I love tea.
Earl grey, english breakfast, red bush, jasmine, peppermint, pu’er… there’s nothing like a nice, hot, comforting cuppa to make you feel a bit better and I am guaranteed to have at least 3 cups a day!
The one I love most though? Green tea. With it’s purportedly cancer and heart disease fighting antioxidants and metabolism boosting polyphenols, as a woman it’d be pretty hard to hate green tea.
Green tea with brown rice
My favourite variety at the moment is the green tea and brown rice combo. I first tasted this stuff in a Korean restaurant and I can’t even remember anything else about that meal apart from the tea. If you’re in London I’d definitely recommend popping into Arigato on Brewer Street and picking up a pack (they also do a lunch menu and sell fantastic slabs of sashimi for £5 too!) or of course, Japan Centre. Whilst you’re there, grab a pack of matcha too! The Superman of green tea, matcha is a concentrated, fine powder form of the g-tea. The tea bushes are covered from direct sunlight weeks before harvest to slow growth and encourage a darker shade of green which gives matcha it’s sweeter taste.
Drinking it like normal green tea requires a certain process that needs to be followed, or else you end up with a lumpy tea! But you’ll also find this stuff in lattes, ice-cream, noodles and…
…cookies! I’ve had nothing but positive feedback on these cookies which I’ve taken to gatherings and they never seem to last more than a couple of days in our flat as the fella seems to love them too!
Matcha Shortbread Cookies (recipe adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini)
I’m not a big fan of almonds or the sugar-coating on the outside, so here is the basic but still just as tasty version!
Yields about 20 cookies
100g butter (good quality, softened)
50g icing sugar
1 large egg yolk
90g plain flour
2 teaspoons match(green tea powder)
Pinch of salt
- In a mixing bowl, combine and cream together the sugar and butter. Add the yolk and mix thoroughly
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and matcha powder, then sift this, slowly, into the first bowl
- Stir everything together until it forms a dough. As soon as it’s thoroughly mixed with no lumps roll it into a log about the width of a cucumber
- Wrap the log in clingfilm and place it in the freezer for 40 mins until it becomes firm.
Preheat the oven to 180° and line a baking tray with baking paper. Cut the log into 1cm width coins and place them on the tray (make sure to give them enough space to expand). I’d recommend baking them for 15-20mins (original recipe says 12mins) to make sure that they aren’t raw on the inside.
Easy peasy!
Melba's Toast 