Tag: Matcha

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Lotte’s Green Tea Choco Pie

Green Tea Choco Pie by Lotte
Green Tea (Matcha) / Dessert
$4.99 for 336g (12 pcs)

First Impressions

Full disclosure, I was given a Green Tea Choco Pie by a coworker at work and told her that I needed to know where to get more. At which point, she pointed out that my favourite Asian grocery store had them (very conveniently in the aisle next to the tea aisle). And at the price of $5 for a box of twelve, it makes for a nice little snack.

The Choco Pies come individually packaged in foil packages, clearly labelling what’s inside. Each Choco Pie is 28g. Each Green Tea Choco Pie consists of: sugar, wheat flour, corn starch syrup, shortening, vegetable oil, mixed milk powder, cocoa powder, D-sorbitol, glycerin, ethanol, lactose, glucose, gelatin, liquid whole egg, salt, sodium bicarbonate, artifical flavours, cocoa mass, green tea powder, lecithin, calcium phosphate monobasic, ammonium bicarbonate, glycerin esters of fatty acids, mixed formulation, vanillin, xanthan gum, tartrazine, brilliant blue FCF.

Essentially what you see when you open the package is a chocolate covered object… And that’s about it.

First Taste

Green Tea Choco Pie consists of a chocolate coating, a soft matcha cookie, followed by marshmallow, and then another soft matcha cookie, and the chocolate coating. It tastes sweet, with a flakey cookie layer and a chewy and sweet marshmallow layer. It was maybe four bites total to eat the whole thing, but the cookie layer wasn’t too sweet, the marshmallow layer had a good chew, and the chocolate layer was thin so it doesn’t overpower the rest of the flavours.

My Overall Impression

I loved Lotte’s Green Tea Choco Pie. It makes for a nice, inexpensive snack. Bonus points for being well balanced in terms of flavour between all the layers of flavour of chocolate, marshmallow, and matcha. These little snacks might make their way into my regular rotation of work locker snacks and I’m not mad about it.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

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Kataoka’s Koicha Matcha Milk

Koicha Matcha Milk by Kataoka
Green Tea (Matcha) / Flavoured
$9.99 for 160g

First Impressions

Koicha Matcha Milk was an impulse purchase at a grocery store. It comes in a sealed, resealable pouch. The seal rips off easily and contains a mid-green powder, with a light sparkle to it because it has sugar in it. There’s text on the back of the packaging, but it’s primarily in Japanese with very minimal English.

The matcha powder itself has a light grassy aroma to it. Koicha Matcha Milk consists of: sugars, dextrin, tea powder, palm oil, skimmed milk powder, condensed skim milk, sodium caseinate, sodium lactate, glycerin fatty esters, and artificial flavouring.

Preparation

Kataoka recommends preparing Koicha Matcha Milk in hot water by mixing 17g of powder with 140mL of water, and then stirring well.

I opted to use water that was heated to 175°F (80°C). I find that matcha mixes tend to do well when stirred, so I didn’t sift the powder in the process of preparing the cup.

First Taste

Koicha Matcha Milk mixes up easily in the cup, and has a nice green colour in it with a very thin layer of foam across the top. The aroma is grassy and milky, the flavour of Koicha Matcha Milk is sweet, creamy, and grassy. Koicha Matcha Milk has enough of a creaminess from the milk that’s in it to make me think it’s a latte.

A Second Cup?

As Koicha Matcha Milk is a mix product, there are no second steeps.

My Overall Impression

I liked Kataoka’s Koicha Matcha Milk. I found it easy to prepare and easy to drink. It does have a decent amount of sugar in it (like most prepared drink mixes), but I found Koicha Matcha Milk to have a nice flavour. It requires an extra step compared to other matcha drink mixes, but I appreciated the lack of excess packaging since Koicha Matcha Milk doesn’t come with individually packaged servings.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

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Is It a Good Deal? Thoughts on Matcha

Matcha is green tea that has been ground to a fine powder. With history that tracks back to Tang dynasty of China, the more familiar matcha that you may know and love is from Japan. You may have tried matcha from your favourite local coffee shop in the form of a matcha latte, or ordered a flavoured matcha blend from an online retailer.

In your search for a matcha to buy for your very own, you’ll find that companies often give their matcha names like ceremonial or culinary grade. While not standardized, these names can really be provided to any matcha sold by anyone. That said, often times a culinary grade matcha is lower in quality while a ceremonial grade matcha should be higher in quality. Culinary grade matcha should also be cheaper, due to the lower quality.

I won’t make much comment on matcha blends – they should be considerably cheaper than pure matcha options available to you because of all the additives (sugars, flavourings, powdered milk, preservatives, etc.). However, these can also be delicious and I am still on the search for a great instant latte option.

Signs of a good quality matcha:

Spring-green in colour
Very fine powder
Has an umami flavour, not bitter
Forms a layer of froth easily

Signs of a poor quality matcha:

Yellow-green in colour
Clumpy powder
Often bitter
Forms a layer of large bubbles, instead of froth

All good quality matcha should come from Japan, and also be ideally single origin in nature. It can come in either sealed foil packets or tins, with appropriate labelling. While matcha has been deemed a “super food” and can be found in a lot of grocery stores, matcha is not going to be as high quality compared to matcha purchased from specialty tea stores (brick and mortar or online). Quality doesn’t come cheap though! A good benchmark is ~$1CAD per gram – that $9.99 tin of 250g of matcha might seem like a great deal, until you realize it’s incredibly bitter and doesn’t even work well in cookies.