Cherry Matcha Green tea is high in nutrients and perfect for any occasion. It's beautiful bright green color and wonderful taste make it great for every day of the week. Drinking it so often can make it somewhat boring after a while. To keep your Cherry Matcha tea exciting and always something you look forward to, let's explore some ways to prepare it.

Traditional:

As a hot tea, Cherry Matcha's penetrating smell and amazing flavor really come to life. To enjoy Cherry Matcha as a hot tea:

1. Bring your Cherry Matcha powder to room temperature [18°C (64°F) to 23°C (73°F)], and sift through a strainer.
2. Scoop 1 ½ to 2 rounded teaspoons of sifted Cherry Matcha into a tea bowl or cup
3. Add ¼ to 1/3 cup of hot, simmering water (this may be more or less diluted based on your preference).
4. Briskly whisk your Cherry Matcha. As the Matcha begins to dissolve, move the whisk briskly back and forth as fast as you can in the middle of the bowl or cup. The whisk should be vertical and barely touching the bottom of the bowl or cup. Once your Matcha has developed a soft, light foam, slowly lift the whisk from the center of the bowl or cup.
5. Enjoy your frothy, healthy cup of hot Cherry Matcha Green tea!

Traditional with a chill:

1. Cherry Matcha is excellent as a chilled or iced tea, perfect for hot summer days and when you're on the run. To prepare chilled or iced Cherry Matcha-
2. Get a 16 oz water bottle or glass that accomodates 16 oz.
3. Measure ¼ teaspoon (or more if you like) into the bottle or cup with 16 oz of cold water. If you've opened a new bottle, be sure to sip a little so you don't overfill it!
4. Shake or stir vigorously to dissolve the Cherry Matcha powder.
5. Drink immediately, pour over ice or refrigerate.
6. If desired, add a sugar substitute or honey to sweeten it to your liking.

Amongst Red Leaf Tea's wide variety of matcha blends you can find several interesting fruit varieties - from acai to pomegranate. I thought Cherry Matcha sounded intriguing and tasteful since I recently enjoyed a phenomenal cherry sencha (sakura) and found the taste combination enchanting.

This matcha is organic, as are all (or almost all) of Red Leaf's matcha offerings. The color is bright olive green, perhaps just a slight shade less bright than a traditional straight matcha offering. I am not sure how the cherry flavoring enters the blend - whether it is dehydrated cherry ground to a fine powder, or the petals of cherry blossoms treated the same? In either case, it is not just my imagination wafting a tart, sour cherry scent - the smell of tart cherries is definitely in the powdered tea.

I used a simple method to prepare this tea. I used a heaped bamboo teaspoon of matcha powder and added four ounces of 165 water to the powder after mixing it dry to whisk out any lumps. This matcha, like others offered by Red Leaf, is easy to whisk up to a cheerful froth. The taste of this matcha is quite different than your "traditional" matcha. For one thing, the flavor is "thinner" somehow, owing perhaps to the dry and enjoyably sour taste of the cherry in there. Unlike a sakura sencha, the cherry is not easy to pick out, rather it's nuanced and seems to build as you sip. It's sour, to be certain, but also has a little bit of a flavor that warms in your mouth. I find it a little weird (!) and perhaps a bit hard on the stomach. I do not typically add sweetener to matchas but this one seems to be able to handle it.

I make another trial of this tea using the same brewing parameters but adding two drops of liquid stevia to the brewed beverage. What a huge, delicious difference! All things that seemed a little strange or too sour about this cherry matcha disappear for me by adding a little sweetener. The stevia amazingly enhances the cherry flavor, making it easy to discern and also curbing the astounding and puckering sour flavor. Not only is the cherry suddenly very distinct to me in taste, but it seems to merge seamlessly with the matcha flavor- bringing out the unique sweetness of both ingredients. The bittersweetness of the matcha is a unique flavor, and the sour sweetness of the tart cherry is also unique. Combined with a light sweetening, both of these flavors unite and offer something very special to sample!

This tea is also very good cold over ice. I tried out the suggestion from Red Leaf to sample this matcha using about a half teaspoon to 16 ounces of lightly sweetened cold filtered water. I shook this in a bottle and then poured the beautiful bright green drink over ice. This was a marvelous, delicious way to serve this matcha, perfect for a hot day and a nice alternative to the sweetened fruit tisanes that I typically delight in during the warmer months. This treatment of the Red Leaf Matcha is one that I will be coming back to, certainly!

I highly recommend this matcha, but I think it's at its best with some sweetener of some kind.

Jamie
Teaviews.com Reviewer

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