Tag: Green Tea

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Whisk Premium Matcha’s Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha

Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha by Whisk Premium Matcha
Green Tea (Matcha) / Straight
$45.00 for 30g

Whisk Premium Matcha has provided me with Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha came in a sealed, resealable, foil pouch. The front of the package gives a bit of information regarding the flavour profile (baby vegetable, young bamboo), as well as the fact that this matcha is from a first harvest of handpicked tea leaves from a single cultivar.

Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha is from organic tea farms located in Uji, Kyoto, Japan and is a 100% pure, organic matcha. The colour of the matcha is amazing – the green is so vibrant and bright. I find that it has a slight vegetal aroma that reminds me a lot of raw bok choy with slight mineral undertones.

Unsifted Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha.

Preparation

There were no preparation instructions on the packaging, but Whisk Premium Matcha’s website has a Matcha Preparation page. I used 2 bamboo scoops of Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha and sifted it into my bowl. I used 175°F (79°C) water and whisked the matcha in an M motion until there was a layer of bubbles.

Sifted Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha.

First Taste

Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha is such a vibrant green, it’s almost unreal. I took a sip after whisking this matcha and found it had a beautiful light sweetness to it. The flavour reminds me of dark leafy vegetables (spinach, Shanghai bok choy, gai-lan/Chinese broccoli) – it just had that familiar bite to it. There are some definitely strong grassy notes and lots of umami flavours to it. A lot of the time, especially for green teas, I find that the umami to be a bit strong for me, erring on the heavily salty side but the umami that I taste in the Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha is well-balanced with the lighter sweetness that’s also present – which just made it very pleasant. I found that Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha has a lovely smooth texture to it. I had this matcha straight.

A Second Cup?

As matcha is a suspension, there was no second steeping since it was all used up in the first whisked bowl (and went into my belly!).

My Overall Impression

I loved Whisk Premium Matcha’s Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha. I found that the flavour profile was well balanced and quite complex. The subtle changes from grassy to vegetal to grassy again, with strong umami notes that were balanced against the gentle sweetness that I found in this matcha was a delight for the taste buds. I find the steps of whisking matcha to be really relaxing, so that was a nice added bonus of trying out the Ultra-Premium Organic Ceremonial Matcha – it put me in a good mood prior to drinking it.

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DavidsTea’s Grand Cru Matcha

Grand Cru Matcha by DavidsTea
Green Tea (Matcha) / Straight
$24.98 for 50g

First Impressions

Sometimes I like to pat myself on the back for actually remembering to post about matcha on a Monday for #matchamonday – although I am aware that I may be the only one who cares about this. Grand Cru Matcha from DavidsTea is one of the pricier matcha options from this Canadian tea company, I actually got mine through the Frequent Steeper program ($100 in purchases → 100 points → 50g of any one tea, with some exceptions).

Grand Cru Matcha comes in a sealed, resealable foil bag. Because it came with an online order, instead of me going out to the closest local retail location, it came with a coloured printed label. Grand Cru Matcha is a lovely bright green powder, it has a strong grassy aroma to it. This straight matcha consists only of matcha green tea from Nishio, Japan. A little internet search tells me that Nishio is the largest producer of matcha in Japan.

Preparation

The packaging for Grand Cru Matcha recommends steeping tin hot water, and preparing with a whisk. On the product page of DavidsTea’s website, the recommendation is to whisk the matcha with 75°C (170°F) water. The lowest temperature my Breville IQ Kettle goes to is 175ºF, so I allowed the water to cool for approximately 5 minutes before whisking.

First Taste

How I typically prepare matcha is to sift the powder, and then whisk with a small amount of water. After it’s well whisked with a frothy top, I add water to thin it out since I don’t like my matcha too thick tasting. When photographing for this review, I forgot to take a photo of the matcha when it still had to froth, so instead I have a photo of after adding water to thin it out.

Grand Cru Matcha is a darker green once whisked. The aroma from the matcha is mostly grass with some vegetal notes. The flavour of Grand Cru Matcha is a mix of salty, grassy, vegetal flavours (reminds of me spinach, to be honest!), with some umami notes. There’s a pleasant smoothness to this matcha that makes it goes down easy.

If you’re not a fan of the umami/salty notes, you can always add a bit of sweetener when turning this into a matcha latte. I’ve also seen some posts online about mixing Grand Cru Matcha with some lemonade for a bit of a summery drink!

A Second Cup?

Grand Cru Matcha, like other matcha, is a suspension, so there are no repeat steeps!

My Overall Impression

I loved DavidsTea’s Grand Cru Matcha. There was something zen-like about the process of me preparing this matcha, and then drinking it was a little adventure in itself. I love the act of sifting and whisking matcha, it’s just a lot more involved than simply steeping a cup of tea – although there’s nothing wrong with that either. Grand Cru Matcha has a lovely flavour balance of grassy, umami, and vegetal notes that I think a lot of people who enjoy matcha would like. It is on the pricier end of DavidsTea’s tea selection, so it may be a good idea to get to a store to get a smaller amount or use a redemption reward on it!

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Woash Wellness’s Revive

Revive by Woash Wellness
Green Tea / Flavoured
$12.50 for 40g

First Impressions

I was first introduced to Woash Wellness via Instagram, prior to the launch of their teas in the autumn of 2018. I got to meet Cassy of Woash Wellness at the 2018 Vancouver Tea Festival, which was pretty neat. After following her account on Instagram and seeing all these beautiful teas, I got to sample them before buying them. I often find it a struggle to decide if I want to buy online based on a photo or a description because so much of what I love about tea and tea drinking is the aroma and the taste of it – that’s why I always try to do my best to describe the flavour profile of any tea that I’m reviewing.

Revive is one of the teas that I bought directly from Cassy of Woash Wellness. The tea blends from Woash come in this fun, dark blue pouches – they’re sealed, resealable and the labels have all the necessary information regarding steeping instructions and ingredients. Revive is described as a tea meant to help the morning-after a fun night out, if you know what I mean… The first thing I noticed about Revive is the strong smell of ginger. Ginger is a very overpowering ingredient at the best of times, and it’s definitely very strong here. I can also smell the lemon and a hint of the green tea base.

Revive consists of: sencha green tea, ginger, milk thistle, lemon peel, ginkgo, and calendula. All of the ingredients are very much visible, and I didn’t even have to shake up the pouch – I don’t think a lot of settling has happened with this blend for me.

Preparation

Woash Wellness recommends steeping Revive at 175°F (80°C) for 3 to 4 minutes. Because of the green tea base, I followed the steeping instructions and opted to keep my initial steep of Revive at 3 minutes.

First Taste

Revive steeps to a pale yellow-green colour. The aroma is primarily that of the ginger, which isn’t a very big surprise considering how prominent it was in the dry leaf. There’s a light sweetness to this tea, and I found some mild umami notes from the sencha. I noted that Revive does have the nice warming qualities from the ginger, which makes it very pleasant and would also serve to help settle the stomach while well if you were to drink this while hungover or with an upset stomach of other origins. I like how the ginger is balanced against the sweetness and the umami qualities of this blend so it wasn’t just ginger that hit me in the taste buds.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Revive two times, adding an extra 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the flavour was quite comparable to the initial steep for the first resteep and still had a good amount of ginger flavour. The second steep was a bit watery in comparison, so I would recommend keeping Revive to just one more steep – unless you had a little bit of fresh or dried ginger on hand to help boost the flavour a little bit.

My Overall Impression

I loved Woash Wellness’ Revive. I’ve been in quite the ‘ginger’ kick lately and I think this just really worked for me. I didn’t drink it while hungover, but I do like the effects of ginger on the stomach – it’s such a great ingredient that really does help to settle stomachs and just really works in warming you from the inside out, a fantastic quality in a tea that I’m drinking when it’s -2°C outside (that’s below freezing for my friends who use Fahrenheit…). I really enjoyed how well balanced the sencha green tea was with the ginger – I was expecting the ginger to overpower the green tea and was really happy that this was not the case. While I do wish that the lemon was more prominent, I do understand that it was competing with some very strong flavours in the blend but I like to think that the lemon did attribute to the sweetness that I found in my cup.

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