Matcha Love

Next to chocolate my favorite flavor is matcha or green tea. Anytime I see any food or drink with matcha flavor I buy it hoping to find a new favorite. I will break down my discoveries by the country where I bought them.

Manila
I’m happy that Starbucks has a good iced green tea latte that I order with non fat milk and no syrup making it a lower calorie drink with tons of matcha flavor.

During my recent birthday celebrations I got to try two fantastic green tea cakes. The first one was from Sinfully by Makati Shangri-La.

✔ ✔ ✔ Sinfully by Makati Shangri-La – green tea opera cake

Karen’s green tea layer cake tasted great too! I honestly can’t decide which of these two green tea cakes I liked better. They were both delicious.

✔ ✔ ✔ Karen’s Kitchen green tea layer cake

Hong Kong
My friend has been telling me about Sweet House Cha Cha a dessert place in Harbour City’s city’super fast food area that specialized in matcha ice cream and smoothies.

Sweet House Cha Cha

Sweet House Cha Cha menu

Usually soft serve ice cream uses lower fat milk. I was surprised the they used Hokkaido soft cream. No wonder it was deadly.

This is THE BEST matcha ice cream I’ve ever eaten. Rich, creamy with a strong matcha flavor but not bitter and not too sweet. I wanted to eat this every single day. I would gladly skip a meal just to eat this. Even though it wasn’t cheap at HK$40 it was worth every dollar and calorie.

✔ ✔ ✔  softcream cup HK$40

My friend usually gets the smoothie so I had to try it even though I wanted the ice cream. Usually when you hear the word smoothie you can be sure there’s milk, cream or even ice cream in it.

I was surprised their matcha smoothie was just made with water, ice, matcha powder and sugar. It had a good  and strong matcha flavor and it was refreshing. It was lighter and definitely had less calories. I’m sticking with the softcream or soft serve ice cream.

✔ ✔  matcha smoothie HK$38

Kee Wah Bakery is a popular Chinese bakery with several branches in Hong Kong. I usually buy their pineapple bun with BBQ Pork and eggrolls but this time I tried their green tea cookies and red bean green tea roll. Both were totally lacking in any green tea flavor. I’d stick with the BBQ pork buns next time.

✖ Kee Wah Bakery – green tea cookies & red bean green tea roll

Uggghh one bite and I threw it away. Super yuck.

✖ green tea cake

I love mochi and was excited to see this in Hong Kong. It was horrible. No green tea taste at all.

✖ green tea mochi

There are so many good snacks at Muji (Japanese) that usually I try not to go near the food section otherwise I’d have a basketful of goodies. I love their gorgonzola cheese and walnut cookies and the earl grey cookies were not bad. But when I saw the lone green tea cake I had to buy one and try it.

Baumkuchen is a popular European layer cake which the Japanese love and made their own. The picture looks nice right? Too bad it was very dry and not much green tea flavor.

✖ Muji’s Baumkuchen green tea

Taipei
I bought two pieces of these Kyosai green tea pastries in a store in Tamsui Old Street Night Market and didn’t expect it to be so good.

✔ ✔ ✔  Kyosai green tea pastry

The crust was flaky but not buttery and it’s a mess to eat. All the crumbs fall all over the place. What I loved was the intense green tea sticky paste filling. My cousin Angie went to their store and it was all sold out. She had to order it for me and she was able to send some through my aunt. So now I have a stash of these yummy pastries.

Like the mochi above this was made in Taiwan too. Somebody gave me a box of Yuki & Love Handmade Mochi before and I asked my cousin Angie who lives in Taipei to look for it.

✔ ✔ ✔  Yuki & Love Homemade Mochi green tea flavor

This is how good green tea mochi should taste like. The mochi layer was soft and sticky. The filling was smooth and had a substantial green tea kick. It’s a million times better than the mochi I bought in Hong Kong.

USA
One of my favorite green teas is The Republic of Tea’s Double Green Matcha Tea. Each tea bag contains green tea leaves AND match tea powder. It’s extra strong and perfect to drink hot with or without milk. This would make a good cold green tea latte too. This is also available at Healthy Options.

✔ ✔ ✔  The Republic of Tea Double Green Matcha Tea

Any other matcha lovers out there? Do you know of any matcha or green tea products in Manila or abroad that I should try? I would love it if I could find matcha sable cookies, scones or biscotti. Let me know in the comments section.

✖ skip it
✔ not bad
✔ ✔ do try
✔ ✔ ✔ MUST try

Sinfully by Makati Shangri-La
2nd Level, Greenbelt 5, Greenbelt
Paseo de Roxas cor. Legaspi St., Ayala Center
Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
telephone: (+63 2) 729-6626
Facebook

Karen’s Kitchen
107B, #210 Zodiac Street, Palm Village,
Makati, Metro Manila 1211 Philippines
telephone: (632) 898-2280
website

Sweet House Cha Cha
city’super food court
Harbour City Level 3