.

Knowing how refreshing a good green tea can be when cold brewed, that how I decided to take this tea for a spin with my first at home tasting. I’ve been sipping on it throughout the whole day today and I think I’ve said under my breath “Damn, that’s good!” immediately after having a sip about five or six times now. I don’t know who I’m talking to; I guess my hamster!? It’s just so refreshing and nostalgic that I can’t help but vocalize it.

I think the best way to describe the taste is somewhere between a really good glass of apple juice and the more distinct and sweet taste of a Japanese apple candy. I say Japanese very specifically too, as they use a different flavouring than what’s commercially used here in North America – it’s harder to call it specifically red or green apple because it rides the line of sweet and tart so well, while also having a floral characteristic to it that isn’t prevalent in North American candy. So I guess the TLDR of that is that it’s simultaneously very natural and more candy like, and also not overly sweet or tart – with some floral elements.

The green tea base is also just so crisp and clean finishing – a little grassy and a bit umami but not the kind of ocean bomb or awful lawn clipping notes that I negatively associate with Sencha. It’s medium bodied and just a perfect back drop to the apple notes. On a sweltering hot summer day this would be a killer drink.

What I have noticed about Momo Tea’s flavoured sencha is that you can definitely still taste the earthy undertones of the sencha, and the flavourings that Momo adds to the tea are actually very mild!

When I first opened this, it reminded me of nail polish remover. Like an alcoholic, chemical scent. But I expected this to smell like bright and citrus. However, after it steeps, this alcoholic smell calms down and I was left with a pleasant light citrus note.

I have never had yuzu before; however, in this tea it tastes slightly like a cross between an orange and a lemon. But the prominant note in this tea is still the earthy, slightly bitter sencha.

My package of momo tea is finally here! To be honest, the way the teas were packaged was slightly disappointing since usually my tea mail comes in a cardboard box, however, these teas were stuffed inside a envelope. So, some of the teas were crumpled when I opened them, but otherwise, everything came out fine and I would still recommend ordering from here! :)

Smell: This smells exactly like a green apple jolly rancher. It has a strong, artificial apple scent that is not unpleasant in any way. However, after it has steeped, the smell has mellowed out a lot and it tastes like a natural, juicy green apple.

Taste: I am not sure if I made this properly. This is some good quality sencha! You really only need a little bit to get a full-bodied flavour. I think I put too much leaf, so it tastes bitter and astringent. However, I think this is a problem that can easily be remedied, and I look forward to trying it again with less tea leaf this time.

For this tea, you can definitely still taste the sencha. However, it also has a very slight and natural green apple taste which I find pleasant.

Not usually a genmaicha person, but this stuff is incredible

Woke up with a massive killer migraine. In mulling over all potential causes, the final possibility was not having drunk enough tea. Ah, maybe that’s it.

I bought this tea at the tea festival here at the end of January. The first several times I had this, I really quite enjoyed it: classic genmaicha. Today, however, I dipped further into the bag, so my dry leaf was far more powder tea and far less roasted rice. Then, despite aiming for a very brief steep, my steeper clicky thing got stuck and didn’t drain properly or quickly enough, resulting in a far longer than optimal steep. So, today, the tea is too strong and a bit bitter. Not the tea’s fault.

My migraine seems to be slowly subsiding. I hope. If so, despite the bitterness, it’s a win.

I will refrain from rating.

Later in the day reflection…
I think I had used far too much leaf when I made this tea today, owing to the fact that it was mostly tea powder and few rice grains. That and the prolonged steeping time resulted in a poor-ish first cup. However, steeping two and three were lovely.

Beautiful rich dark green leaves when dry. Changes to medium green spinach-looking leaves when steeped.

The infusion is a light but very green colour, rather than the yellow green we normally see with senchas and Chinese green teas.

Flavour reminds me of sweet grass, with only a hint of dryness at the end. Very refreshing yet still warming in this weather. I would like to try it cold brewed as well in the summer – wonder how that would taste.

This was a sample but definitely putting this on my want list.