Matcha LOVE

While there’s plenty of traction and a seemingly never ending supply of cold-brew coffee drinks, cold-brew tea is something that has been tried by only a small number of companies, and it hasn’t exactly found the same level of success. In our opinion, one of the big reasons that this has been the case is that cold-brew tea, unlike cold-brew coffee, doesn’t yet have a noticeably different taste than its hot brewed counterpart.

ITO EN, which is the Japanese company behind Matcha LOVE, is attempting to make an effort to change that. Their Matcha LOVE Ice-Steeped Cold Brew, which was announced for the 2017 Natural Products Expo West, uses, as the name suggests, a process of steeping the tea in ice. The line, which features two flavors, Unsweetened Matcha + Green Tea and Lemon Matcha + Green Tea, is not only enjoyable, but also sets the stage to help the Matcha LOVE brand differentiate itself from the rest of the shelf stable tea set.

As for the two flavors, both are well-executed. The Unsweetened offering is definitely for a more serious tea drinker than its Lemon counterpart. It’s clean and smooth, with a light, but slightly grassy green tea flavor. But it’s the Lemon variety that is really the star of the show. It’s sweetened with a modest 15g of sugar per bottle. The difference maker is the use of dried lemon, which has a really distinct flavor that is, at least for this product, something that’s really memorable. What it seems to have is the flavor of both lemon juice and peel, which is more on par with what you’d get if you added lemon to freshly made iced tea.

However, in the case of both flavors, it is hard, as we pointed out at the start of this review, to really taste a direct benefit of the cold-brew process. We’re not sure if that’s because of how the product is made -- or if there simply isn’t that big of a flavor benefit to using this approach. And if there’s a final thought about the liquid it would be to continue to develop flavors that are as memorable as the Lemon variety -- it’s really top notch.

On the outside, this product uses a 15.9 oz. plastic bottle and sleeve wrap that’s similar to other products from ITO EN. It feels technical and somewhat serious in style, although the Matcha LOVE logo itself is playful and inviting. And we do think that the prominent placement of “ice-steeped” and “cold brew” are good things that make it super easy to understand the value proposition. Still, our bar for this brand is the design of the Matcha LOVE cans, which have a really nice look that has visual pop. We’d love to see their bottled products take cues from this a bit more than they currently do.

Overall, this is a nice extension of the Matcha LOVE brand and one that seems like a good direction for this brand to head in. We think there’s an untapped opportunity for cold-brew tea and this feels like a product that can, despite the differences being this and hot-brew being somewhat nuanced, create some level of traction behind it.

With its sharp branding and intense flavor, Matcha LOVE is one of our favorite brands that Ito En has created for the US market. In fact, it was the winner of the award for “Best Tea” as part of BevNET’s Best of 2015. Matcha Colada, which blends coconut water (70 percent), matcha, green tea, and natural flavors, is the latest line extension for the brand.

In concept, we really like the idea of blending matcha and coconut water under a product that’s marketed as a tea drink;a matcha-flavored coconut water sounds much less appealing. They’ve utilized only the natural sugars of the coconut water in the mix., Even without any added sugar there’s still enough residual sweetness to please the palate. The matcha flavor is slightly milder than what we’ve seen from Matcha LOVE in either their canned or bottled products. There’s a very subtle grassy note to it, but it quickly subsides as the coconut water and added flavoring take over.

As for the flavoring, this is really the only part of the formulation that we’re not that fond of. In particular, the added pineapple flavor takes away from, rather than enhances, the flavor of the tea and the coconut water. We’d love to see this flavor improved -- or removed (although it wouldn’t make it a “colada” anymore).

Packaging is a 16.9 oz. plastic bottle with a shrink label, which is the same format used for their other Matcha LOVE bottle-based products. The label copy is straightforward, but it seems as though both the text and the graphics could be increased in size. In addition, there are some text elements that seem unnecessary, e.g. “chill shake love” and “natural source of electrolytes,” and could be removed to make room for the graphics to be larger. Ultimately, we’d really love it if this product had the same visual pop that the cans of Matcha LOVE have.

Overall, we like the idea of expanding Matcha LOVE into a coconut water blend. It seems like a nice way to help make matcha a bit more approachable to new consumers, while also creating some additional flavor profiles for the devoted. However, we’d love to see Matcha Colada get a few refinements, both in flavor and packaging.