Kiss Me Organics provided me with a bag of matcha for this review.

The past several weeks have started with a green tea latte… made with organic matcha from Kiss Me Organics and almond milk. I used to get a green tea latte on occasion from Starbucks, but I haven’t done that in a long time. This is nice to be able to do something similar at home, but I can use almond milk instead of soy like I would get at SBUX.

Most green tea baked goods are made using matcha, which is different from loose-leaf green tea. Matcha is a green tea that is grown in the shade; then it’s picked, deveined and pulverized into a powder. So it’s a different color, flavor, texture from what you’d get from a loose-leaf or bagged tea.

I shared this picture of it on instagram/facebook/twitter a few weeks ago:

//instagram.com/p/ludSE_qz8G

A gal I used to coach asked about it and said she had a recipe that she had wanted to make using matcha – Green Tea Fudge Protein Bars. Those bars intrigue me, and other than the chocolate… I have all the ingredients. But the cool thing about the Kiss Me Organics brand is when you buy it you get a whole recipe e-book full of cool recipes, so I now own a whole cookbook that I could use with it.

The 4 oz. bag retails on Amazon (PRIME!) for $25, which is a really good price for a nice culinary-grade matcha. I have seen some that are just 1 oz. for more than that price. Using just 1/2 tsp. per cup, you’ll get about 48 servings from the bag. (About 52 cents per cup, even factoring the cost of buying your own milk, that’s way cheaper than the chain place!)

Green tea has a whole array of supposed benefits: brain function, oral health, energy, bone health, performance boost, etc. A simple Google search will bring up all of these things, so pick and choose the benefits that strike close to your heart. Or just drink it because it’s kind of a nice calming ritual to start the day (which is what I’ve found!)