Reviewing Green Tea Goodies from Makinohara, Shizuoka

I was lucky enough to get my hands on 3 lovely products that came all the way from Makinohara in Shizuoka. As a lover of tea products, I was really excited to give these products a shot.

Now that I think about it, it’s a bit intense to try all 3 products at the same time, but this is what one usually does when they are trying out new products, right? Here we can see all the products together. The look of the products is really nice, though I might be biased because green is my favorite colour.

Let’s start with the leaf pie, shall we? The box looks nice and elegant, as one would expect here in Japan for this kind of product. It’s maybe a little big, but that might have to do with the next layer that we get to when we open the lovely box. Inside the box, two rows of individually wrapped leaf pie could be found. The plastic they were in also had a lovely print on them, though I thought it was interesting how large the plastic bags were for the size of the pastries within. I thought it might have to do with protecting the cookies from breaking, but a few of them apparently broke during their trip to my place, so that might be it.

A leaf pie seems to be a kind of palmier, if you’ve had a palmier, or any other type of flakey baked pastry, you know that for how delicious it is, it can be on the fragile side. The palmiers themselves were fabulous. Great mouthfeel, easy to bite down on, nice and flakey, not too sweet but definitely hits your sugar craving, and the light flavor of the matcha added a lovely flavor, but did not over power the dessert. It gets my seal of approval.

Next, how about we move on to the sencha green tea? Unlike the leaf pies, a little more preparation is needed to consume this product. However, boiling some water isn’t rocket science.

As much as I like to drink my teas, I might be an outlier in the fact that I usually don’t let my teas get too strong before I start consuming them. Some might call it blasphemy, but that’s always how I have it. That’s why I was a bit surprised by this tea. I stepped away for a second as I was letting it steep, and when I stepped back into the room, it had gotten extremely opaque and strong. This is great for those of you who love strong and cloudy green tea. I was a bit surprised, but I must say that it was also a lovely tea. Shizuoka really knows its stuff.

If you like your teas on the softer side, like me, I would suggest to let it steep for a really short amount of time, or to not step away, or to let it steep in a large quantity of hot water, rather than just a cup’s worth. That being said, it really is delicious tea. I also give it my seal of approval.

Finally, let’s move on to the syrup. This is something I wouldn’t consume on its own, but it was very tasty when I tried a few drops to see what the taste would be like. I am also thankful that they had suggestions on the side of the bottle for what one could use it with. Once I saw that ice cream was on the list, I had decided what I wanted to do: a makeshift matcha based parfait bowl. I usually like to make these with bran flakes, covered with vanilla ice cream, strawberries, bananas, and topped with a bit of chocolate syrup. For this version, I decided to get myself some matcha-flavored granola cereal that came with freeze-dried strawberries, red beans, and mochi. To this I added the usual strawberries and vanilla ice cream. Finally, I topped it off with the matcha syrup.

This product is probably the one that surprised me the most. I have two similar looking syrups; the aforementioned chocolate syrup, as well as a kurozato (unrefined brown sugar) syrup. When I add either of these to some ice cream, the streak that comes out of the bottle usually holds its shape well until I start eating, but this syrup immediately started to melt all over the ice cream, as you can see in the pictures. Not that this is a bad thing per se, but it was certainly a surprise. However, the flavor of this syrup is absolutely splendid. I was expecting something super sweet and overpowering, like the kurozato syrup that I have. However, it had just the right depth of flavor to be properly tasted when consumed, but also not too strong as to mask the flavor of the other ingredients present in each bite of this dessert. I give my seal of approval to it as well.

All in all, I am very happy with these products and I will keep an eye out for more products that are made from Shizuoka’s ever so delicious matcha. Hopefully you’ll give it a shot, too

This post is supported by Makinohara City, one of City-Cost's Supporters helping City-Cost bloggers to enjoy life in Japan and engage in new experiences.