Light-medium-full body: This is the mouthfeel of matcha tea when sipped alone.
Caution:Full-body matcha paired with cheap-weak milk makes faint or watery lattes. But a quality milk mixed with average matcha can turn 6s to 8s.
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Full-body tells your senses she's got a huge ego. Her notes are typically strong, and may linger around.
Light-body is demure and subtle. It's like a vivid dream except you can't remember the details but the essence of that dream.
Sweet: Sweet only like broccoli or baby bok-choi. Matcha is not saccharine. It is a vegetal sweetness. Often subtle and faint.
Bitter: The sharp, pungent flavour like crushed Panadol or antibiotics. It's a harshness in matcha that quickly overwhelms when not used to. Bitterness combines well with milk to make lattes refreshing.
For bitter matchas, the best way to make lattes is using a cold-whisking method. Where you mix matcha and milk directly together. No water needed.
Astringent: A dryness, mouth-puckering taste. It's almost sour as if you had lemon. Highly astringent matchas can be considered "grassy" by some. But astringency goes well in lattes, making your drinks crispy.
Umami: Savouriness like un-flavoured popcorn. Umami is an amplifier of the above flavours. In a cultural sense, it's the entire experience of matcha; from the mouth-feel combined with sweet, bitter or astringent notes. Umami is used interchangeably to describe the "experience" as well as the "savoury" component of matcha.
Caution: Explaining umami is like telling the blind colour red. People will not understand you if they have not experienced it.