Maca Mocka

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.

Sipdown (795)!

Finished this ‘matcha’ off, which was one of my advent matchas that I had extra of, as a cold latte made with eggnog! It wasn’t anything overly complex in its flavour, but if you’ve ever wanted a chocolate flavoured eggnog then this is one mighty easy way to achieve that flavour! Delicious, very rich, and so creamy!

Sipdown! (24)

Almost done with these B&B matcha mini-tins! I think there are two left after this one. Prepared this with half milk and half water since creamy and cocoa sounded nice this morning. There was some grit in the bottom of my mixing vessel that I avoided pouring into the cup.

This does somewhat taste like a mocha cappuccino. There’s a dark roasty note from the chicory that is coffee-like. The cocoa is mild but dark chocolaty. I’m not sure if there’s cream flavor since I added milk anyway, but there is something that tastes like added flavoring here. I have no idea if I taste the maca root or not, same with the guarana…

There is some weird grittiness as I get to the bottom of the cup. I sort of expected that since I saw how much there was when I was pouring it.

Anyway, I appreciate that it does taste a bit like a mocha, but I think I would rather have their Cocoa Matcha.