Chose this “not-matcha” by Bird & Blend for my breakfast smoothie today. The raw powder tasted like what is advertised on the tin: a coffee-flavored cocoa powder, like dark chocolate and coffee bean. But I am not one to whisk cocoa powder of any sort in water, and the only milk I have in the house at the moment is coconut milk (and it snowed last night — boo! — so I’m not about to go out in that just for oat milk!). And I can safely say, it just was not a good choice for this tea powder. It in no way tasted bad, but the sweet coconut of the milk was just too strong of a flavor against the powder; the cocoa tasted more like a milk chocolate (again, not bad, though I do prefer darker chocolate), and the mocha notes sort of got drowned out by coconut… like a mocha with waaaaaaaaay too much coconut flavored creamer dumped in. Which again, tasted fine, but wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I’m sure it would’ve presented properly if I hadn’t run out of oat milk… Sigh.
Other observations: Unlike some of the other not-matcha’s from B&B, I didn’t have any issues getting this to whisk up or grainy texture issues… my cup was like a smooth cup of hot chocolate. But I’m not sure how much “pep” the guarana is actually adding to the cup, and I like matcha for the energizing qualities… I could just make hot chocolate if I wanted hot chocolate. A slightly mocha-flavored hot chocolate isn’t really enough of a draw for me, and I certainly have never been in the whole “super-food” business to care about the maca. So regardless of the latte working out or not, probably not a tea powder for me.
I am, however, still glad I got to try it. The smoothie is at least nice (I added the latte with some dates, yogurt, almond butter, and ice in the blender). It’s pretty much just a chocolate smoothie (the coffee flavor really isn’t pushing through here) but I’m fine having chocolate for breakfast.
Flavors: Chocolate, Cocoa, Coffee, Smooth, Sweet
