Matcha au Lait - Plain

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t pure green tea matcha. It’s the tea mixed with a little sugar. As a result, the powder is noticeably grainier than other matchas I’ve had, with granules larger than even Lupicia’s other latte mixes.

When mixed with milk, it tastes rather like green tea ice cream. Sweet and creamy, but with the slight bitterness of green tea. It’s nice.

Iced Latte!

This was something that my coworker brought back from her Japan trip, and I was excited to try it because I’ve never had a matcha from Lupicia before. It comes in a stick pack format, and I wasn’t sure if there would be a built in dairy/creamer component since it’s advertised as a bit of a matcha latte mix – but, though it was sweetened, there wasn’t any dairy element so I added in my own.

I tried it as a “plain” (ie. just the mix and my milk) iced latte first, and I thought it was fine. Not a super strong taste, but smooth with a bit of a grassier umami note. After trying it on its own I did add in some strawberry jam/syrup because social media has successfully influenced me into being obsessed with that drink right now. Definitely tastier with the strawberry, but also obviously less matcha forward too.

The little packet doesn’t make it clear that this has sugar added, though it’s pretty obvious from context and they do include that information in the online description of it. The powder is dull green and clumpier than regular matcha. The instructions are… optimistic. It basically says to combine powder with milk, stir 10 times, microwave, stir 10 times again, and voilà! Admittedly I used oat milk instead of regular, but I don’t think that was the issue. It just wasn’t dissolving well with a spoon. Eventually I switched to stirring with a fork, which helped, but it definitely took more than 10 stirs to get everything fully dissolved. (This was a good reminder that I need to replace our broken frother.) The finished beverage is still a dull green. Not greyish, but definitely more washed out than some of the better matchas I’ve had. I think we can reasonably conclude that this blend uses culinary grade matcha. Which is fine for a latte, I suppose. It’s just sort of generally nondescript. Not bad, just not very interesting. It tastes like every matcha latte you’ve ever gotten from a coffee shop. I can confirm the caffeine content here is pretty high. By the time I was nearing the bottom of the cup, my hands were shaking even though I had recently eaten.

Sipdown! (21 | 295)

So I picked up the autumn sampler pack of these Matcha au Lait mixes at the Lupicia store in Honolulu, because pretty packaging and yay autumn things! It came with plain, caramel, and chestnut flavors. It seems like this plain one is just matcha with some sugar added.

They give instructions for preparing it in the microwave, but I’m not really a hot latte fan these days, so I prepared it iced. I added just enough warm water to dissolve the sugar (which seemed like it was superfine, and dissolved very quickly) and then topped it up with cold oat milk for 150ml of liquid total, and poured over ice.

I’m honestly very surprised at how not-that-sweet it is, especially at this concentration. Every other sweetened matcha I’ve had has been too sweet for me, but this one is actually nice. It’s similar to the amount of sweetener I would add to an iced latte myself.

The matcha flavor is nice and strong due to the relatively small amount of liquid, and it’s grassy with a touch of bitterness at the end of the sip. Nothing amazing for sure, but it makes for a pleasant morning beverage. Excited to try the flavored ones!

It lacks flavor and takes a few tablespoons to actually make anything! I do not recommend this, ever.