Iced Caramelised Banana Macha Latte and Oat Shaken Espresso (Starbucks) By @SpectreUK

First off, I think they need to work on the titles. Try saying “Iced Caramelised Banana Oat Shaken Espresso” when you need to sober up. Or “Iced Caramelised Banana Macha Latte” when you’re overheating in hot weather.

It’s hot today, and after two mini heatwaves, we stopped at a local service station, as I was feeling tired from driving. Cinabar mentioned a couple of cooling drinks we could try in the Starbucks there.

I was too hot or at least too tongue-tied to order. I also couldn’t decide between Iced Caramelised Banana Macha Latte or Iced Caramelised Banana Oat Shaken Espresso. I couldn’t even decide when they were delivered.

I tried both. The Iced Caramelised Banana Oat Shaken Espresso tasted mostly of coffee, with a little sweet caramelised banana milkshake. It was fairly strong, but at least it didn’t taste like Starbucks regular Americano.

Whereas, on first sip of the Iced Caramelised Banana Macha Latte, it tasted solely of sweet caramelised banana. Well, until Cinabar told me to angle the straw to the top of the drink, which was pure bitter Macha. Once mixed up the Iced Caramelised Banana Macha Latte was quite sweet with caramelised banana and slightly bitter Macha, which was okay. Cinabar like it. I couldn’t decide if I liked either.

Alpro - Matcha Coconut & Coffee AT HOME [@NLi10]

 Matcha is a big deal at the moment, and all the coffee establishments are now doing it in a reasonable way - although they do seem to use the cheap stuff.  And now you can have pre-mixed Matcha at home!

I chose the coconut one but BOY do you have options - a whole aisle of green milks

And yes - it's great cold so make your hot stuff and dump it in almost freezer temperature this

It's got stuff in it!

And without any fuss it's just thick Shrek juice.

Here's the nutrition

And it's only half a percent matcha - and not ceremonial grade Matcha because you bet they'd tell you if it was.  You won't notice in this mind.

And if you brew up a shot of your Exhale espresso and dump it in (with ice - not pictured) then frankly it's my drink of the summer.  I've been tempted to make a whole filter coffee pot of the stuff at espresso strength and then keep that in the fridge to use with this carton - only there isn't much left now.

It's not a thirst-burster until you add the watery ice, and it does overshadow the coffee unless you do it as a 50/50 Matcha cortado style but it's great for these heatwaves and I'll be getting more as soon as it's cool enough to leave the house.

Trendmaxing - Starbucks, Matcha & UBE in the same cup [@NLi10]

 I wanted to find out whether the Trendmaxing idea of putting the last hip thing in the same pot as the next big thing was a good idea or a bad one.  So - while waiting for friends my partner bought me this £6.50 soft drink that both had the Matcha Tea trend, and the Ube purple drink trend - together at last!

Now - this is from the same Cineworld Starbucks where the lady decided to be kind and add all of the matcha from the pot to my drink to finish it off (making it insanely strong to the extent that when I got home I used the matcha sludge to make a 2nd tea) - so maybe they aren't the best mixologists in the world.

That said - the purple looked correct, and the matcha was certainly frothy enough to float on top.

And both parts were acceptable.

Trouble is - when we went to Coventry we had an Ube drink there which was so much thicker and more exciting than this watery 'late'.

Fine as a cheap option, but at the premium prices this was a fairly disappointing affair - maybe there was too much ice?

It's perfectly fine as a sweet treat to drink while watching the latest movies, but I don't think you'd go out of your way to go back and try it again.

Green Chocolate! Torrons Vicens Elaboracio Tradicional - Turron de te Matcha [@NLi10]

 Spain has lots of festive treats and traditions and while my sister was in Barcelona she spotted this huge bar of Matcha Green sweet stuff and brought it home for me.

                                                

While the translation calls it Nougat it's more of a fondant praline- with a crystaline sugar inner

It's a new nougat concept, with a common denominator! It's mostly white chocolate, but wow is it green in person.

I figured these lines meant portions and chopped us one each

You can see the lovely crystaline jaffa orange filling here - such sweetness!

The chocolate itself is a lovely blend - smooth but with a strong matcha flavour.  I could have had it stronger, but my partner was less keen than I so only had a taste of her bit so I had a double portion.

This turned out to be a little much matcha for a Thursday afternoon and so a nap was required.

Great luxurious flavours and gift experience, and a perfect after dinner treat.  Not something I'd recommend you sit and snack on while working though!

Mochi Cookies with Choc Chips & Artificial Matcha (by @NLi10)

Ah - cookies - wonderful American things. But wait - these are clearly international - Taiwanese to be precise.  But for the American Audience it seems.

It's in Oz! So American.

Pie Cookies also sounds very American - lets hope these taste at least a little international.

Look at these lovely little lumps, joyous little cookies that they are.

And they are just about gooey enough in the middle to match the pictures - so that's not so bad.

And the cookie part is quite like an American cookie with the odd aftertaste and everything. The green tea is fairly authentic - although it really makes me want a proper tea.

But...

A lead warning?  That's ... not something I want to see on my food.  Is this an Americanism like the 'please chew' warning? What on earth is going on over there?

Anyway - these are nice - not 'must buy' and something I'm happy to share with others.  The flavour is decent, and the Matcha buzz is there, but those warnings make me a little scared to have these again.

Finally Making Those Matcha Green Scones (@NLi10)

What is this, powder upon more powder?  What kind of snack food is this?!

Well the green is easy to explain - that's my Matcha powder that I got send to review ages ago.

It's great stuff and while I drank most of it I reserved the last half a pack for baking.  And while it's taken 2 years for my health and procrastination to do that baking - here it is!

This green sausage is a half dozen of Delia's scones.  With a table spoon of matcha.

They don't look that green now

They bake up nicely

And they compare well to the normal batch I did for comparison

Tea scones with more tea is maybe a little much, but they worked really well (as expected) and the flavours still came through.  I definitely used less sugar than the recipe needed (or the wrong grade) but generally it worked as expected.  I needed the clotted cream and jam in stock before I did this!

So all in all the baking grade matcha was a success - now to do a chocolate cake - but with matcha instead of chocolate - the possibilities are endless!!

Choco Matcha Sweets (Japan) By @Cinabar

Today is an exciting day in the gaming world as it is the release of Animal Crossing New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch. As I eagerly await the delivery of my game from Amazon Prime, a delivery I’m more excited about than the overpriced toilet roll which was also on the order, my thoughts turned to Japanese snacks. I have spent many hours of my life playing the original Animal Crossing, and what better way than to celebrate Japanese culture than trying out these Choco Matcha Sweets which a friend brought back from Japan (from a time when it was safer to travel) while I wait.
So the packaging is almost entirely in Japanese, but I know the sweets inside are flavoured with matcha tea, I’m still not that sure what to expect. The cute packaging doesn’t offer many clues for those of us not familiar with the language, my best guess was for some kind of chewy sweets.

Inside the bag were individually wrapped chocolates! They are green in colour because of the matcha tea but were a flavoured white chocolate with a filling that was jelly like but firm and chewy. The flavour was really good, these are creamy sweet chocolates with a nice hint of matcha tea, this is mild so still sweet. I loved the mix of textures, the white chocolate cracks and the jelly centre comes in to its own before melting away. I found these Choco Matcha Sweets rather moreish and they got me through some work teleconferences rather well. I think when the world gets back to rights I would definitely ask for some more of these, they are lovely but very different to anything we have over here.

Green Tea Kit Kat (Tesco) By @Cinabar

I have to say I am impressed by Kit Kat for bringing out such an adventurous flavour in the UK, the minute I spotted this Green Tea Kit Kat I couldn’t wait to try it. This particular Kit Kat has launched in similar style of packaging to the Ruby Kit Kat and it too looks rather posh. I like the Japanese art work and characters on the packaging.
Once the wrapper is off there is one thing that needs to be said about the contents, this Green Tea Kit Kat is green! Very green!!! This upped my interest levels further, I’m loving that this adventurous Japan inspired Kit Kat is available as a proper UK release.

One thing that did worry me was the aroma was quite strong, it was of Green Tea but the scent is quite grassy and herby and I did worry the matcha in the Kit Kat might be a little to strong. Green tea can be a little bitter if over brewed, and I hoped that wasn’t the case here or indeed the flavour they were aiming for.
I tried some of the Kit Kat and the taste was thankfully spot on, matcha yes but creamy and sweet enough to to bring balance and enhance the tea taste. This does taste distinctively of green tea, but the flavours of white chocolate with it are magic, different yet tasty. Obviously this bar of chocolate contains all the usual crunchy goodness of a regular Kit Kat in terms of texture too. Thumbs up for this Green Tea Kit Kat and I hope it finds a nice niche market here in the UK that leads to some more exotic flavours being released.

Crepe Cake - Matcha Style (Happy Lemon, Birmingham) by @NLi10

We've covered the phenomenon of the crepe cake before here on FoodStuffFinds and found that it's tasty and massively filling.  What happens then when we combine this with the fashionable (and lovely) super stimulating Matcha powder?

I'd assumed it was a light sprinkle on top and maybe a little in the mixture.

Nope - this thing is mostly Matcha!  You have a good mm on top, it's in all the layers, and the crepes themselves look green too.  It's pretty hardcore.  Luckily this was to slit between three (and was still a bit too filling) so I didn't quite fly home.  

It is a work of art though - be a shame if anything happened to it...

Oh no! As you can see - it's very green.  It has the flavours of the standard crepe cake but with the intense addition of the Matcha on top.  It has the strongest tea flavour that I remember trying, but with the sweetness and creaminess of the pancakes it doesn't overpower.  This is definitely a sharing desert though and I'm glad I waited until there was a group of us who are relatively into this kind of thing to try it out.  I think I had most of the very top layer though.  

A great experience and one I'm sure I'll have again - and it made the rest of the afternoon a buzz too!

Green Tea Milkshakes? SINGWIN Matcha Milk Tea sachets (by @NLi10)

One of my bosses feels that she should drink more green tea for health benefits, but prefers milky tea.  This gave me the perfect excuse to buy a sack of 18 Matcha Milk tea sachets!

It's 3 in 1 - Matcha, Milk & I assume a vast amount of sugar based on the taste.

OK -  so based on the ingredients the order is Sugar, Fake Milk, then Matcha (5%) which is fair enough. We've all made this at home with too much Matcha and regretted it.

The little sachets are pleasing enough, and English enough that I've been giving them away to people to try.

And it produces a lovely cup of bright green tea! I've been adding my own real milk too for texture, but even without that it's basically fine.  It's a little too sweet for my tastes, but as a 'tea milkshake'  it's essentially what it's supposed to be.  I was unconvinced by the price (18 for £3.60 is only 20p a go I suppose) but it's actually really good. If you have a source of decently hot water then you can make a nice drink.  

A decent change to hot chocolate and a nice one to share with friends.  I think I may even go back and try the 40p a sachet version to see if it suites my more experienced tastebuds or is just the same for more money.

Nutri Extracts Matcha Tea - Ceremonial Grade (@extractsnutri) by @NLi10

Sometimes things get reviewed and written up instantly.  Sometimes I forget about things and it takes ages to try them.  In this case I tried the product the day I got it (and many days after) and then didn't write it up.  This is my own fault because I often try to do too many things with these reviews.

Here we have the product.  It's Matcha Tea powder.  It's in a very unassuming package and came direct from the internet.  I wasn't sure that the PR company would send us samples - but we got two HUGE bags.  This is practically a life-times supply of Matcha powder.

Luckily I still have the stirrer and kit from the last time I made this stuff at work so I can drink away.

The ingredients are pure, the preparation guide has the right temp and that you'll want to whisk it, and also suggests way to make it more palatable to us westerners.

It really is good grade stuff - and makes a stonking cup of green tea.

The taste is a little more 'down' than the brand I'd been drinking so a dash of sugar perks it right up.  Superb.  Not much more to say about it really.

Well - except that if you go to the website www.nutriextracts.co.uk and use the code MATCHA15 you'll get 15% off which makes it a pretty good price too (£8 a bag before discount when I paid £20 for my smaller tin!).  If you know someone who doesn't mind the fairly plain packaging then it'd make a great gift!  You should probably ignore some of the health claims though, but it's good for mild relief of my arthritis symptoms, and due to the slow release caffeine you get a nice buzz for 6 hours.  

And that would be that - review straight up & done - except the packaging said that I should try using it in recipes.  And I was at the time supposed to make scones for my birthday (7th July) and take them to work - and green tea scones would be awesome! But - scones require a decent amount of wrist energy to make, and don't like the hot weather we are having.  I'd end up with painful wrists and overly floured scones! I mean - this is all clearly just procrastination - but at some point I will bake things again - and I have no doubt at all that I'll have some of this left ready to pop in half the mixture to see what happens.