Mint Chocolate Matcha Shake. Photo: The Skinny Chef

Matcha is a variety of finely-powdered green tea that is used particularly in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. Powdered green matcha tea from health food stores can be costly -- about $8 for a small container -- but it goes a long way.

Green tea ice cream, green tea pound cakes, madeleines -- I've made them all. This week I decided to remake the mint chocolate chips that I craved as a child at 31 Flavors.

Get Jennifer's Mint Matcha Chocolate Chip Shake recipe after the jump.

Are you an avid tea drinker looking for a different way to enjoy your tea this summer? A lot of tea drinkers go iced in the warm summer months, some even adding lemonade to their iced tea, but there is an even colder way to enjoy your tea in the summer months if you enjoy green tea: smoothies!

Below you will find the recipe for my personal summer tea concoction, which will require matcha (powdered green tea). Matcha is high in caffeine content compared to regular steeped tea, so you may not want to indulge in one of these smoothies too late in the day.

INGREDIENTS
1 tsp matcha (powdered green tea)
4 oz. cup of fruit-flavored yogurt (Light 'n Fit works well, low in sugar)
frozen strawberries (or other desired fruit)
frozen peach slices (or other desired fruit)
apple juice

There is a new product out in Japan that I would love to get a hold of. It's an instant, fresh matcha tea, two words that usually aren't paired together when talking about tea, especially the bottled kind. The unique bottle design allows the tea to be both.

The design makes it so that when you twist the air tight cap a portion of matcha tea is released into mineral water. All you have to do is shake it up. Matcha is a traditional Kyoto (Japan) green tea that is very green and is usually the go-to flavoring for anything "green tea". It's made from leaves that have been covered so that it grows more slowly, which makes it a little sweeter.

As a big fan of tea, I would really like to be able to try an instant, fresh matcha tea. Does anyone know if this is available in the US?

[Via Trends in Japan]

It seems that this month there was a first for the Does My Blog Look Good in This? food blogger photography competition: a tie! This round was hosted by Katherine, from Toast Point, and after getting a look at the entries, it is easy to see why judging was so difficult. Every photo looked like a winner. The photo above is a Matcha Opera Cake from Anita, at Dessert First, with its lovely layers of green tea genoise, chocolate ganache, and green tea buttercream. It tied with the Roasted Tomato, Red Onion and Arugula Tart from Bea at La Tartine Gourmande. In addition to the top two, there were winners in several additional categories. Becks and Posh had the "most original" entry with her photo of "Alien Tomato, Pregnant with Strawberry" and Peabody's Texas Big Hair Tarts captured everyone's fancy as the "most edible." Last but not least was the "most aesthetically pleasing" photo of financiers from From Our Kitchen.

If you enjoy cupcakes and have not yet seen the Cupcake Bakeshop blog, I strongly recommend that you take a look. Cheryl is an amazing baker and comes up with some of the most exotic sounding and beautiful looking cupcakes you'll ever see. Case in point, the delightful cupcake pictured above is made up of a layer of cake, two layers of ice cream and topped off with frosting, making it into a Green Tea, Lavender and Honey Cupcake Bombe - and giving it a name that is as much a mouthful as the cupcake itself. The ice cream layers are lavender and honey, both homemade, and the frosting and cake base are both flavored with matcha (green tea powder), so the whole treat is colorful as well as tasty. As you might imagine, an ice cream cake (with very little actual cake) topped with frosting is quite sweet - but that's how cupcakes are supposed to be, right? Even if you don't want to attempt the whole process of this multi-layered cake yourself, you might want to try one of the two ice cream recipes to add something different to your repertoire.

After having successfully brought the coffee shop chain Tully's to Japan and helped to make coffee tremendously popular there, Kouta Matsuda is returning to the United States with the hopes of returning the favor with a different beverage. He has a chain of successful cafes in Japan that specialize in matcha. With his drinks, he is hoping to do for green tea what Starbucks did for coffee.

His company, Foodx Globe, recently opened its first US Koots Green Tea cafe in Bellevue, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Decorated in bamboo and Asian prints, the cafe specializes in a variety of drinks all made with matcha, a powdered green tea, and other Asian drinks. The menu includes offerings such as matcha Americanos and white chocolate matcha lattes, in addition to black sesame smoothies and tapioca pearl teas.

While specialty teas are growing in popularity, matcha is a fairly new player in the US tea scene. It has been helped along by Starbucks green tea lattes and frappuccinos, but bringing a coffee drinker over to the "green side" might be an uphill battle. Matsuda is planning his expansion slowly, with a few choice west coast locations to open over the next year or two.

[Image Seattle Times]

Starbucks is releasing their new Green Tea Latte in the US today. The green tea lattes are already available at many other Starbucks locations throughout the world. Unlike their Green Tea Frappuccino from last summer, which was made with a premixed base, the tea latte is built just like a regular latte - with freshly steamed milk. They are flavored with matcha, which is powdered green tea, a a splash of melon-flavored syrup. If you like the flavor of the green tea and don't want to cover it up with the melon flavor, take Hungry Girl's advice and ask for your latte to be made with half the amount of syrup. Alternatively, try vanilla syrup instead of the melon altogether.

Just please don't ask the baristas to add a shot of espresso to your tea drink. I know that I have seen a lot of people do it, but it's just not right.