Build your latte around one flavor.

Start with a tea base and milk you already enjoy. Add one flavor before changing the tea strength, milk or sweetener. A consistent reference cup makes your next experiment much easier to judge.

• Vanilla: a simple direction for comparing milk and sweetness without adding fruit texture.
• Strawberry: try a separate fruit layer, then compare a stirred version. Record whether the fruit is puréed or cooked.
• Coconut: choose whether you mean coconut milk, a flavored syrup or a topping; those are different recipes.
• Lavender: use an ingredient labeled for food use and start with the maker’s directions.
• Banana: compare fruit blended into the milk with a cream-style topping in our banana matcha latte guide.

Cold foam deserves its own experiment.

The tea base and the topping do different jobs. Balance a topping’s sweetness and texture separately from the latte beneath it. Explore banana cream, vanilla cream, strawberry cream or a dairy-free foam, choosing ingredients suited to the topping you want.

Write down the quantity, temperature, mixing tool and time before judging a result. See our whisk and frother guide for the difference between preparing tea and aerating a topping.

Explore the lighter side.

For a different direction, build around matcha, ice and a sparkling or fruit-based mixer instead of milk. Citrus, coconut water, mint and seasonal fruit can each lead to a distinct experiment. Prepare the matcha separately, and follow the mixer’s instructions when combining it.

Want a drink with a more deliberate garnish and glass? Explore our cocktail and mocktail ideas. For something thicker, move to smoothies.