I’ll start off by saying that I’ve managed to have only good experiences with matcha, despite being pretty skeptical at the beginning. When I heard that Red Leaf Tea had flavoured matchas, I was so excited! I knew right away that I was going to order mango matcha- http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/mango-matcha.html – my favourite fruit (possibly my favourite food). The hard part was deciding what else I would order! I waited impatiently for my order to arrive (which it did, quite a long time ago…I have not been good at keeping up with my postings!) and as soon as they arrived I ripped open the mango pouch!
My one disappointment was that the pouch that the matcha came in was sealed at the very top, unlike the pouches that I’ve had from Davids Tea, which have about a half inch of extra pouch at the top of the seal. This sounds like a strange thing to be disappointed with, but I definitely struggled to smell the contents without getting the powder all over the place! Needless to say, I very quickly transferred the contents to a tin.
The smell of this tea is wonderful. It smells like fresh mango juice. I would describe it as a very clean and refreshing smell, which is how I feel about most matchas. I will also say that I had no issues with clumps. I have been very careful to check the temperature of my water before adding it to the tea, and so far have not had any bitter disasters. The mango matcha has a grassy sweetness that definitely keeps the mango taste. The actual flavour isn’t as strong as the smell, but I think that it would be overpowering if it was. I love this both hot and iced, which a slight edge going to the iced version. I haven’t tried it yet in a smoothie, but I am thinking it would be fantastic. I did try adding a bit to some yogurt, and it was almost perfect – this was the only time I had clumps, but I also wasn’t very patient trying to mix it all together. I’m sure it would be good with other types of foods too – I keep seeing recipes for cookies and cheesecakes and such, but for me that defeats the purpose a bit of trying to drink healthy teas. I wonder though what mango matcha ice cream would be like….I am thinking very refreshing! That might have to happen.
I’ve been using my frother to whisk my matchas for the last few months (they actually work pretty great), but I felt like I was cheating. I looked at DavidsTea and on amazon for whisks, but the price was enough for an awful lot of tea…so the frother stayed. The mango matcha is only the third kind I’ve tried, so I really don’t have much skill whisking anyway, but I am happy to say that I was able to get what looks like exactly the same whisk as at DT this weekend for only $4! I was amazed but very happy. You know what that means…more matcha is in my future!
