Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black (Matcha)

Where to Buy:  Red Leaf Tea

Tea Description:

This dessert-like drink will knock your socks off! We’ve combined our fabulous Matcha Tea with cocoa powder to make a drink everyone will love and crave. This is an amazing beverage that can be served any time to anybody. Not only does this tea offer all the health benefits of Matcha Green Tea, it gives a little chocolate kick you are sure to love. This dessert-style beverage is healthy, tasty and will make you smile.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

One of the AMAZING things about Red Leaf Tea’s astonishing array of Matcha flavors that they offer is that you can totally customize the Matcha to be just the way you want it.  You can choose the level of flavoring which ranges from delicate all the way to a level called “There’s Matcha in There?!”  You can also choose the base of the Matcha.  For most of the Matcha reviews that I’ve written from Red Leaf Tea lately, I’ve selected the classic grade of green Matcha, because with flavored Matcha, I feel that the classic grade is just right.  However, you can also choose from the higher quality green Matcha such as their Royal and their Imperial green Matcha, AND you can now choose a white, black, or rooibos (red) Matcha base for the flavored Matcha.  You can even choose a combination of two different bases (a 50/50 base) if you so desire.

That’s one of the things that I love about the Matcha offerings from Red Leaf Tea – it’s so customizable that the possibilities are nearly limitless!

For this particular flavor, I selected the black base with robust flavoring, since I have previously tried (and reviewed!) this flavor with the classic base and delicate level of flavoring (I’m guessing that this was the specifications of that particular Matcha … this was back before all the options were available!)  Also, since this is a black tea base, I wanted the robust flavoring because I felt that the boldness of the black tea base needed a substantial level of flavoring to be able to be discerned from the Matcha.

But given how strong the chocolate flavor is here, I probably would have been just fine with a lower amount of flavoring … but, hey, I am LOVING it just the way it is.  I love how strong the chocolate flavor is here – then again, I’m a chocoholic.

This tastes a lot like hot chocolate, but with something a little more to it.  It doesn’t taste quite as thick/sweet/rich as a typical hot chocolate would, but, that is not to say it’s not rich.  It’s just not that same cloyingly rich hot cocoa taste – instead, it’s rich and complex with tones of malt and caramel beneath that deep chocolate-y flavor.

Prepared traditionally, using hot water (I used 190° F water) and whisking, this tastes amazing.  But, there is a slight chemical-y note … almost perfume-y that is detectable not just in the taste but also in the aroma.  I assume that this comes from the flavoring because I did not notice it when I tasted the black Matcha from Red Leaf Tea.

It isn’t a strong flavor nor does it so “bad” that it disrupts my enjoyment of the Matcha.  It is something that I can look past to enjoy the rich flavor of chocolate and tea.  BUT… after adding just a splash of milk to the bowl and then frothing with my hand-held frother, I found that the chemical-y taste nearly vanished.  It is still just barely there … but, the other flavors are much stronger and so enjoyable that it is very easy to forget about this taste.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable Matcha – unique and a little out-of-the-box as far as Matcha goes, but, I think that’s one of the things I like best about it.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m still in love with the traditional green tea Matcha – pure as well as flavored! – but, sometimes it’s fun to change things up a bit!