Tea and Food: A match made in heaven

Peaches and almonds go together so beautifully. Not surprising really I suppose, when you consider they are closely related within the same botanical family.

I think many teas pair well with fruit and nuts as a snack, but my particular favorite is a sencha. I love the way the initial bitterness of the tea contrasts with the sweetness of the fruit and creaminess of the nuts, and then the sweetness comes through again at the end.

I have just used up the last of my sencha of the spring sun from Obubu Tea. I love this tea. I make it the way they recommend, with lots of leaf and boiling water for multiple VERY short steeps. This brings out the bitterness that I love in a Japanese tea in the first infusion; subsequent cups are sweet and creamy, a little floral. It cold-brews beautifully too.

I'll be purchasing some more of this delicious tea as soon as I can.

If you'd like to know more about Obubu, have a look at this great interview with Matsu and Akky , the farmers, on the Travel and Tea blog!

PS do you like my incredibly beautiful Royal Doulton 'moss rose' teacup set? I love it SO MUCH!

A couple of things

I've had a couple of interesting comments posted lately and I wanted to respond to them where more people may see the reply.

Alex commented on my post about What's a letter worth? :

The few times I've tasted tea from the same harvest and garden of different grades, I have not always preferred the "better" grades. Sometimes, higher grades taste more delicate, and I may want a more robust tea.
...
Also, you can't generalize about the price of grades. I've picked up some FTGFOP1 Darjeeling First Flush when it was a bit late and out of season, and yet still fresh and outstanding quality, for a lower price than a lot of "lower" grades.

Re: the first point he makes: I agree, I often prefer the more robust-flavoured teas myself (although I do enjoy a first flush Darjeeling). Sometimes I feel a bit bad about this: does it mean I am actually not as sophisticated a tea drinker as I like to imagine myself? But, really, does that matter? I like what I like... and there it is. Of course it's also good to try different things, of course and to be open to putting aside my preconceptions about tea (like with puerh for example, but more on that in another post) because I might be pleasantly surprised.


In relation to Alex's second point, I also agree - I have also picked up high grade teas for a bargain price, for example when they are from the previous season and the new crop is coming in and commanding the higher prices. In my experience though, this is something that is most likely to happen with online and, in particular, specialist tea vendors such as Thunderbolt Tea in Darjeeling. It seems to me that the average Australian consumer walking into a bricks and mortar store would be unlikely to be confronted with information about the latest, freshest teas and given an opportunity to purchase previous crops for a cheaper price regardless of grade... if that makes sense. Even in a store with a broad range of quality teas you would have to know what you were looking for, and be prepared to ask the staff about it if you wanted something so specific. Does anyone else have an opinion about this, from an Australian perspective or from elsewhere?

In response to my post on Sustainable, organic and fair trade tea, Jenny asked

How about you? Do you go for organic tea(products)?

In general, I would have to say: No, not specifically. I do my best to purchase as much as I can from companies who produce high quality goods - tea, food and so on - and this sometimes means that the products are organic (e.g. at the farmers' market) and sometimes that the company has a strong social ethic (e.g. Thunderbolt Tea). I like to purchase close to the source, hopefully ensuring that more of the money goes directly to the people involved - again buying tea from Thunderbolt Tea is a good way to do this and Obubu Tea in Japan is also excellent (and all of their teas are delicious as well).

It is important to me that the products I consume are as ethical as possible - but as the interview I linked to in the previous post indicates, ethical  production and consumption are not as simple and clear-cut as one might think!

Tea Fields

Now this is a view of Mount Fuji that I really like!

 Image from Travel and Tea

Sencha Wazuka

I could rave about this tea for hours. So I will try and keep this short and sweet (because I anticipate that Pippin will wake up any moment and frustrate my blogging ambitions for the day).

The dry leaves, which are longer, darker and less broken looking than most sencha I've had previously, smell like strawberries and cream... and toast... and these flavours carry over into the brew as well. There's some bitterness, which is enjoyable; the second and third infusions break out into a multitude of herbaceous, even camphoraceous flavours.  Lavender? Pine? The leaves look rather like pine needles, as well.

This is like no sencha I have ever had before and it has opened my eyes to a whole new realm of quality. It came to me as part of the Tea Geek certification course (it's available for purchase on the Tea Geek website as well, which is where the image below is from). I may cry when I have worked my way through the rest of the sample - I think I have enough for another 2 cuppings - and then I will probably buy some more.

Learning to Love Matcha

I am very much a novice when it comes to matcha; I haven't really had much experience with it since I wrote this post quite some time ago. I have wanted to try it but felt a bit overwhelmed at the range of choices available from O-Cha.com and unsure of whether anything of reasonable quality is available in Australia... You can get matcha from T2, but they only have one kind (clearly I am not the type of person to be easily satisfied am I? Too many... too few... so high maintenance, I know).

Recently, however, I discovered a company which I had not previously come across - Obubu Tea. Obubu has been given a good rap on RateTea.net as an ethical company producing high quality teas. And they offer two drinking grades of matcha (as well as some culinary matcha products) - not too many to choose from! I ordered some of each: the Gokou and the Uji.

I was not at first sure how much to use; one website I looked at suggested 1/4 teaspoon in 1/2 cup of hot water. I tried this but it seemed very weak and tasteless to me, despite some creamy sweetness. So I contacted Ian from Obubu via Twitter (so handy, Twitter is!) and asked about his recommendation, and he pointed me in this direction.

Just under a teaspoon in 1/4 cup of hot water, okay. So I tried that just before with some of the Uji matcha (my whisk and whisking skills are sub-par, I fear, so I was not able to produce the very nice creamy looking froth on the top)... and whoa. It's powerful stuff. Quite bitter and very, very 'green' to my taste buds; some sweetness in the aftertaste. It does not taste anything like a sencha; there is no brothiness, no 'seaweedy' taste. I feel like saying 'grassy' but that's not quite the right word either. I'm not sure how to describe it. 'Green' is the best I can do - and not even a specific kind of 'green' either. Just quintessential greenness!

I think matcha will be an acquired taste for me.  I am definitely willing to acquire it though! And I feel ever so awake and alert and calm. Heh!

Battle of the Japanese Greens: Round Three!

I've been trying not to have too many packets of tea open at once (tempting though that is) but seeing as I worked my way through my other bags of Japanese tea (see here and here) and am nearly out of Chinese green as well, I thought it was time to crack open my Yabukita deep-steam sencha that I got in Sydney from the Taka Tea Garden shop at the Strand Arcade (where I also got my lovely tokoname teapot!).

I don't have the time for taking photos myself today but here is the image of the tea from the Taka Tea website:

Because this is a deep-steam (fukamushi) tea that has been steamed for a touch longer than regular sencha, the leaves are more delicate and almost dissolve into mush once brewed! Yabukita is the name of the cultivar, widely grown in Japan for its adaptability.

I love this tea! I brewed about 1.5 teaspoons in my tokoname pot (which holds a bit less than 300ml) for 40 seconds, then 1 minute and then another minute. Each infusion was delicious, but the first two were the best. The dry leaf doesn't smell of much, but the wet leaves have an incredible aroma that I can only describe as toast with strawberry jam... bizarre I know.

The liquor is mildly grassy, with the second infusion having a noticeable fresh artichoke flavour (this diminishes as the tea cools though). The aftertaste is long-lasting, slightly lemony and very sweet, leaving your mouth feeling refreshed. I have just finished drinking my third infusion and am going to add some cold water to the leaves for a few hours to see if I can get anything more from it.

Definitely recommended, a very friendly tea to brew and drink!

Tea and Food: what to drink with chocolate

Last week I made some rather fabulous dark chocolate brownies, which I ended up eating accompanied by several different kinds of tea over the course of the week. Some pairings were more successful than others, and this set me to thinking that a series of posts about tea and food might not be a bad idea. If you have a particular kind of food you'd like me to focus on, just place a request in the comments and I'll do my best to accommodate it (barring seafood, of which I am not a fan).

So here's this week's instalment: teas to pair with CHOCOLATE - cake, brownies, or just all on it's lonesome own. Aw.

 Just crying out for some tea to keep it company!

My first recommendation: jasmine tea. I find that jasmine goes beautifully with moderately dark chocolatey things; the sweet floral taste offsets the slightly bitter chocolate very well. Even though I often prefer to drink my really good teas on their own, without any disruption to their flavour caused by combining them with food, I think it is actually worthwhile cracking out the good jasmine tea to have with your chocolate, simply because the jasmine flavour will be stronger. Keep the lower-rent jasmine for having with your Chinese takeaway and have a really top-notch one (I have still got some of the 2009 Moli Jin Zhen Wang from Amazing Green Tea which is just divine).

Second recommendation: a strong Japanese green - sencha or matcha, or why not both (like the Macchairi Kabuse Ryokucha I blogged about here). The bitter-sweetness of the tea and chocolate play off each other and the greenness of the tea cuts through the richness of the chocolate as well. I thought jasmine and chocolate was my favourite until I tried this. It's really an incredible combination.

If you are looking for a black tea I would go for something robust and a bit astringent like an Assam, or fruity like a second or Autumn flush Darjeeling; the taste of a first flush Darjeeling gets overwhelmed by the chocolate. I also felt that my beloved Yunnan Golden Tips didn't shine as I would have liked when I drank it alongside the brownie (which you can see in the corner of the picture in that post!). Earl Grey is a good option though and one I often choose when I am out somewhere like Koko Black; the floral/citrus taste of the bergamot is refreshing and also cuts through the richness.
 

The Happiness of a New Teapot

This is my new pride and joy, a Tokoname teapot that I purchased at Taka Tea in the Strand Arcade in Sydney last weekend. I fell in love with the design of maple leaves (there was also a very nice cherry blossom one) and the fact that it has a built in mesh that stretches almost all the way round the inside of the pot - much better than an infuser basket, but I don't have to use my strainer! It pours like a dream - I wasn't sure how easy I would find using the sideways handle, but it's not difficult at all. It will, obviously, be dedicated solely to Japanese green teas.

 (According to O-cha.com, Tokoname is one of the 9 ancient kilns of Japan, and here you can see step by step photos of teapots being made by the throwing method or the slip casting method - how cool!)

The lovely people at Taka Tea were very happy to spend time talking with me about their teas and teapots (you can check out their online shop here). They also kindly brewed up a small pot of gyokuro for me to sample, which was deliciously light and fresh. I came away with a packet of first flush yabukita* which I haven't yet opened; I'll work my way through a few other things first, but I'm looking forward to it.


*this appears to be a clonal variety of tea bush widely grown in Japan, capable of adapting well to wherever it is planted. Handy!

Battle of the Japanese Greens: Round Two!

The second Ujinotsuyu tea which I bought from Fuji Mart is this one: Ujicha Maroyaka-Jitate. I don't know what the name means, I'm afraid. There's definitely no matcha in this one though. 

The instructions for brewing this tea specify 4g leaf in about 90ml of water at 70C, with a steep time of about one and a half minutes.  

The brewed tea is relatively cloudy and lime-green in colour, but not quite so striking (alarming?) as the Kabuse one. The taste is much less punchy, presumably because of the lack of matcha. There's a little bitterness/astrngency, and a very pleasant mouth-filling, savoury vegetal quality. The stand-out is a rich, round sweetness in the aftertaste that lingers with you nicely. 

The tea lasts two or three infusions although the flavours are definitely getting washed out by the third infusion. The Maroyaka is easier drinking than the Kabuse and doesn't make me reel if I drink it on an empty stomach; in fact I think it shines best on its own, without food. That said, it paired well with the leftover berry and apple crumble that I had for breakfast the other morning.   

If this tea were a giant movie monster it would leave poor stomped-out Tokyo alone and do ikebana or something instead (which would be much to my husband's disappointment I'm sure).

Oh, and one more thing...

... that I like about the Ujinotsuyu website:

Nice life with a cup of tea... What more could one ask for?

Battle of the Japanese Greens: Round One!

I made a trip to the Fuji Mart in Prahran the other weekend - it's at the back of the Prahran Market for those of you who know it, just a little way down from The Essential Ingredient. Fuji Mart is, so far as I can tell, an entirely Japanese grocer, and I was interested (as it will probably not surprise you to know) to see what kinds of tea they might stock.

I cam away with only a couple of kinds, both by the Ujinotsuyu company whose teas are commonly found in Asian supermarkets round here; I hadn't seen these particular ones before, though; I think they are slightly higher end than what you find in a regular Asian grocer. I have had and greatly enjoyed Ujinotsuyu sencha and genmaicha in the past, although I wasn't rapt in their matcha (but I should note that I know very little about preparing matcha properly. For $8 a tin, though, when you can spend up to $50, I think it was probably not a very high grade). 


So, onto the first of my two new teas: Iemon Macchairi Kabuse Ryokucha, which apparently means green tea (ryokucha) that has been shaded for a couple of weeks (kabuse) and combined with matcha (macchairi).

This is powerful stuff. As best I could I brewed it as per the directions - I don't know any Japanese but from looking at the little pictograms and comparing them with pictograms on other packets that also had some English text, I deduced that I should be brewing about a tablespoon of leaf in 50ml of water at 60C, for about 2 minutes. I don't have any teapots that small... (An excuse to buy one perhaps?) ... Anyway, so I brewed 2 tbls in 100ml water in a small drinking glass, figuring that it would be okay at the low temperature specified.

Result was about 75ml of the most radioactive looking tea you ever saw... Godzilla drinks this stuff, I'm positive. It's a cloudy, lurid green:

As for the taste, it's strong and bitter at first, really quite a slap in the face; swallow and you're rewarded with the most astonishing sweetness in the aftertaste. Quite addictive. Don't drink it on an empty stomach though; it's much too strong without something to buffer it.

I'm drinking another small glass of this Tokyo-stomping tea right now, it's cooled quite a bit and there are definite coconut notes... lending yet more support to my theory that coconut and sencha are natural partners. Hmm. If only I had some coconut cake to go with. Never mind, I'd better go and eat some lunch before the tea eats me...

Learning to Taste Tea

I bought a copy of the wonderful Harney & Sons Guide to Tea a couple of months ago, and I have enjoyed reading it very much. It takes you step by step through the tasting process for a wide range of teas, from white to green to oolong to black and pu'er. It also contains some fascinating information about the ways in which these teas are manufactured, which actually also helps to understand why particular teas exhibit particular flavour characteristics. For example, it's the fast withering process that is partially responsible for the brisk astringency of Assam teas, while the slower, steamier withering of Keemun brings out the smoother mouthfeel and chocolatey notes commonly found in this kind of tea.

Books like this, and also the excellent New Tea Companion by Jane Pettigrew (which  contains tasting notes as well as handy pictures of a huge selection of teas), are extremely useful for learning about tea. I can't help wondering, though, about the limits to their usefulness (these in no particular order) -

- seasonal variations may produce different flavours, not to mention quality, of a given tea;
- the risk of setting up a stringent standard: 'This is the way this tea is supposed to taste, and if you can't taste the same things, you're wrong';
- conversely, the risk of relativism: 'Everyone's tastebuds are different so there's no standard you can actually apply at all, any given tea can taste like anything and there's no 'better' or 'worse'';
- variations in brewing parameters (water, temperature, length of steep, amount of leaf, etc) which can produce a radically different cup;
- (perhaps most importantly) the risk of frustration and (ironically) lack of appreciation for the tea because of being too caught up in trying to 'work out' what it tastes like... rather than just experiencing what it tastes like.

For all these potential problems I think that these tasting note type books - and the tasting notes you find in other sources such as the TeaMail group - remain useful because they can open your eyes to different ways of interpreting the tea you are tasting. For example, it would never have occurred to me to even imagine tropical fruit flavours in an Autumnal Darjeeling... and I haven't specifically noticed any in the Castleton Estate Autumnal I enjoyed so much, but I have identified berries.

It is also an encouragement to pay attention more closely to the other foods and drinks that I consume. Noticing more about their flavours broadens the palate I can bring to my teas. Every little bit of mindfulness helps.

In the end I think that is what it's really all about.

Cocoro Japanese Pottery & Cafe

Last Friday my sister and my husband and I were out on Smith St Fitzroy in search of dessert. It's been a long time since I was last on Smith St; not since before I went to Canberra, in fact, which makes it a good couple of years. So imagine my excitement* when I discovered Cocoro - a Japanese restaurant also serving Japanese tea, including matcha.

There were quite a few people in the cafe still having dinner at the small tables - but we were able to ensconce ourselves on a small couch at the front of the cafe area very comfortably. I opted for matcha and ordered some of the kukicha for my husband. Much to my surprise both teas arrived in kyusu pots, accompanied by small narrow cups; I wasn't aware that matcha could be prepared in a pot - and I confess to being slightly disappointed that I wasn't getting a nice frothy bowl of matcha, but as it turned out there was no need to be disappointed, because the steeped matcha was delicious, delicate and sweet. I also had a couple of sips of my husband's kukicha - and that was also just lovely - delicate pale yellow-green twigs that produced a subtle green flavour with no hints of bitterness or toastiness.


All in all I can't wait to go back. The pottery is gorgeous, and I would like to try their food as well - the meals we saw being served looked and smelt terrific - and also to investigate the other teas that they have on offer, including their matcha lattes... And the teas are available to purchase as well... may have to invest at some point in the near future, when I have a little more space in the pantry for tea (yes I AM capable of restraint where tea is concerned).


(Pictures courtesy of my husband's iPhone! Thank you Mr T!)

*For those of you having trouble imagining this excitement, it largely involved squeaking noises, bouncing up and down, and a little skip every now and then as we headed a little further on in our dessert quest, following assurances by my husband and sister that we would come back to Cocoro for tea afterwards.

Tea Drinks: Not for Purists, I

I've been experimenting with a few different blended tea drinks lately, and I'll be posting about those further when I've had slightly more success with them and am able to take some decent photos. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a recipe for the delicious matcha smoothie I whizzed up for myself today - just what I needed for a mid-morning snack-and-tea-in-one, especially after a night of insufficient sleep; it really picked me up and kept me going til the mid-afternoon.

You will need:
A blender
A ripe banana
A glass of milk (about 300ml)
Vanilla extract (to taste; I like lots)
1 tsp matcha powder

Put the milk, banana and vanilla extract in a blender and blend until smooth. With the blender still going, add the matcha powder and mix until thoroughly combined and a uniform greenish colour is achieved. Drink and enjoy!

Too much to hope for?

My husband and I are safely ensconced back in Melbourne - hooray! - and are getting along with unpacking, organising, blah, blah, ah well it's MOSTLY done (just as well).

Just before we left Canberra, however, we went to Silo bakery for breakfast on a Saturday morning - we would normally get our bread there, but it being so very very busy would rarely sit down to eat. However we decided we would on this particular morning, so my husband enjoyed a hearty breakfast of Welsh rarebit while I had an almond croissant (Silo almond croissants are divine and I shall have to (oh yes, it's necessary) go on a hunt to find an equivalent in Melbourne) with a plunger of Earl Grey (I think from T2). Earl Grey and almond croissants are a totally marvellous combination and one which I have enjoyed at home on previous occasions, as per below:

However, I also discovered that Silo offered a range of other teas, including Gyokuro - which I have never seen on a cafe or other menu before. I was intrigued enough to order some after I'd finished my Earl Grey... how would they brew it? Would it be drinkable??

The short answer is, they brewed it with boiling water in a plunger, the same way they did for other teas, and it was not drinkable at all, precious, no it wasn't. I plunged it as soon as it arrived at the table; the liquid was a cloudy, murky off-green, the taste was extremely bitter (and not in a good way) with no subtlety - it had been burnt beyond recognition... Such a shame. I hadn't really expected it to be properly brewed (though Gyokuro is not easy to brew, as I have found myself), but for such an expensive and rare tea  it really was a sad thing. How are people going to be encouraged to expand their tea horizons if they order something exotic like this and then find that it's not even drinkable? And then no one will order it and it will be taken off the menu so that there isn't even an option and it's back to the same old round of chamomile, peppermint, English Breakfast, Earl Grey, unspecified 'green', lemongrass and ginger. Argh! 

I am not normally this snarky, but I was cranky enough that I wrote a little note on a napkin saying they should brew their Gyokuro at a much lower temperature for only a short amount of time, as it was undrinkable - I imagine this was duly ignored and promptly thrown in the bin, heh, but never mind...

On the plus side I did have an enjoyable pot of white tea at Rubicon the night before we left, following a delicious meal and dessert... so perhaps there is hope yet!

Quest for summer sanity, via iced tea, continues

It's a relatively cool evening, thanks to the delightful breeze that's wafting through the open windows (it doesn't seem to be wafting too many mosquitoes through the tatty flywire at the moment, an added bonus). 

It's been a relatively lazy weekend which saw me and my husband and our cat piled on the couch for a post-lunch snooze this afternoon... although I did get up early to do some baking: inspired at the prospect of having blackberry-basil iced tea at breakfast, I decided to make some blackberry muffins to accompany it. They were very good; and the tea was fantastic.

The recipe for the blackberry-basil syrup is courtesy of the delightfully whimsical TeaSpot NYC blog and I knew I just had to try it as soon as I read about it. It's a beautiful balance of sweet and tart and the colour is amazing - I should've taken photos, but was too busy enjoying my breakfast to bother. (There is some blackberry-basil syrup left, though, so I still have the option - maybe tomorrow.)

The tea itself was a Ceylon single estate tea, Nandana Orange Pekoe, which I bought in NZ from T Leaf Tea, cold brewed overnight. Cold-brewing this tea yields a beautifully pale amber liquor, very mild (it's redder and stronger tasting when hot) and combined with the syrup it was truly a taste sensation. The basil added such a striking spicy, aromatic note. I think it would also go well with strawberries if blackberries aren't available (mind you I used frozen ones).

Then this afternoon I made myself a pot of spearmint and hibiscus (a teaspoon of each herb per cup), hot-brewed, steeped strong and then poured over ice. Minty and sour, 100% refreshing.

And now I'm finishing off the day with a few glasses of iced Haru-Poro-Poro (cold-brewed over the course of the day). This is a combination of sencha, green rooibos and raspberry flavouring - it's astringent (in a good way), sweet and the raspberry flavour is not overpowering. It really is delicious iced. It's from Lupicia - a wonderful shop in Melbourne which I visited at Christmas time.  They have loads of beautiful oolongs and greens that I would love to try; I'll have to see if I can schedule another trip when I'm next in Melbourne.

Matcha

Sometimes I just can’t resist a bargain. I made a brief trip to an Asian grocery store in the Melbourne CBD while I was there at Christmas time – didn’t have time to go to the more comprehensive range of Asian grocery shops in Box Hill, although I’d recommend them highly for variety and price – to see what kind of tea or teawares I might be able to pick up. When I saw some Japanese matcha (actually Japanese, I presume, given that the packaging said ‘product of Japan’), at 20gm for only $8, I just had to get some.

I didn’t buy it without some trepidation. I am not very experienced with using matcha, but from what I have read in The Story of Tea, the really good stuff is mind-blowingly expensive. A 40g tin from The Tea Centre retails for $20 (these are Australian dollars I’m talking here, obviously) and I understand that the cost generally only goes up from there.

Matcha is powdered green tea, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it. It is the stuff used in the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu). The use of powdered tea, whipped with water, was in common use in China at the time that tea and its preparation were passed on to the Japanese. Powdered tea gradually fell out of use in China, but it remained central to Japanese tea culture (although steeping unground, whole leaves, such as sencha, is obviously also very popular now in Japan as well).

When you drink matcha, you are consuming the whole leaf (minus the stems, that is); consequently, brewed matcha packs a relatively high caffeine punch. However, it’s also the richest in the polyphenols and other goodies that make green tea so healthy for you in the first place. Also, according to The Story of Tea, tea grown under shade – as the tea which will be processed into matcha is – produces higher amounts of the reputedly-calming amino acid theanine, and this balances out the effects of the caffeine. 

Apparently, because of the increased popularity of green tea food products (ice cream, cakes, smoothies and so on), these days a substantial quantity of matcha is grown and produced in China, but the top quality ceremonial tea is still grown - and the bulk of it consumed - in Japan.

So, given that it only cost me $8 I wasn’t expecting this to be the highest quality matcha, but I figured that it would be useful for practicing whisking (my sister brought me back a cha sen, or tea whisk, from her trip to Japan last year) and could be used culinarily if no good for drinking.

I brewed myself a bowl of the matcha last weekend, and I wasn’t rapt; the powder settled to the bottom of the bowl, and the taste was quite bitter on the tongue while I was drinking, although a beautiful herbal sweetness came through in the aftertaste. I may have used too much powder to too little water, and I am sure that my whisking technique is far from optimal. So I will need to try again.

However, the last couple of mornings, which have been hot, have seen me craving something cool to drink with my breakfast. Enter the matcha milkshake: I combined about a teaspoon of matcha with a teaspoon of sugar, mixed them to a relatively smooth paste with a little water, then topped the glass up with soy milk and added a dash of vanilla. Delicious!

For more info on matcha, see this page at WikiCha... or just hit Google.