Tea and Chocolate - A Dream Combination

When Sarah from the lovely Maison Cupcake contacted me recently to say I'd won a giveaway I was thrilled. When I realised it was for a box of tea flavoured chocolates I was pretty much ecstatic! Somehow the existence of Matcha Chocolat had passed me by, which was frankly a miracle as it is a product combining two of my favourite things in the world. Such is my love for tea flavoured chocolates I had previously sought them out at Pierre Marcolini and l'Artisan du Chocolat amongst others but here was an opportunity to have a whole box devoted to that most glorious of combinations. I awaited them with eager anticipation.

Green Tea cupcakes

Recently I decided to indulge two of my favourite things at once: tea and cakes. But not in the usual way: you know a lovely cake with an accompanying cuppa. No, this time I planned to enjoy both in one creation. Luckily, the lovely Rachel that I met on my cupcake course last year had sent me a recipe for green tea cupcakes that I adapted a little. In truth, although I loved the way the matcha frosting turned out, the tea flavour in the cupcake was a little bit too subtle for me. But then I do love my tea... I might be tempted to up the tea content in the cakes in future and lose the cocoa powder altogether. Still, they went down very well with everyone else so here's the recipe I used.

Iced Matcha Latte in Style

It's hard to single out a favourite area in Tokyo: as with any huge metropolis there's so much diversity it feels crazy to pick just one spot. But an area I absolutely loved was Naka-Meguro and what's more, I stumbled across it almost by accident.

Japanese Tea - The Bitter & The Sweet

So, I'm finally back from my extended (thank you ash cloud) trip to Japan. And it was fantastic. I saw, ate and, of course, drank so many amazing things it's hard to know where to begin. Before I travelled eastwards I'd hoped that I might be able to have tea in at least one or two traditional tea houses, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would be indulging virtually every other day! As wonderful and individual as each of these experiences was I think writing about all of them might stretch everyone's patience so I have decided to concentrate on the tea that made the biggest impact on me.