Product Review: Cranberry Blood Orange Instant Matcha Green Tea Mix from Jade Monk

Product Information:

Where to Buy:  Jade Monk

Description:

A wake-up call in every cup. Before the first drop hits your lips, the bright aroma of our Cranberry Blood Orange powdered green tea will have you amped.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

Browsing my local grocery store’s funky drink isle is one of my favorite pastimes. I came across this little green packet and tossed it in my cart for giggles. I am intrigued by the flavor, the illustrations on the front and back, and well, you had me at matcha!  I love the packaging of this tea, it really grabs you. The artwork is really fun, the intense eyes of the fierce ogre is powerful, and according to it’s claims, it’s ready to bestow all it’s power to you!

Now, I am not a fan of selling tea as a health product, the camellia sinensis plant is so much more than a diet aid. Sure, it was used as such during the first cultivation of the wild tea trees growing in China, but we have stepped up in our appreciation and cultivation of the lovely little plant. Yes, I do make my own functional herbal blends, but I don’t expect to be cured of cancer, or to have my waistline shrink like plastic wrap in an oven, either.

I chose this matcha green tea drink mix because of it’s convenience. I needed something that would give me that boost without waiting for water to boil and tea to steep. I was in a hurry this morning and whipped this up on a whim. I found the first fault to this mix when I took way to long to shake up all the little clumps of matcha. Mixes instantly? Not quite. Maybe my water was too cold?

The color of this match is an encouraging shade of key lime green. The smell is really quite nice, fruity, citrus, and refreshing. I take a sip and the first thing to hit my taste buds is sugar. Oh. Well. The first ingredients in this is sugar. While it is much, much too sweet for me, my ravenous thirst assists me in finishing my 24oz. bottle in no time.

The smell of the powder in the packet smells very matcha, but the finished product is lacking somewhat. The flavorings were very much there, in all their juicy citrusy glory. For me, If I wanted a flavored instant matcha, I’d like for the first or even second ingredient to be matcha. but of course if I was completely new to matcha, or didn’t like the taste, I would be all over this concept like brine flies to a can of soda.