Best matcha for cold drinks

April 22, 2018 4:30 PM

What is the best matcha powder to buy to make cold drinks with? Also what are the yummiest milks, etc., to mix it with, and the best sweeteners? No dietary restrictions at all except that I don't like stevia or artificial sweeteners.
posted by bookworm4125 to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Best answer: I like the price to quality ratio of the universal quality Maeda-En brand. I've tried several of the cheaper brands of matcha, and I've never been super happy with them.

Also, a cheap frother makes matcha super easy and effortless.

For a refreshing summer drink I put a bit of matcha in a cup with a teaspoon of dark brown sugar, and an once or two of hot water, use the frother to mix the matcha up and dissolve the sugar, and then add a handful of ice and fill the cup up with cold water.
posted by gregr at 7:50 PM on April 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Agave nectar also dissolves fairly well in colder liquids, I've found.
posted by macdara at 12:37 AM on April 23, 2018

The old standby of simple syrup is an old standby for good reason. Just heat up a cup of water and stir in a cup of sugar until completely dissolved. It will store in the fridge pretty indefinitely, and you can keep it in a squeeze bottle or even something like a cleaned out salad dressing bottle to make pouring easy. I also love honey with matcha, and honey simple syrup is exactly the same - 50/50 water to honey. Depending on the honey you might want to shake it up before using it to sweeten your drink but it's much easier and more effective than just plain honey which will clump up in cold drinks.

For matcha brands I haven't found one I really dislike, honestly. A little goes a very long way so I haven't gone through too many different types. A drink I love to make when it's hot out is guava nectar, matcha powder, and honey syrup, mixed up with a lot of crushed ice. I'm not big on cold milky drinks but I like thai iced tea with the sweetened condensed milk and have had a layered green tea served the same way with the beautiful ombre effect. It was fantastic!
posted by Mizu at 2:17 AM on April 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I like Trader Joe's matcha. It is $6 for 7 individual packets. Following the package directions of 8 oz of water makes a strong drink. The package says to use 16 oz of cold water to make a cold beverage and shake, but I use the blender for hot or cold to make sure there are not clumps. Expensive but in line with others.

I've also tried a couple from Whole Foods, more expensive and taste the same to me.

Once I bought some packets of Touch Organic matcha from Big Lots in regular and flavors (like strawberry) and -blerhgh- I had to return the unopened packets, the plain flavor I tried was verging on brownish and just awful.
posted by RoadScholar at 7:10 AM on April 23, 2018

I like Teapigs a lot.
posted by ferret branca at 8:24 AM on April 23, 2018

I've had enjoyable results with Jade Leaf brand from Amazon. I usually put it in water, coconut milk, or other alt-milk. It works well with a hand blender or shaker.
posted by theorique at 9:52 AM on April 23, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks all, especially gregr--ordered the one you recommended from Amazon today. I saw a couple of other options in Whole Foods, but did not go with them.
posted by bookworm4125 at 6:44 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]