26.07.18 I’m back! After almost two years I finally had the time to continue looking for sweetness across the city.
To inaugurate this come back, I’m presenting you the unexpected (or not) colloboration between
UMAMI MATCHA X HELLO KITTY
I have to be honest with you.. I love Japan ♥.
Its culture, its country, its food… that’s why I will always go try address in Paris related to Japan. I’m very pleased to talk about this pastry Coffee Shop and to share another of my passion with you guys.
UMAMI was created with the purpose of making people discover Japanese culture in France. One of its way is to specialised its products with a very traditional Japanese ingredient: MATCHA = Green tea.
I would say “matcha flavor” began to spread in Paris (not saying France because I don’t know about other areas) 5-6 years ago? With people’s interest about Asia growing and also asian style bakeries opening in the city, matcha had to make its way in.
Nowadays, even Starbucks has (finally) matcha latte on its menu! But few of the baristas there know how to make good matcha latte (sorry Starbucks).
So if you’re still looking for well made matcha treats, UMAMI MATCHA is one of the place to go!
Yes, this is not a top rated Chef Pâtissier’s shop but it should be more famous because it does its job!
Another reason to go there this time was this wondeful collaboration with our favorite mascott HELLO KITTY(until August, 5th 2018)
For this event, UMAMI have created a lunch, a brunch and a teatime with a Hello Kitty design. It’s so cute ♥♥!
It’s a very common marketing thing in Japan, many pop-up Cafés promote various goodies brand or manga (such as Pikachu café, Sailor moon restaurant…) with a whole special menu! To have one in France is so nice!
For this event, the Coffee Shop was decorated with Hello Kitty everywhere and the shop corner also sells lots of Hello Kitty goodies (couldn’t take pictures sorry).
I tried the Teatime composed of a Hot Matcha Latte, a Matcha Chou with a white chocolate icing, a Matcha Creamy Flan and a Cookie Cream.
It reminds me of the traditional “Café gourmand” served in French restaurant where you can have a hot beverage and 3 or 4 “mignardises” (mini-pastries).
VERDICT: Matcha is hard to balance in pâtisseries it can be too much or not enough. For those who have never tasted matcha: take a natural green tea teabag and multiplicate its taste by 5, very detoxifying right? But it can easily become very bitter!
Besides, I’m not very open-minded when it comes to matcha because they are not my favorite. That is why I had many apprehension with this Teatime but Umami Matcha surprised me.
► When I thought things were going to become bitter – because you do feel matcha very well – sweetness takes place soothing the taste. This is what I’m looking for when I eat a matcha pâtisserie!
I was the most scared of the Matcha Flan because eating only matcha cream can become boring but no, it was just perfect and I ate it all!
Between the three my favorite was the Matcha Chou. Not too sweet even with the white chocolate icing. Most disappointing was the cookie cream, biscuit was not thick enough to keep its crunchiness.
Stay with Mel 