aureate & aromatic

The second drink of my thirty day book as a bev series is a strawberry matcha with coconut cold foam inspired by Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Another classic!

I was pretty ambitious with the color palette this time around, but surprisingly, I feel I was able to execute my vision pretty well if I do say so myself~

This beverage’s name is:

‘the monster’s match’

Name Explained: See what I did there? A play on matcha but also a match for Frankenstein’s monster aka the bride/wife. Was pretty proud of myself for that one.

Strawberry Sauce: I decided to whip up a homemade strawberry sauce/syrup for the base. It didn’t come out the prettiest thanks to my dicey chopping skills, but I felt it suited the spooky vibe of the drink. I plan to use an immersion blender going forward to get the most use out of it in future drinks.

Matcha: Because of the green on the cover, matcha felt like the most obvious choice. And thankfully, because I drink it every couple of days, I had some in the house to spare for this experimentation.

Blue Spirulina Coconut Cold Foam: This was the first time I used blue spirulina, it has such a potent color so I didn’t need to use much for this double batch. Since it doesn’t have any flavor, I decided to go with coconut since I felt it would complement the strawberry and matcha well.

Freeze Dried Blueberries: When blended these look more purple, but whole they look black, and so I felt they brought the whole vision together of incorporating all of the book’s cover.

RATING: Overall I’d give the drink a solid 4.80.

Flavor Combination: The strawberry and coconut kind of overpowered the matcha, so I docked the flavor combo rating a bit. It could be that I needed to up the matcha ratio a tad, but it was still, really good. I felt like 4 grams per cup was a good amount beforehand, put perhaps next time I’ll use closer to six. Despite not sweetening the matcha and foam, the strawberry alone was enough to sweeten the drink, but not overwhelmingly so.

Ease: The most difficult part of making the drink was taking the time to make the strawberry sauce from scratch. But even that took at most 15-20 minutes which wasn’t bad at all.

Appearance: I feel like the blue spirulina kind of began to steep into the matcha and mask some of the green, and that’s the only reason I’m not giving full marks for the appearance. You can still see all 4 colors though, so I’m pretty proud of how it came out.

Ways to Improve: I would drink this again as is, the only change I’d make is upping the aforementioned matcha ratio slightly so it can stand with the strawberry and coconut as more of an equal.

Here’s the spreadsheet for all of the tools and ingredients used:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r98ituvMhsrjiXfidDUlMtrU0u_YwIdNyY_rlxD-8YA/edit?gid=891834841#gid=891834841

I’ve also provided the information below for added ease~

Glass Cups (exact): https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Homes-Gardens-Avery-Clear-Tea-Glass-18-oz/14195502874?classType=REGULAR&from=/search

Glass Cups (alternative): https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Homes-Gardens-Josie-Mixed-Size-Drinking-Glasses-16-Piece-Glassware-Set/397210057?classType=REGULAR&from=/search

Glass Cups (alternative): https://amzn.to/3VOC7hn

Matcha (alternative): https://amzn.to/4gZiQ6C

Blue Spirulina (exact): https://amzn.to/4q3cZ4o

Canned Coconut (exact): https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/organic-coconut-milk-055238

Carton Coconut (exact): https://amzn.to/4mStZYa

Heavy Whipping Cream (exact): https://www.publix.com/pd/publix-whipping-cream-heavy/RIO-PCI-112684

Freeze Dried Blueberries (exact): Trader Joe’s (can’t find link, sorry!)

Freeze Dried Blueberries (alternative): https://amzn.to/4pZviHA

Frother (exact): https://amzn.to/3ILwb5Q

Frother (alternative): https://amzn.to/3IXE73M

Chawan/Tea Bowl (exact): https://amzn.to/3ItYZzJ

Here’s a quick video showing how I made the drinks:

@aureateandaromatic

The making of my second book as a bev. A strawberry matcha with a coconut cold foam inspired by Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I feel like the colors came out really well, and it wasn’t too sweet. The most labor intensive part was the strawberry syrup, but everything else was fairly simple. Maybe I’m just matcha biased but I really liked it so I gave it a 4.8/5 ⭐ The recipe and ratios are the post before this one if anyone’s interested! #strawberrymatcha #recipe #bookcollection #booktok #bookasabev

♬ original sound – mjfangirl07

Thanks for reading!
Have a great week!
~ C.C.