Green With Matcha Love
I am green with envy (or perhaps just a California cliché).
I have boarded the Matcha Love Train.
Since I avoid coffee, I tend to rotate my hot beverage of choice in the morning. And since I can drink very little caffeine, it means fewer options. I enjoy tea, I love my Raja’s Cup lattes, and I recently purchased Four Sigmatic’s Mushroom Hot Cacao Mix on a recommendation from a friend. But I think my new morning drink of choice is a homemade almond milk matcha latte.
Matcha is a finely milled powder from special green tea leaves. It packs more antioxidant power than regular green tea, and gives you a more sustained energy with no crash. (It seems my half teaspoon serving has about 30 mg of caffeine or so, which is about half that of coffee and something, so far, I seem to be handling fine in the a.m.) Matcha is also very bright green. Matcha is trendy. There is even a matcha shop in my new hometown of San Diego, called Holy Matcha, which has a wall of green leaf wallpaper paired with pink banquette seating. It’s almost too much. I can’t wait to go. I spied it from the car while driving through the North Park neighborhood, and may have squealed with delight.
Now there are no doubt umpteen blog posts out there devoted to the very specific Japanese art of matcha tea making. This is not one of those. I would love to learn about these artfully choreographed rituals. But that is not what’s happening during my mornings. Something about bamboo whisks, etc, which I do not own.
There seems to a widely varying degree of quality of matcha, so I selected this premium ceremonial grade matcha from Japan… good, but not as crazy-expensive as the super luxury stuff. I boil some Califia Farms unsweetened almond milk in a saucepan. Since I am sans bamboo whisk skills (and because I tried a regular whisk and it didn’t work), I put my boiled almond milk and about a half teaspoon of the matcha powder in the container for my immersion blender and use that. In goes a bit of ashwaganda powder, and, if you want to do a bullet-whatever-business with your drink, a bit of ghee. I sweeten with a tiny bit of maple syrup. Super delicious, and while not as fancy as when accompanied by palm wallpaper and pink walls, it makes a very simple and economical breakfast at home.
Merry matcha-ing!