Office Ice Matcha Latte

Finally feeling the heat here in London, forecasted a high of 28 deg today. This becomes more unbearable with over 50 high powered GPUs running jobs in the labs. For today’s coffee break, I’ve elected to make a more exotic drink as to the usual dispensed coffee.

Stuff you need:

• Matcha (obviously)
• Matcha tea set
• Milk
• Honey
• Ice
• Milk whisk

Things to note:

• I would really recommend a matcha tea set (bowl and bamboo whisk), it does the job very well to ensure all the matcha gets dissolved without any lumps. You may get away with using a milk whisk, I have seen staff at Tombo preparing matcha like this and it turned out ok.
• You can substitute honey for sweetener, but this is just personal preference.
• Ice… we are fortunate that our canteen serves ice. It’s also ok to make this without ice, the drink will just be chilled instead of cold.

What to do:

1. Scoop a tea spoon of matcha into the matcha bowl. The amount of matcha is really personal preference, a teaspoon is a good start but add more (or less) if a stronger (or weaker) taste is desired. Then add in a SINGLE shot-glass worth of milk to the bowl. I have seen many people scoop matcha directly into a full cup of milk, which usually results in undissolved matcha lumps. Here, we start from a high viscosity matcha paste and reduce the viscosity to ensure dissolution. Whisk away with the bamboo whisk. After the matcha has dissolved, squirt in some honey (again, add as much to taste) and give it a good whisk.
2. In a cup (with ice), fill half way with cold milk and pour in the matcha-milk-honey mix.
3. (Optional) To froth milk, microwave about 1/3 glass of milk until hot and whisk it until foamy. Add to the matcha latte.