A Green Tea Date #lifefood

Product provided for review.  All opinions are my own.

Hello, Fireflies!

Sundays used to be Target Date Day.  Mr. LitFromWithin and I would go to our local Target, get a drink from Starbucks, and walk around for a couple of hours, checking out all the clearance, and catching up with each other.  Since we always shared a drink, and he doesn't like coffee, we started getting Green Tea Lattes, made with matcha.  Over time, we perfected our recipe.  We knew exactly how many scoops, and pumps of syrup, and how much milk.  And then, we'd lose our barista.  And then, Starbucks got rid of our favorite melon sweetener.  And, then, it was off the menu completely.

So, we had to learn how to make our own.  I think this Midori Springs Organic Ceremonial Matcha is going to take our favorite drink to a whole new level.

Matcha, unlike brewed green tea, is made from grinding up the whole tea leaf.  This means that you get all the nutrition from the leaf, not just what is extracted into the water.  Only the darkest leaves from the first harvest of the best tea crops are used to make Ceremonial Grade matcha.  The leaves are ground with a special hand-cut mill stone, ensuring that the tea leaves are kept at a lower temperature, and ground to a fine powder.

For optimal freshness, the tea is packaged in a pull-tab tin.  You can see how the matcha is a gorgeous emerald green, and has a wonderful earthy scent, reminiscent of fresh green vegetables.

I don't have the traditional bamboo whisk or matcha cups, but I felt that this experience needed a little something extra, so I got out my wedding china set, which was my mother's china set before she gave it to me.  It was made in Japan, so I figured it was okay.

I placed a teaspoon of the powder in the glass, added 2 oz of hot water, and then whisked with a small wire whisk until bubbles formed at the top. Now, the recipe says not to let the whisk touch the bottom of the glass, but I still had lumps when I did that - and I'm not very fond of raw powder lumps bursting in my mouth.  So, my advice is to whisk until it's all blended.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that the husband and I have a bit of a sweet tooth, and while we suspected we would want to sweeten the tea, I wanted to try it first in the pure form.

It's very smooth, and has a nice mouth feel.  It was a little bitter for me, though.  Mr. LFW said it was like drinking asparagus.  I felt a little blasphemous doing so, but by adding sweetener, and equal parts milk to tea, I was a very happy camper.  It was better than our Sunday dates.  And, knowing that the matcha was the greenest, healthiest possible version available made me feel like I was doing something good for both of us.

My mani is inspired by the frothy tea.  I used a green metallic polish from LURE as the base, and then double-stamped a pattern of little bubbles from plate BM506, first in white, and then with Liquid Sky Lacquer Juniper Berries, a light green holo.  Foamy goodness!

While Ceremonial matcha is best reserved for drinking, you can certainly cook with it, or add it to smoothies.  It's rich in antioxidants, organic, kosher, and free from gluten, GMOs, soy, wheat, and is not exposed to pesticides.  If you're not 100% happy with your purchase, Midori Springs offers a money-back guarantee.  For more information, or to purchase, you can find them on their website, and also on Amazon, where this tin currently sells for $24.97.