While other fast food chains trot out minty green products for St. Patrick’s Day season, Jack in the Box is going green in a different way this year with its Oreo Matcha Shake. To be honest, I wish matcha were a more prevalent flavor in the fast food world and replaced mint as the unofficial St. Patrick’s Day flavor. We already have peppermint covered in the winter, so one less minty seasonal flavor seems like a perfectly reasonable ask.
The Oreo Matcha Shake is a vanilla shake blended with matcha tea and Oreo cookie crumbles, then topped with whipped cream and even more Oreo crumbles. It’s a little surprising to see a matcha shake from a major fast food chain, since matcha remains a rare sight outside of coffee chains. But then again, it’s not that surprising coming from Jack in the Box, a chain with a long history of thinking outside the Jack in the Box. Need I remind you of the ube shake?
As for its flavor, it delivers the familiar sweet and slightly bitter profile that matcha sweets are known for, though it’s more restrained than a matcha-flavored Kit Kat from Japan. Here it’s gentler, likely diluted a bit by the vanilla shake base. But that’s probably for the best, since a full-strength matcha blast through a straw might be a lot to ask of the average fast food customer, and this is approachable enough that even matcha newcomers might find themselves pleasantly surprised.
The Oreo crumbles were plentiful, as they tend to be in Jack’s Oreo shakes, and they provided welcome bits of texture with each sip. However, I can’t say they contributed much in the way of chocolate flavor. Throughout the entire shake, I could only detect matcha, which makes me wonder whether the slight bitterness of the Oreo crumbles simply gets absorbed into the matcha’s bitterness. It’s not a dealbreaker, but if you’re ordering this expecting a matcha-chocolate experience, you may want to temper those expectations.
If matcha matches your taste buds, the Jack in the Box Oreo Matcha Shake will make them very happy to have met. And if you’ve never tried matcha before, this is a pretty delicious place to start.
Purchased Price: $6.29*Size: Regular
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 780 calories. (No other nutritional information is available on the Jack in the Box website.)
*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.