Souvenirs from Japan 3

A dear friend from Japan sent me a small package with some matcha sticks and a box of biscuits. I felt so warm with the gifts. I was familiar with coffee sticks, but for tea, I thought it's either in tea bags or loose tea leaves. I never thought it could come in powder form, further more, it came with milk! I didn't know the meaning of Au Lait before this, googled it up and found out that it means "served with milk".

This Hoshino Matcha Au Lait 八女抹茶が薫る『星の抹茶オーレ』is made from Matcha produced in Yame 八女市, Fukuoka. Inside a box, there're seven sticks and can be served cold or hot.

Hoshino Matcha Au Lait

On the packaging, there is even instructions on how to brew the matcha hot or cold style. Not bad huh!

Hoshino Matcha Au Lait

Hoshino Matcha Au Lait

I like hot drinks. So, I just made it hot.

matcha powder

To make the drinks, there's instructions on the back of the cover. There's even suggestions to use what types of drinks ware for the hot and cold version. 

Hot drinks

1. Pour the Hoshino Matcha Au Lait into a cup.

2. Add hot water (120ml ~ 150 ml), then stir it well using a spoon. 

*Please use small cup.

*Please be careful with the hot water.

Cold Drinks

1. Pour the Hoshino Matcha Au Lait into a glass.

2. Add hot water (~30ml) to dissolve it.

*Please use heat resistant glass.

I use a Milo mug to for the Hoshino Matcha Au Lait, the colour matched with each other. Hehehe! Well, for this Matcha Au Lait, one have to follow the water volume instruction, one time, I poured more water and it's quite tasteless. Within the advised water volume, it's very nice, quite frothy and milky with a hint of Matcha. 

matcha powder after adding hot water

The other item is Lotte Chokolantan ショコランタン (白雪いちご). The normal Lotte Chokolantan flavours are chocolate and caramel. The one my friend brought me is strawberry flavour, which is a special edition flavour. In Japan, one can see many limited time offers (期間限定) for various items. And we as a customer, always fall into the promotion trap. Ahhh, human!

Lotte ショコランタン (白雪いちご)

The back of the packaging is very interesting, there are instructions on how to turn the packaging into a storage box. 

Lotte ショコランタン (白雪いちご)

For this chocolantan, it's quite sweet and it is not as hard as I thought it will be. Well, it's something suitable to eat while accompanied by the Matcha Au Lait. Hahaha!

Lotte ショコランタン (白雪いちご)

Step by step to turn the packaging into a storage box to put these chocolantan.

Lotte ショコランタン (白雪いちご)