HEYTEA Matcha 3.6

The HEYTEA Matcha 3.6 is $11.90 and 290 calories, which makes it the heaviest drink in the Tea Lab range. Matcha with milk and a pistachio Viennese style cloud on top.

The menu carries a warning on this one that the others do not. Hot drink toppings for takeout come separately, and the appearance may differ from the photo. That is honest rather than defensive. A whipped cap on a hot drink collapses in transit, so the shop hands it to you on the side and lets you build it yourself.

Matcha and pistachio is the most talked about pairing on the board and the reason is texture as much as flavour. Both are ground rather than brewed, both carry a slightly grassy bitterness, and both go creamy against dairy. Neither has to be sweetened much to work.

The 3.6 in the name is the milk fat figure, which is how the Tea Lab range labels a dairy base. Order this next to the Oolong 3.6 or the Gongfu 3.6 at the same $11.90 and the only variable is the tea itself.

Numbers land at 22g of sugar, 14g of fat and 9g of protein, the highest protein figure on the entire HEYTEA menu alongside the brown sugar drinks. Matcha contributes nothing to that. The milk and the cream do all of it.

Caffeine runs higher than the rest of the range. Matcha is the whole leaf ground and drunk rather than steeped and discarded, so you take in everything in it. Anyone who finds the Cloud Matcha Latte strong should expect the same here.

Order it hot if the shop is quiet and iced if it is busy. Hot matcha shows every shortcut in the whisking, and a rushed cup separates into green sediment and pale milk while you watch.

The cap is the fragile part. Take the lid off and drink through it rather than shaking the cup on the walk back, because a folded-in cloud turns this into an expensive matcha latte.

For the same matcha without the Tea Lab pricing, the Cloud Matcha Latte is $10.49. For matcha as a topping on something else, Matcha Cloud is $2.88.