Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Aiya
Tea Description:
Similar to Aiya’s flagship Ceremonial Matcha, Matcha to Go is intended to be used with water exclusively so as to enjoy the pure, smooth tea flavor. Either cold or hot, simply open the single-serve stick, add directly to water and quickly stir – there is no need to sift first or even whisk!
Matcha to Go Sticks are designed to make Matcha drinks as quickly and easily as possible. By blending Matcha with dietary fiber, we have eliminated Matcha clumping, making it easier to mix into hot water with just a spoon. For an Iced-Matcha on the go, just pour the stick into a bottle of water, shake and enjoy!
All of our Matcha is grown and produced in Nishio city in Aichi prefecture, known the world over as the cradle of the finest Matcha for more than 800 years.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have enjoyed many different teas from Aiya, so when they approached me to sample their new Matcha-To-Go sticks, I was excited. They have some of the VERY BEST Matcha that I’ve ever tried so if this new product was anything like the Matcha teas that I’ve sampled in the past, I knew it was going to be really good.
And it is!
The product label states that this Matcha can be enjoyed both hot or cold, and for the purposes of this review, I decided to try this tea both ways. First, I tried it cold. I grabbed my 16.9 ounce water bottle that was chilling in the fridge. Then I added one of the “pixie” stick packs of the Matcha into the bottle, screwed on the cap and gave it a vigorous shake or two.
Mmm! Tasty! I’ve tried quite a few of these convenient “pixie stick” Matcha packs at this point and some are better than others. This one is one of the very best that I’ve tried. I can taste the quality of the Matcha here. This is a really top quality Matcha! It is sweet and it has that silky texture that you expect from a high quality Matcha. No bitterness whatsoever!
This is sweet and buttery. It has a vegetal flavor, of course, with a creamy texture and a buttery flavor to complement the texture.
This is the kind of “instant” tea that I can enthusiastically recommend to those who are looking for the ideal tea while on the go. It is everything that you would expect from a top notch Matcha, but prepared in a water bottle so that you can take it with you.
Then I decided to prepare it hot. After I had prepared it the way I would normally prepare a chawan of Matcha, I wished I had instead gone a less traditional route and tried stirring it in a tea mug or something, like someone who didn’t have the “proper tools” to enjoy Matcha would. But, I didn’t think about that when I started preparing this. I thought: Matcha? OK, I need my chawan. But really, you don’t need a chawan. You can prepare Matcha in a cereal bowl … or as I eluded to above, you could prepare one of these pixies of Matcha in a tea mug or other drinking vessel.
When it came to stirring, I grabbed my chasen (bamboo whisk) and again, I wish I would have thought to grab a spoon instead and tried to stir it the way someone who was less familiar with Matcha might approach their first experience with this tea. Oh well! A spoon would work just fine, although you won’t get very much froth with a spoon.
Then again, with this particular Matcha product, I didn’t get a lot of froth anyway. It does froth up a little bit, but not nearly as much as a traditional ceremonial Matcha would. And the froth disappears really quickly.
But the flavor that I expect from a ceremonial Matcha is there! It tastes great! Sweet with absolutely no bitterness. Smooth and creamy. Buttery notes and hints of cacao that are more noticeable in this hot version than they were in the cold bottle. I don’t notice anything from the fiber except for the possibility of a somewhat thicker texture. It’s barely noticeable and I only noticed it because I was trying to focus on whether or not I was noticing anything from the dietary fiber. So … it could have all been in my head.
Anyway … this is a superb to-go instant tea! One of the best products of it’s kind, if you’re a Matcha lover or just someone who appreciates good tea and wants something of high quality to-go, this product is for you.
I wanted to add a comment here and say that I tried some of this today with cold coconut water in place of cold water. It was a little more difficult to mix – the Matcha didn’t want to incorporate into the coconut water so it took a little more effort to get the powder completely incorporated into the coconut water but once it was mixed in, it tasted great!