Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups.. Happy Matcha Monday! For today’s post I’m going to be reviewing Kanes Tea Factory’s – Sweet Yuzu Matcha. If you have already read my last post featuring Kanes Tea Factory and their Sweet Sakura Matcha you’ll know I really enjoyed it and was really pleased with the way the sakura was added into it naturally. So going into this tasting session, I definitely had some expectations for the overall quality. Before this tasting session however I has not actually ever had anything with yuzu in it though so in terms of the added flavour I wasn’t really too sure what to expect flavour wise heading in this session.

Again just like last time this matcha was very kindly gifted to me by the team over at Yunomi. They have single handily introduced me to so many amazing Japanese teas and Japanese companies, farms and growing regions over the last few year and I’m incredibly thankful to have found such a incredible company to collaborate with long term.

Here’s what both Kanes Tea Factory and Yunomi have to say about this tea on their website: Light on the sweetness. Fragrance of a refreshing Yuzu peel Powder and Matcha.” – Kanes Tea Factory

“A sweet matcha flavoured with the yuzu peels, a citrus with a strong aroma. Add hot milk to transform this into a delicious latte!” – Yunomi Tea

Region: Shizuoka | Ingredients: Sugar, matcha, powdered yuzu citrus peels.

Tea Tasting Notes

For this tasting session I tried this matcha two ways: on its own (hot) and on its own (chilled), considering this matcha already contains sugar I saw no need to add in any honey as that would have made it too sweet. For this tasting session I wanted to taste the yuzu completely so I could decide whether or not I enjoyed its flavour profile and see if it paired well with the matcha. That is also the reason I chose not to add milk to it this time around though I will give that a try soon.

This matcha is sweet, vegetal and unmistakably citrus. Unlike the first flavoured matcha I tried from Kanes Tea Factory which was pretty much all sweet sakura notes and lighter green tea notes, this one was definitely still sweet but the matcha was much more prominent with the citrusy yuzu notes coming through afterwards. Even though the matcha is more prominent for me I will probably add some not sweetened or flavoured matcha to this next time I prepared it to cut through the sweetness a little bit. As I mentioned earlier in this post, before trying this matcha I had never had anything with yuzu in it so I was a little nervous that it wasn’t going to be my cup of tea. Luckily that wasn’t the case at all and I really enjoyed the it’s overall flavour profile. It taste like a perfect mix of lemon and lime and I love the way it pairs with the matcha doing well too cut through those vegetal notes and shine in its own right.

I love that just like the sakura the yuzu elements were added in natural and I think had they been added in artificially this matcha would have lost the great balance it has. Of course I would have liked the sugar not to be present at all as I prefer not to sweeten my matcha, so I’m definitely going to make sure I try the un-sweetened version of this in the future. I have a feeling I’ll love it and I also have a feeling that the matcha will be able to shine a lot brighter without that sweet note muting some of its best qualities.

I also think that the removal of the sugar would result in this matcha frothing a lot better. But I can see what Kanes Tea Factory were trying to do with this product and it would definitely be good for someone who can only drink their matcha sweetened. Chilled this matcha doesn’t change much though I did noticed that the colder it got the more the sweetness decreased which resulted in both the vegetal notes of the matcha and the yuzu notes becoming somewhat stronger. Personally I don’t think I’ll ever try this as a latte as I think milk would throw it off balance but I will definitely experiment with it in the future as I feel like it would make a fantastic matcha lemonade once the weather starts to get a little warmer. Overall I enjoyed this it did need a little bit of work to make it more my cup of tea but I think in the end I found the perfect way to prepare it for me and I’m really looking forward to drinking the rest of it.

Overall Teacup Rating: 4.9/5

If you want to find out more about Yunomi (you can do that here) and if you want to find out more about Kanes Tea Factory (you can do that here) in both of those places you can also purchase this matcha. As always if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll do my best to answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley

*The tea featured in this post was gifted to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own and have not been paid for | Some of the links in this post that lead to the Yunomi site are affiliate links and should you purchase through them I will make a small amount of money*