Who likes green tea!? Not me. It tastes like sadness. I’ll drink it, but only if it’s mixed with peppermint tea to tone down the flavour a bit. I know it is really healthy for me but I really just don’t like the taste of it so I rarely drink it. So when I recently heard about matcha I was intrigued.
Matcha is green tea from the Camella sinensis plant but it is a very fine powder version, and unlike other teas from Camella sinensis plant, matcha is not fermented. Matcha is derived from tea leaves grown in the shade so the leaves achieve a dark green colour, which gives it, it’s amazing amino acids.
In terms of health benefits, matcha green tea powder is superior to regular green tea in terms of health benefits because those who ingest matcha are consuming the entire leaf instead of just the brewed water. One glass of matcha green tea is equal to 10 glasses of regular green tea as far as antioxidants and nutrients go – crazy town!
The thing I really like about matcha? It’s powder! You can totally drink it as tea but you have the option of using it in your cooking to get the benefits of green tea without having to drink oodles and oodles of tea. Sure there are lots of products on the market with green tea in them, but most of those are made with very little green tea in them, so you’re not really getting many of the benefits.
A few weeks ago Kiss Me Organics sent me a package of their Organic Matcha Powder to try out along with their recipe book to help get me started.
There recipe book is especially great for anyone (like me!) who really doesn’t know what to do with the powder because it has so many recipes and ideas to get you started – like this icing (how good do those cupcakes look??).
My first experience with matcha was last week with the Iced Ginger Matcha drink from the cook book (it seemed an appropriate St. Partick’s Day drink 😉 )
This was one recipe that you could certainly taste the matcha in, but if you don’t like the taste you can certainly hide it in one of their smoothie recipes to get the benefits. In fact, Kiss Me Organics recommends you try the powder in a tea first to get an idea about the flavour profile so you know how you like it and then can figure out how much to use in your recipes.
While there are lots of recipes in the book, the next time I tried it was in my regular brownie recipe to see how it tasted. I added 2 tsp of matcha to the batter and you could still taste a hint of the matcha but it wasn’t too bad. I’m not sure I would know it was there if I didn’t know it was there, ya know? Sometimes when you know something is different you think you can taste it even if you can’t. Does that make sense?
If you are looking for any easy way to add the benefits of green tea to your life without drinking a billion glasses of green tea everyday you should check out matcha. You can purchase the Kiss Me Organics Organic Matcha I have on Amazon it’s super affordable, and because a little goes a long way one bag will last you for quite a long time.
I’m looking forward to adding it to my smoothies when the weather finally warms up around here and I get back into smoothie mode.
Question: Have you tried matcha powder? If so what’s your favourite way to use it?
Disclosure: Kiss Me Organics provided me with a complimentary bag of matcha powder in return for my honest review. All opinions are 100% my own.