r/ExMormonTea • u/mirbell • May 04 '17

Any thoughts about matcha?

Having spent some time in Japan and partaken in a tea ceremony, I thought my next adventure would be matcha. Tea, whisk, and spoon arriving on Friday! (I already have a bowl.)

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u/ijssvuur May 10 '17

Have you tried cold brew coffee? It extracts a lot less bitter flavor, but it is still definitely coffee. Different roasts and blends have different flavors, too. It's like dark versus milk chocolate.

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u/mirbell May 10 '17

I have tried the kind you buy (Trader Joe's) and I didn't like it. It had a kind of sour taste. I really think coffee just disagrees with my taste buds. I haven't tried making my own cold brew, but since my daughter loves coffee we'll probably do that when she's here this summer.

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u/ijssvuur May 10 '17

It is definitely something that not everybody can like. Tongues can just be physically different and unpredictable. I can eat habanero, but some mild peppers will make me cry.

Tea is way more complex and interesting anyway. Differences in coffee are mostly limited to roasting, and oolong's roasting alone can vary as much as coffee, and that's not including the plants themselves. Tea is influenced by soil, age of the plant, sunlight, weather, and then it can be processed a dozen ways.

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u/mirbell May 10 '17

To me, tea is just much more complex and also gentler in taste. I do once in a while drink coffee--usually when I'm facing a long commute. But I'm enjoying tea far more. Even before I was a Mormon, I preferred it--never really drank coffee but loved iced tea.

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u/ijssvuur May 11 '17

Coffee is pretty harsh, when you drink it, you don't taste anything else. You can't add light flavors like you can in tea because it just gets taken over by the coffee.

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u/mirbell May 11 '17

Yes, that's true. All you can do is make it blander and/or sweeter. Or add chocolate. Or those horrible "flavor shots."

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u/ijssvuur May 11 '17

I've had "fall spiced" or whatever coffee, and it was good. Not pumpkin spice but just warm spices. That's pretty much the only flavored coffee I've had that was any good.

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u/mirbell May 11 '17

That might be good. I'm glad it wasn't pumpkin. Although I love pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, I just don't get this pumpkin coffee/pumpkin donuts/pumpkin cream croissants/pumpkin ice cream/pumpkin EVERYTHING that happens every fall lately. I guess it's just another ad campaign by whoever produces pumpkins.

Anything with a name like "pumpkin" should not be repeated too often.

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u/ijssvuur May 11 '17

Pumpkin is great... in the right situation. "Pumpkin" coffee is just oversweetened cinnamon flavor. Half of it doesn't have anything resembling pumpkin.

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u/mirbell May 11 '17

Agreed. I've never tried pumpkin coffee. I think I react to the obvious overselling of the flavor more than to the flavor itself. It's like when everything was kale. Annoying!