Sweet and salty is always a winning combination; it’s just something about the added salt that helps bring out the sweetness. Honey in matcha is already a great combination, but it tastes incredible with a bit of salt.

The matcha is sweet, creamy, and slightly savory, so it pairs perfectly with a salted honey. This drink is so easy to make and perfect for days when you want to switch up your matcha routine. You don’t need anything fancy to make a great-tasting matcha.

Here’s how to make a salted honey matcha latte at home!

What is Salted Honey?

As the name suggests, salted honey is literally honey with salt. You don’t need too much salt for the honey as you want it more sweet than salty.

You can make it yourself at home or buy it premade! Although, it’s really easy to make by creating a honey syrup and adding a small pinch of salt. Just add honey, water, and salt, dissolve both, and you have a ready-to-use syrup!

Salted honey is great for drinks, toast or bread, pancakes, waffles, salmon, and charcuterie boards. It’s super versatile and not too sweet, especially with the addition of salt that brings out the sweetness.

What Does Salted Honey Taste Like?

Salted honey is sweet and savory in the best way. It’s similar to how kettle corn tastes but without the corn flavor. It can lean more salty or sweet depending on how much salt there is.

The salt provides a great balance to honey, which can be overly sweet sometimes. It also changes how we taste the honey. The best way I can describe it is that it opens up the honey and makes it a little more flavorful and fun. It makes it so addicting!

What is Matcha?

Matcha is a green tea powder made from grinding green tea leaves with a vibrant green color and a rich, umami taste. It’s known for being high in caffeine and for its vibrant color.

Good quality matcha powders will be vibrantly green. Bad-quality matcha powders will have a brown or green-brown hue. Out of the container, matcha smells earthy, toasty, umami, sweet, and almost nutty. Depending on the variety, you’ll get chocolate, umami, floral notes, and more.

By itself, matcha has a really lovely earthy and umami flavor, sometimes paired with a nice sweetness and bitterness. However, it can take on different flavors it can take on different flavors depending on where and how it grows. Some matchas lean sweet and creamy, while others lean more umami or earthy.

While matcha is grown worldwide, it’s most concentrated in China and Japan, with the latter becoming renowned for its matcha production.

Is Honey Good in Matcha?

Honey is one of the best sweeteners to use with matcha. It adds a nice sweetness without being overly sweet and doesn’t have a strong flavor that overpowers the taste of matcha. I find that it helps balance out the earthiness of matcha and complements its flavors well.

It’s also an easier sweetener to use because it easily dissolves since it’s already semi-liquid. Ever add sugar into your iced drink, and it just sits at the bottom until you’re finished with it? With a liquid or semi-liquid sweetener, that problem goes away.

However, to make it really easy, you can dissolve the honey in a little bit of hot water so it incorporates instantly.

How to Whisk Matcha

There are multiple ways to whisk matcha, but the most traditional (and fun) is to use a traditional tea bowl and whisk called a chawan and chasen. With this method, you whisk matcha powder and water into the bowl in a zigzag or Z motion. That way, you incorporate as much air as possible and create a silky froth at the surface.

However, if you don’t have those tools, you can also:

• Whisk using a handheld frother and a cup
• Shake the matcha and water in a lidded jar
• Use a fork to mimic a whisk
• Use a French press or electric frother (although this will be messy)
• Shake in a shaker cup

As long as you mix the matcha with water well, you can use any method you’d like. However, using the matcha bowl and whisk will give you the best flavor and texture.

How to Make a Salted Honey Matcha Latte

To make a salted honey matcha latte, you’ll need:

• Matcha powder
• Water
• Ice
• Milk
• Honey
• Salt

Salted Honey Matcha Latte Recipe

First, whisk matcha powder and water in a tea bowl using a tea whisk in zigzagag motion until a layer of froth forms on the surface. You can use other mixing methods if you do not have a tea whisk or bowl.

Then, dissolve honey into your milk. You may need to dissolve the honey with hot water before adding it to your milk.

Add ice and sweetener milk into a separate cup, then top with your whisked matcha.

Mix and enjoy!

Other Sweeteners to Use with Matcha

Matcha also works great with other sweeteners if you’re not a fan of honey or have other sweeteners at home. Some popular ones include maple syrup, agave, simple syrup, brown sugar, and monkfruit sweetener.

I think maple syrup and agave are the best and closest sweeteners to honey because they are also liquid and have a more neutral flavor.

How to Customize This Drink

The best thing about making drinks at home is that you can customize it to your taste!

You can use different sweeteners, as mentioned, or swap out the milk for other plant-based milk like oat, almond, or soy milk.

One of my favorite ways to customize matcha is by adding a cream top to my matcha latte, which makes it a matcha einspanner! This drink is ultra creamy and delicious, but definitely only reserved for when I’m craving something indulgent.

You can also try different amounts of matcha and milk in your drink if you want it to be stronger or more creamy.

Tips

Here are some tips for making a delicious salted honey matcha latte at home!

• Add less salt than you think, taste, and add more if you need more! It’s easy to oversalt your drink and make it more salty than sweet. You can always add more, but you can’t take it away.
• Add milk and the dissolved honey to your whisked matcha and whisk in the same bowl or cup for an extra frothy drink. You’ll get an extra frothy drink with the milk foam!