🍵 Matcha Lattes: All Around The World 🍵
Reviewing all the matcha lattes around the world (i.e. all the places I’ve roamed to thus far)
Coffee was never a big part of my life until university where I would have the occasional French Vanilla from Tim Horton’s or make my own concoction of 50% Hot Chocolate, 50% Dark Roast during the cold winter months and hunker down in the library for long study sessions. There was even a period where I used to drink black coffee (honestly, don’t think I could do that ever again) - but those days are long gone.
I can’t remember where exactly I first heard about matcha but I became obsessed over it on my solo trip to Japan - the soy matchas at Starbucks, the matcha covered almonds, the soft-serve - I couldn’t get enough. Over the years, I’ve gone from making matcha lattes with culinary grade matcha (definitely don’t recommend this, it tastes horrible and will turn you off matcha) to having my whole set up at home and using amazing, ceremonial grade matcha. Although I am a matcha lover, I am a frugal accountant at heart so I hate spending money on matcha lattes outside because:
They’re expensive (at least $6 USD here in San Francisco), and
They’re bad unless the place knows what they’re doing (i.e. using good quality matcha)
Given my caffeine sensitivity, I’m much more likely to try a matcha/tea beverage over coffee so over my travels and day-to-day, I’ve tried a lot of matcha lattes. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the health benefits of both options since I am a geek for wellness and treating food as medicine. Coffee has great protective benefits for many diseases and aging, but personally the taste and caffeine crash are things I don’t prefer. Matcha (which is essentially ground green-tea leaves) is rich in antioxidants and has a smoother caffeine release, and it tastes better to me as well!
The goal of this series is to give a brief review of the drink and conclude on if I’d recommend it or not. For reference, I’m dairy-free and try to limit my sugars so I'm usually ordering an unsweetened latte with plant milk (usually soy or oat).
Before you dive in, please remember that I’m not a matcha connoisseur so you won’t be reading about the specific notes of the matcha in the drinks (i.e. vegetal, bitter, astringent, umami, sweet). As always, I recommend finding a drink that you like, with a method you can recreate at home and doing that, since it’ll always be the most cost effective (and in my opinion, the most special)
The links below will take you to the page for each city - each cafe title is also hyperlinked to the Google Maps link. Happy reading and matcha latte sipping!