Matcha Outlet

006/365

Made this one up as a matcha shot, with ¼ tsp whisked into whole milk. It was absolutely delicious, and I wish I’d made more! Usually, nut flavours on their own are not my favourite, but this was so creamy it was impossible not to enjoy. It tasted like liquid nougat, or something along those lines.

I should probably point out here that actual almonds are something I quite like, because they have a nutty creaminess all their own, a bit like this matcha. Almond things I don’t enjoy, except in the smallest quantities, are marzipan and amaretto. After more than a mouthful, I find there’s something artificially strong about them, even though I know that’s not actually the case. This matcha is much, much more mellow than either of those, more akin to actual almonds. It’s a strange distinction to make, perhaps, but one I find useful when it comes to almond-based things.

I’m sure this one’s going to work well as a latte, too. Can’t wait to try that!

This obviously isn’t the matcha for me. It tastes too much like strawberry protein powder. The fruit flavour tastes really artificial compared to blueberry acai juice and other acai flavoured teas. I know they do not use artificial flavourings, but it leaves a weird aftertaste. I think I’ll avoid fruity matchas in the future…except peach matcha of course (current favourite).

001/365

In an effort to maintain my current inspiration, I’m going to take a lead from the truly amazing Roswell Strange and attempt 365 days of tea. That should see me through my current cupboard (92, some of them older than I’d like to admit…), and into a whole, joyful world of brand new tea. What’s not to love?

Starting straightaway, as I obviously mean to go on, this is today’s tea. I haven’t had a matcha latte in fucking forever, so it felt good to finally do something other than dump a tea bag in a cup. I used 1/4 tsp of leaf, whisked into about an inch of boiling water, topped up with milk.

To taste, it’s maybe just a little on the artificial side, although mostly it reminds me of the jam you might find in a cherry bakewell. That, and cherry tunes, and maybe carmex. Let’s face it, there’s absolutely nothing natural about this cherry. Having said that, though, I do like it. It’s deliciously creamy as a latte (of course), and it’s got a candy-like vibe going on that suits my mood this evening. There is maybe a touch more grass to the overall flavour than I’d like, but it’s not too obtrusive.

Now I’m thinking of cherry bakewell, and as I also have a sample of Red Leaf’s Almond Matcha too, that’s something that could really happen…

Watch this space :)

fine but smooth

This has become the clear favorite from the three Japanese matcha I have been trying out. Initially I found them pretty close. More tasting is causing the divide between them to grow. I’ve mentioned before almost all my matcha is mixed cold with milk and a little sweetener. I don’t bother with anything above culinary grade because why, and I have used almost exclusively Chinese green tea powder rather than true matcha. Chinese powder is cheap and while not usually tasty straight it does stand up well to mixing. So, here the tea does manage to hold up well to milk while staying very smooth. This has a fresh leafy green taste and a healthy meaty seaweed umami note. It is slightly sweet on its own. I still add sweetener anyway because that’s how I roll. Though I don’t drink it straight regularly it does taste nice to me without bitterness.

I am writing one review for three offerings from Matcha Outlet (formerly Red Leaf Tea). All three are of Japanese origin. All three are culinary grade.

First a little background – I have sampled literally dozens of powder green teas. While I enjoy most tea types, I find I personally have never gotten the matcha bug. I just never crave a bowl of straight matcha. So I am possibly not the best source of guidance on the subject. I do drink a daily cold latte made with milk, sweetener, and culinary grade green tea powder. For the last couple years I have been using Deluxe Matcha which started as a highly floral powder from China. Lately it has become more earthy and far less floral. So, time to see if I want to keep it or find a replacement. On to the review -

All three samples are a deeper green than any Chinese tea I’ve sampled. They are pretty much identical in appearance. All three mix easily and foam well. One thing about the foam, it is a light foam. What I mean is that while the whole cup of tea foams, it is not dense compared to the Chinese tea I’ve been using. No explanation or understanding of why.
I’ve used all three to make multiple lattes and today I made individual cups of straight matcha to try and get a better feel for the differences. I think I have a bit more understanding now. Initial tasting shows very little variation between the three. Really they are very close.

Without knowing the price, my order of preference matched up with cost. That helped reassure my experience with each was at least on the right track. Again these are very close.

The Ryori is like the base model of the three. As a straight cup it has just a small amount of bitter, and is slightly sweet. It is vegetal, green, and seaweed in flavor.

The Haru is step up to my palette. It is more umami in taste. That makes it seem slightly drier. This is more what I expected.

The Oishi raises the bar just a bit higher by being a little more green tasting or possibly it is just a little sweeter while retaining the umami note.

All three are drinkable on there own. That kind of surprised me. Most culinary grade teas are not suitable for drinking straight. What I also notice is compared to Chinese powder, these can easily get lost in a latte. Or probably I just used to a more outspoken variety.

Is this going to be my replacement matcha? All three are as good as and better than most other culinary grade teas I’ve tried. All except the Deluxe Matcha from Matcha Outlet, which I still prefer even if the taste has changed with time. Until DM gets retired I’ll stick with it. If you prefer a more traditional and less floral flavor then any of these will be a good option.

I am writing one review for three offerings from Matcha Outlet (formerly Red Leaf Tea). All three are of Japanese origin. All three are culinary grade.

First a little background – I have sampled literally dozens of powder green teas. While I enjoy most tea types, I find I personally have never gotten the matcha bug. I just never crave a bowl of straight matcha. So I am possibly not the best source of guidance on the subject. I do drink a daily cold latte made with milk, sweetener, and culinary grade green tea powder. For the last couple years I have been using Deluxe Matcha which started as a highly floral powder from China. Lately it has become more earthy and far less floral. So, time to see if I want to keep it or find a replacement. On to the review -

All three samples are a deeper green than any Chinese tea I’ve sampled. They are pretty much identical in appearance. All three mix easily and foam well. One thing about the foam, it is a light foam. What I mean is that while the whole cup of tea foams, it is not dense compared to the Chinese tea I’ve been using. No explanation or understanding of why.
I’ve used all three to make multiple lattes and today I made individual cups of straight matcha to try and get a better feel for the differences. I think I have a bit more understanding now. Initial tasting shows very little variation between the three. Really they are very close.

Without knowing the price, my order of preference matched up with cost. That helped reassure my experience with each was at least on the right track. Again these are very close.

The Ryori is like the base model of the three. As a straight cup it has just a small amount of bitter, and is slightly sweet. It is vegetal, green, and seaweed in flavor.

The Haru is step up to my palette. It is more umami in taste. That makes it seem slightly drier. This is more what I expected.

The Oishi raises the bar just a bit higher by being a little more green tasting or possibly it is just a little sweeter while retaining the umami note.

All three are drinkable on there own. That kind of surprised me. Most culinary grade teas are not suitable for drinking straight. What I also notice is compared to Chinese powder, these can easily get lost in a latte. Or probably I just used to a more outspoken variety.

Is this going to be my replacement matcha? All three are as good as and better than most other culinary grade teas I’ve tried. All except the Deluxe Matcha from Matcha Outlet, which I still prefer even if the taste has changed with time. Until DM gets retired I’ll stick with it. If you prefer a more traditional and less floral flavor then any of these will be a good option.

I am writing one review for three offerings from Matcha Outlet (formerly Red Leaf Tea). All three are of Japanese origin. All three are culinary grade.

First a little background – I have sampled literally dozens of powder green teas. While I enjoy most tea types, I find I personally have never gotten the matcha bug. I just never crave a bowl of straight matcha. So I am possibly not the best source of guidance on the subject. I do drink a daily cold latte made with milk, sweetener, and culinary grade green tea powder. For the last couple years I have been using Deluxe Matcha which started as a highly floral powder from China. Lately it has become more earthy and far less floral. So, time to see if I want to keep it or find a replacement. On to the review -

All three samples are a deeper green than any Chinese tea I’ve sampled. They are pretty much identical in appearance. All three mix easily and foam well. One thing about the foam, it is a light foam. What I mean is that while the whole cup of tea foams, it is not dense compared to the Chinese tea I’ve been using. No explanation or understanding of why.
I’ve used all three to make multiple lattes and today I made individual cups of straight matcha to try and get a better feel for the differences. I think I have a bit more understanding now. Initial tasting shows very little variation between the three. Really they are very close.

Without knowing the price, my order of preference matched up with cost. That helped reassure my experience with each was at least on the right track. Again these are very close.

The Ryori is like the base model of the three. As a straight cup it has just a small amount of bitter, and is slightly sweet. It is vegetal, green, and seaweed in flavor.

The Haru is step up to my palette. It is more umami in taste. That makes it seem slightly drier. This is more what I expected.

The Oishi raises the bar just a bit higher by being a little more green tasting or possibly it is just a little sweeter while retaining the umami note.

All three are drinkable on there own. That kind of surprised me. Most culinary grade teas are not suitable for drinking straight. What I also notice is compared to Chinese powder, these can easily get lost in a latte. Or probably I just used to a more outspoken variety.

Is this going to be my replacement matcha? All three are as good as and better than most other culinary grade teas I’ve tried. All except the Deluxe Matcha from Matcha Outlet, which I still prefer even if the taste has changed with time. Until DM gets retired I’ll stick with it. If you prefer a more traditional and less floral flavor then any of these will be a good option.

Let there be no mistake, this is an old matcha and as such is does taste stale.

With that said, I’m not really opposed to a bit of a stale taste in my matcha – as weird as that sounds. I don’t jive with the taste of fresh matcha as strongly as I think others do, though I don’t mind it. So a bit of an off/faded matcha flavour with the rich raspberry and silky cream notes of this tea are still pretty good in my opinion. Not great – but manageable, and still worth drinking.

So, I felt inspired the other day to do some sort of matcha and white chocolate kind of creation/baking – and I’ve done chocolate covered strawberries before and I just kind of felt like now that I’ve done it it’s also kind of overdone? So what I ended up doing was sort of a “reverse” chocolate covered strawberry – but with raspberry.

If you’re not following; I pretty well melted down two bars of Lindtt’s Vanilla White Chocolate and stirred in a tablespoon of this matcha powder until it was smooth/even and I had a Raspberry and Cream flavoured white chocolate and matcha mixture. Then, I filled the ‘cavity’ of raspberries with the chocolate and let it set. Here are some photos:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeJoMZ6lZf1/?taken-by=ros_strange

They were great though; tiny little morsels of delicious raspberry. You got the sweet, tangy flesh of the fruit first and then were hit with this really velvety, creamy raspberry and vanilla ‘filling’ (of sorts) that kind of offset some of that raspberry acidity. The perfect size for snacking on/just popping a few in your mouth – hard to just have a few and not just plow back a few dozen!

Iced Latte!

This one was really refreshing, with a thick mouthfeel. The flavour was mostly raspberry with a whole lotta creaminess. Not the most natural flavour in the world, but very delicious. I felt like I was channeling serious raspberry milkshake vibes whilst drinking it. Notes of vanilla, as well and a hint of floral in the undertones – probably from the matcha itself. Only downside was that the more I drank the more it started to pick up a bit of a chalky/artificial undertone. The only started being even slightly apparent about halfway through the cup, and never reached a point where it was actually unpleasant; just mildly annoying…

From my last Matcha Outlet order.

I picked this one out because I wanted both fruity and dessert flavour options and this definitely works as both. I’ve never actually tried the Raspberry & Cream flavour but I’ve had the cream versions of strawberry and banana and I really liked both, so I was sure this would probably work well for me too.

I’m trying it for the first time in a breakfast shake; pretty much my normal matcha milkshake recipe, but with a bit less ice cream and some fresh sliced strawberries tossed in as well. It’s not as pretty as the matcha milkshakes usually come out because the red of the strawberries and green matcha makes this gross green/brown colour – but as long as taste is there then that’s all that matters!

- Just a touch artificial/chalky tasting
- I think I was too heavy handed with the matcha
- Otherwise very sweet/creamy with good, bright raspberry notes!
- A touch grassy and floral
- And a slight hint of strawberry

I’ll be sure to try it straight and in just milk as well; I’m very curious to see if that chalky sort of element is the ‘cream’ in the flavour or if it’s just ‘cause I used too much matcha. Sometimes artificial vanilla tastes VERY chalky to me, so I have to at least acknowledge that it might be the flavouring in this even though I’ve never experienced that chalky quality with any of the other “and cream” matcha flavours I’ve tried…

As a Barista, its my go to on a shift. Sugar is already mixed with the powder, so you can’t have a just straight matcha, which is disappointing, but it can’t be beaten on the go.

Mixed in a spoonful of this matcha into my peaches & cream oatmeal that I was having for breakfast because I thought mango/peach/cream sounded really nice – however this matcha is really intense and a bit perfume-y and artificial/chemical tasting in high doses so it basically made my oatmeal taste like mango perfume.

Grroooossssss.

I don’t think today is/has been a good tea day for me – I woke up just slightly nauseous and it’s only gotten worse every time I’ve drank or eaten something new today. It started with a morning latte, but more on that later…

This was what I drank over lunch today – hot, with some added in coconut agave. I accidentally made it REALLY strong because I started measuring out the tea with a matcha scoop the same way that I do for DT’s flavoured matchas and I was three scoops into measuring before I remembered that this is an unsweetened matcha and definitely doesn’t require that much matcha per cup. Oops!

As such, this was harsh on the stomach – especially so since I was already feeling queasy before hand. The mango note was also especially pine-y and really leaned very hard into the artificial and chemical note that this tea can sometimes take on. It was just a bit of a bad cup in general; a combination of bad preparation and not super awesome matcha (kind of because of age, kind of because flavouring…) made worse by feeling shitty already.

One big clusterfuck.

Yesterday was #MatchaMonday so I made sure to start my day with a bowl of it, with some added in coconut milk of course because this tea is just perfect with that addition. It channels serious Mango Sticky Rice type vibes for me when prepared that way, and just puts a whole new, unique spin on it. That underripe/pine like aspect was really strong yesterday too, but the most interesting thing for me (and kind of in a negative way) was that there was this oilyness to the whole bowl in the mouthfeel that I struggled with throughout. I think it was from the milk; though it’s not something I’m used to experiencing when I add milk to matcha so I don’t know know…

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDij1z1A-Ko&index=2&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

When I found this Glass Animals cover I was REALLY into it for like a solid three days; it was like my go to pairing with any tea that was even remotely tropical tasting. I think I’ve made myself incredibly sick of it though; just too much exposure too fast. If I don’t hear it again for another couple of months I’ll be totally ok with that…

From yesterday.

Did this one up in a mix of cold water and coconut milk. I was trying to recreate that sort of “Mango Coconut Sticky Rice” flavour that I love so much, but you know without the rice element of that. I thought I could probably get it close/similar enough for it to be really satisfying though.

It was decently good overall; definitely a mix of mango, coconut, and grass notes. It would have been better with a little bit of a sweet element; as it was it had a bit of astringency/dryness in the top of the sip – a pucker without the sour element, if you will. The mango also has that strong pine flavour to it that I associate with underripe mangoes. I normally like that taste a lot, but I don’t know that it worked with the coconut as much. Mango Coconut rice doesn’t use underripe mango – it’s sweet, often over ripe stuff that’s like dripping with sweet fruit juices. So, it just wasn’t quite the same.

Still pleasant enough though; totally drinkable. I just wouldn’t do this particular milk and matcha pairing again unless I had something to boost the sweetness and sort of replicate that juicy overripe mango taste.

I’ve been getting more into matcha lately; or rather I should say back into matcha…

Anyway, a few weeks ago I placed a matcha order with Matcha Outlet to pick up some new matchas; a mix of new things and things I’ve tried before. This one is a new one – one that I’ve debated getting a few times now, but just been very on the fence about. I really wanted to get more fruity matchas in the mix with my stash though so I went for it.

I should note, I’m writing this review under the “Red Leaf Tea” entry but I bought this one from the newly renamed Matcha Outlet. Since the tea is identical to the RLT version though, and I’m feeling pretty lazy, I’m not making a new entry for it…

I’m trying this one in a shake first; I know I probably should try it straight but I really wanted to make matcha milkshakes and I told my mom she could pick the flavour we used and this is the one she went for. So, oh well…

Shake Recipe:

Half cup of milk
One Banana
One large scoop of vanilla gelato
Two and a half tsp of matcha
Three ice cubes

It did come out a little thin, so if I was to recreate this one I’d probably either add more ice cream or maybe freeze the banana before hand? Something to make it thicker…

Flavour wise, it was delicious though! Very sweet and creamy, with strong notes of both the banana and the mango. I think, had someone been blindly trying this one, it would have been pretty easy to just assume there was actual mango mixed into this and not just the mango matcha. It even had that almost “pine” kind of taste that mango has when it’s just slightly under ripe. I actually love that pine kind of note, even though I’m sure that generally most people don’t like under ripe mango.

More on the particular nuances and flavour notes of this matcha when I inevitably try it straight though; it’s just kind of hard to decipher really fine details in a format like this where you have so many outside flavours adding to what you’re experiencing. It was REALLY good though!

Favorite to grab always

I really enjoyed this, what I would recommend for taste is skim milk or almond milk! Tastes heavenly. Would 10/10 recommend this tea.

fine. but did not get any of the Bavarian cream

I tried to update the Caramel Matcha from Red Leaf Tea to Matcha Outlet but it wouldn’t let me because this tea page exists… So for anyone that doesn’t know Redleaf Tea is now Matcha Outlet they made the change awhile ago. This is really awesome matcha. Nice sweet caramelly goodness.