Mat-Cha!

I suddenly craved for milk tea.  It's 30 minutes before 12 midnight and I am home sweet home in Malolos where milk tea cafes do not exist.  With some stocks at home I attempted to do my own version.  Surprisingly it does taste like those Taiwan milk teas.

Here is my own version of mat-cha:

• Simple syrup 1:1 cup of sugar and water. 
• 4 tea bags of Oolong tea  boiled in one liter of water
• skim milk dissolved from a portion of still warm brewed tea
• grass jelly an alternative sinkers since I don't have tapioca pearls

I used my beer mug to create my concoction :-) filling half of it with still warm freshly brewed Oolong tea.  Then I mixed in about 3 tablespoon of skim milk and about 4 tablespoon of simple syrup.  I don't have a shaker so I just stirred it well before adding the grass jelly and ice until the glass is almost filled.

I am calling it mat-cha - 맛차 short for 맛있다 (mashitta) + 차 (cha).  In Korean, mashitta means delicious and cha is tea so mash-cha would mean delicious tea.

Fast facts:  Koreans are fond of combining two words to coin a new one.  Namchin is from the word 남자 (namja) + 친구 (chingu).  Namja is man and chingu is friend where 'namchin' is coined to mean boyfriend.  So with 여자 (yoja) meaning woman, 여친 (yochin) therefore is girlfriend.

The Sparkling Taste of San Pellegrino

I have always been curious about those bottled water that i see in movies and dramas.  Whenever a rich character is portrayed, it's almost always that when they drink water, it comes in those fancy colored bottles either dark blue or green.

So my curiosity led mo to buying a bottle of San Pellegrino from my last trip to S&R.  I was tempted to buy the blue one but seeing San Pellegrino i thought i should try this one first. This sparkling bottled water costs 190.00 pesos for 750ml. It's almost 6 times more expensive than a 1.5L Coke.

I read that this water is naturally carbonated although the bottler still adds carbon to it.  The water is said to have curative powers.  So I had my first taste of San Pellegrino sparkling water.  It was totally different from what I expected.  It has the same feel as that of drinking softdrinks but the flavorless water seems to have that  some kinda of a 'mineral' after taste. 

I honestly don't know what's in this water that makes it such hit to the taste of the upper class and fine dining lovers.  I think I would rather buy a bottle of the equally expensive Evian. I was a little disappointed ha ha ha maybe because I never have that upper class taste.  I think I will always expect for some flavor whenever drinking something sparkling.

Oh well the excitement on drinking this sparkling water died down at home, I find it a waste to put it on sink so maybe I will try one of those concoctions from Giada that uses sparkling water.

Tea over Coffee

I decided to continue making this site as my other world. It's been a long time since I last posted something here. I wouldn't want to create laundry list of new year's resolution but I would like 2012 to be a year of change for me. So I am starting this post with a change.

Since Starbucks started with their Holiday drinks promo, I have always been on the line to get a premium cup of this coffee in exchange for a sticker to I can get a new planner. This year, am missing this planner:



Though I missed getting the planner this year, it really did not make a difference except that I know a portion of the spending I made with coffee purchase at Starbucks goes to Hope Sparks, so for this year I failed to contribute to this institution. Honestly, I really never used any of the planners I got. I sometimes even forget to use the vouchers that goes with it. This is not to say I don't like Starbucks because I am a coffee lover. My day will definitely not be right without a hot cup of coffee.

One driver to this change perhaps is that late last year, I got curious to try milk tea. I have known this drink for so long but I really never tried to have one since I fear experiencing 'royal rumble' after having a drink. Tea101 is my first try on milk tea.



I must say that the service crew at Tea101 in SM Megamall recommended something that changed my drink of choice every December. I tried the best seller, wintermelon milk tea in pearl. After my cup, my perception on milk tea changed. I never get rid of hot coffee in the morning but my afternoon or night drink would be milk tea.

My Tea101 experience started my milk team adventure. I got to know Gongcha, Teafarm, Serenitea, Share Tea, Bubble Tea and Chatime. So far this are the tea shops that I have tried and only the first one is out of my list. I didn't like their wintermelon tea. Other favorites would be matcha green tea of Teafarm and Bubble Tea, red beans pearl milk tea of Chatime, okinawa of Serenitea.