Tag: Matcha

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DavidsTea’s Mango Matcha

Mango Matcha by DavidsTea
Green Tea (Matcha) / Flavoured
$9.98 for 50g

First Impressions

Mango Matcha is a matcha drink mix from DavidsTea. It came to me in the mail in a sealed, resealable pouch. Firstly, I’d like to address the change in the labelling from DavidsTea. I found that the teal of the DavidsTea branding to be a bit difficult to read from the green background – along with the white text on the green background (but not as difficult as the teal on green). I’m no longer surprised by the fact that Mango Matcha has sugar as the first ingredient, because I’ve gotten used to that now and am a little bit less annoyed by the presence.

Mango Matcha is a lovely spring green colour, with a hint of sparkle from the sugar. The aroma is strongly mango with a bit of grassy undertones. Mango Matcha consists of: cane sugar, matcha green tea, natural mango flavouring with annatto extract.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends repairing Mango Matcha in 85°C (185°F) water with a whisk. I followed the temperature recommendation and whisked it directly in my cup. The nice thing about the DavidsTea matcha drink mixes is that you don’t have to sift the powder first because it dissolves quite easily.

If you’ve never made matcha before, I’ve got an article for you that discusses The Basics of Preparing Matcha.

First Taste

Mango Matcha whisks into a nice deep forest green. Not a whole lot of frothy bubbles regardless of how much I tried, but it’s a vibrant green with a very strong mango aroma from the whisked up powder. I found it to be quite sweet, strong mango flavours, with subtle grassy notes in the background. It’s a pleasant drink hot.

I did end up adding some milk to it (organic soy milk) to make it to matcha latte – it helps cut the sugary sweetness down significantly, while adding a nice level of creaminess to it and the mango isn’t muted at all.

A Second Cup?

As a matcha is a suspension, there were no second steeps at all.

My Overall Impression

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I loved and liked DavidsTea’s Mango Matcha. I liked it hot and plain – but the sugary sweetness was just a bit too much for me, even though I have a really strong sweet tooth. The addition of soy milk really helped to lower the sugar content down a bit, just by adding a little something to help cut the sweetness level. I think Mango Matcha would be great if you like a super sweet drink, but definitely utilize this as a latte base if you’re wanting something that’s got some good mango flavour, a nice grassy background, but not too sweet. Matcha latte is definitely the way to go with this one.

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

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Gold Kili’s Matcha Latte

Instant Matcha Latte by Gold Kili
Green Tea (Matcha) / Flavoured
$6.95 for 250g (ten 25g sachets)

First Impressions

Instant Matcha Latte was purchased on a whim one day when I was at the grocery story. The box was bright green, definitely eye catching and intrigued me enough to buy it. It’s a box with ten portions of Instant Matcha Latte drink mix. The box itself is a glossy cardstock, each packet feels like a plastic-coated foil.

Instant Matcha Latte consists of: sugar, refined fully hydrogenated vegetable oil, green tea powder, skimmed milk powder, matcha powder, dipotassium phosphate, mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids, salt, silicone dioxide, natural flavours, and carotene. It weirds me out how low on the ingredients list that matcha shows up – green tea powder shows up earlier than it does, and sugar is number on! For those curious, there is 14g of sugar per packet and each one is only 25g. The aroma of the powder is really light on the matcha aroma, it otherwise doesn’t have much of a smell to it at all.

Preparation

Gold Kili recommends to pour the contents into a cup, add hot water (180mL), and stir. To make it iced, dissolve in 90mL of hot water and add ice. I opted to have it hot, and I used 185°F (85°C) water since there wasn’t a temperature specified.

First Taste

Instant Matcha Latte is a pale pistachio green, it has a nice lightness to the colour of the matcha that makes me think of a matcha latte. It’s not as deep of a green that I would honestly prefer, but I think it has a lot to do with the amount of matcha that’s present in the mix. The aroma is that of matcha, it’s light on aroma as it is on colour. The flavour is sweet first, grassy notes second. It lacks the umami notes that I look for when it comes to a nice matcha latte.

A Second Cup?

As matcha is a suspension, there were no second steeps with the powder.

My Overall Impression

I thought that Gold Kili’s Instant Matcha Latte was just okay. It’s a quick and easy to make – just heat up some water and stir in the mix. The lack of information about recycling the packaging is a bit disappointing, also the sheer amount of matcha not present in the mix. That said, I think it’d be great for someone who’s always on the go, or for the person who can’t keep matcha making equipment at work. I think it’s a touch too sweet for me, but I think it’d be nice iced and makes for an easy matcha latte when you’ve got a time crunch. It’ll definitely be something that I end up taking to work for an easy matcha latte in the staff room since I don’t get the time needed to whisk and find some zen.

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

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Dalgona Matcha (Vegan)

Dalgona coffee has been trending over the last few weeks as people are looking for something to do. If you’ve ever looked up dalgona, it’s actually a Korean candy that resembles honeycomb toffee (yum!) – which has no part in the dalgona coffee recipes that I’ve come across at all. The work from home and required social distancing is reason enough to look for something to at home as people become better (or worse?) cooks and baristas at at home.

As someone who doesn’t drink coffee, I definitely scoffed at this idea of making a whipped coffee. That is, until I saw photos of a matcha version pop up on Instagram. But most people were sharing photos of it without a recipe (for shame!). So I challenged myself to make it at home with what I had on hand. It took a few attempts, but I finally got something that tasted good, looked mostly right – and I did it all with ingredients I had available – win! Because of the ingredients I used, this is vegan, you’re perfectly welcome to sub in non-vegan/vegetarian ingredients…

Just don’t use coconut milk. I tried that (and it was gross).

Dalgona Matcha – Serves 2

1 tbs matcha powder¹
2 tbs agave syrup
4 tbs aquafaba²
Soy milk³
Handheld milk frother or whisk

¹I used DavidsTea’s Grand Cru Matcha.

²Aquafaba is this fascinating stuff that is the water from cooking legumes (like chickpeas!). I got the aquafaba from this recipe from opening up a can of chickpeas, but you can cook your own and use the water from that.

³I use Silk’s Unsweetened Organic Soy Milk as my non-dairy milk of choice.

In a bowl (or measuring cup), froth the aquafaba until it is approximately tripled in volume and white.
Slowly mix in agave syrup, continue to froth.
With handheld frother off, sift in matcha. Stir it in with a spoon before turning on the milk frother again and fully incorporate the matcha.
Fill 2 glasses approximately ¾ full with your soy milk.
Top with frothed matcha foam.
Take a photo (or two) for the ‘gram & enjoy!

If you make this Dalgona Matcha, I’d love to see your photos! Be sure to tag me on Instagram (@onemoresteep #onemoresteep) or comment below with a link to the photo!