A good start of the “tea life” of 2014 - Kyoto Kitayama MALEBRANCHE Café
Having the new start of 2014 last month, the new start of the Lunar New Year has also come last weekend (As a Hong Kong people, Lunar New Year is rather important to me). So, my relaxing “tea life” of this year should also have a good start ♪～ I kicked it off with a tea time at the Kyoto Kitayama MALEBRANCHE Café!
The main shop of MALEBRANCHE is in Kitayama of Kyoto, the one I went is the branch café at the Kyoto station. Implying a fantastic tea life this year, this symbolic tea time should be great enough, of course LOL! I chose the “Cha no Hako (Tsuki)” (Box of Tea, moon) set, which included an ice-cream, a muffin, MALEBRANCHE’s signature product “CHA no KA” (strong matcha cookie), and a drink (coffee or tea). I picked strong matcha cookie for the ice-cream; for the muffin, I had the cheese and pepper flavour.
The ice-cream was like having cookies and cream, but just the taste was changed to be matcha. The soft ice-cream had crispy cookies inside, also both had strong matcha taste. For the cheese and pepper muffin, it was not sweet and salty. And out of my surprise, it was warm! There was not much pepper taste, but full of baked cheese taste.
For those who have tried “CHA no KA” (the green cookie on the top left in the photo) before, my only comment is “Like”! You should know it well. For those who haven’t tried before, I strongly recommend you to have a try. A strong matcha taste matches with the white chocolate so well, no wonder it’s the signature product of the shop.
MALEBRANCHE’s original teapot is using the traditional Japanese craftsmanship – Nanbu Tekki (ironware) of Morioka, a place being called as “Little Kyoto”. There are 5 colours and they are available for sale in the café.
“Cha no Hako” sets are available at the Kyoto station café; the main shop at Kitayama or Kyoto Isetan shop serve other menus. The Kitayama main shop even has some limited desserts only available in that shop. While I was taking a look on the homepage of the Kitayama main shop, I have already listed it into my schedule of my “tea life” of 2014～♪ LOL
株式会社KINSHA