Hello everyone!
My name is Xenia Blanco, a self-proclaimed Japanese Tea Evangelist & Tea Chef from Spain, who runs The Japanese Tea Hub, a small online tea shop based in Sweden which specialises in Japanese teas.
You might be wondering why I chose such a name for the recipe I will be sharing with you today. However, once you will have gone through it you will understand it. And you will find it really fitting actually.
Perhaps you already know lots of things about matcha. For those that might be new to it or who might have discovered just recently I will make a short summary.
Contents
What is matcha?
Matcha (抹茶) is a really a special type of Japanese tea. Why is it special? Because it gets shaded for around three weeks (it depends on the farmer) before being harvested, then it is converted into something called tencha (碾茶 which I usually describe as tea flakes) and afterwards it is ground using a manual or automatic matcha mill. No other Japanese tea (or any other tea from a different country actually) follows this very same process. It is brewed using specific tools such as a chasen and it is consumed pure as well as mixed in drinks or food. If you would like to read a more extended article about matcha you can read this one I wrote a couple of months ago before going through the recipe.
How did I come up with this recipe?
I have been running a tea and food pairing session daily on Instagram for a while now. So one warm afternoon (it was 20 degrees, that is really warm in Sweden) I was thinking what to make next and I came up with this crazy idea of making a sort of a matcha dessert that was quite light and very full of matcha. I had already made matcha ice cream from scratch a couple of days before and I had prepared some matcha sour cream the previous day. I decided to mix them both with some usucha, some koicha and some matcha powder. This is how the matcha tsunami came to life.
What matcha did I use?
I had a full can of matcha from Uji (ceremonial grade) and I decided to use it for the usucha, the koicha and the dusting. For the ice cream and the sour cream I used cooking grade matcha from the same brand. Using ceremonial grade matcha for this treat might feel like a waste for you which I can understand, so if you want to use cooking grade matcha is also fine. Just make sure that it comes from Japan.
Should I make the ice cream from scratch?
You don’t really have to make the matcha ice cream from scratch. You can either use matcha ice cream if you have it at hand or any other flavour that is not super strong like vanilla, cream or even chocolate.
What are the tools I need?
The tools you would normally use for matcha brewing plus some for serving the ice cream and to mix the sour cream with the matcha.
Is it difficult to make?
Not really, unless you decide to make matcha ice cream yourself which will take an extra day. Otherwise, it is fairly simple and it took me about 8 minutes to put everything together. I was recording a video so it might take even less time for you.
So here we go! Are you ready?
Ingredients
14 g high ceremonial grade matcha (it can be replaced by any other drinking matcha powder instead)
100 ml boiled water
60 ml milk
70 ml sour cream
2 or 3 scoops matcha ice cream (or any other ice cream)
Tools
2x Matcha bowl
1x Matcha scoop
1x Matcha whisk
1x Mini whisker (optional but useful mine is hand made by a chasen artisan in Japan)
1x Glass beaker (to contain the milk, you can use any other container of you choice)
1x Ice cream scoop
Preparation:
1. Add 3 scoops of matcha in a matcha bowl (4.5 grams aprox.)
2. Add 40 ml of water at 80 degrees Celsius
3. Whisk using the matcha whisk until obtaining a thick usucha (thicker than usual but not as thick as a koicha)
4. Add 60 ml of cold milk and mix well (should become a strong matcha latte)
5. Use 70 ml of sour cream and mix it with 2 scoops of matcha (3 grams aprox.) using the bamboo mixer
6. Add the matcha latte to a matcha bowl
7. Add two or three ice cream scoops on top of the matcha latte
8. Add the sour matcha cream on top and spread to cover the ice cream
9. Use 4 scoops of matcha (6 grams aprox.) to prepare koicha (40 ml water 90 degrees Celsius)
10. Add the koicha on top and use the mini whisker to spread it around like in an spiral
11. Finally dust with some matcha powder on top & spread it around in an spiral motion
Enjoy!
It might sound like it is a bit heavy yet it is not. It does not contain much sugar and it is low in fat as well. It all depends on how sugary or fatty the ice cream you choose is. The matcha latte doesn’t have any sugar, nor the koicha or the matcha sour cream. If you don’t like the sour cream (it creates a nice contrast yet I understand it might not work for everyone flavour wise) you can use low fat yogurt instead, with similar results.
You don’t drink milk or don’t eat dairy products? No problem! You can replace them by a non-dairy drink or product of your choice. However, this might affect the final taste of this dessert so keep this in mind if you decide to do so.
What do you think? Would you try to make such a scrumptious matcha recipe like this one? If you do, I would love to hear all about it so please tag me on Instagram. Let me know if you have any questions about this recipe.
Thank you very much for reading me, have a nice week!