Iced Latte!
So I saw this brand everywhere on IG leading up to the launch of their store in Vancouver. They’re sort of a matcha bar, but they also had a bunch of other powder based drinks that looked wild. Definitely a bit of a “everything but the kitchen sink” approach in terms of just blasting them full of a ton of buzzword wellness ingredients. I decided to try some of the more interesting ones since the powders were sold online too.
This one includes:
Tart Cherry
Astragalas
Ginger
Yerba Mate
Black Tea
Siberian Ginseng
Cinnamon
Vanilla Extract
Stevia Extract
…you see what I mean about the kitchen sink vibe.
Visually it’s a very unattractive brown coloured powder of a fairly fine grind – though not as fine as something like a matcha. The smell is very cinnamon forward and earthy. I whisked it up as an iced latte and it actually looked okay. A soft, creamy brown with some speckling from some of the more course powder inclusions.
The taste is better than expected, honestly. It’s very cinnamon forward but with undertones of the ginger and a bit of maltiness that I want to attribute to the black tea. With the vanilla, the mix makes me think of either cinnamon rolls or horchata. Were I not drinking this as an iced latte, I don’t know if the horchata vibes would be quite as strong as they are, but I’m certainly not mad about it. A lot of the other ingredients are very much lost in taste – like the tart cherry.
What isn’t lost, however, are both the ginseng and the stevia. Putting both of those in a blend is a choice – and probably not a good one. I understand that ginseng is probably more in here for function – a lot of these ingredient are supposed to be good for focuc/mental clarity, endurance, muscle fatigue and things of that nature. But just because it’s functional certainly does not erase the fact ginseng has a VERY STRONG sweet and licorice-like aftertaste. Add to that the distinct sweet aftertaste of stevia and you have a drink with one hell of a punch of cloying, mouth coating sweetness after each sip. Oof. Like, big oof.
So, it’s not as bad as expected and at times the creamy vanilla and cinnamon profile is pretty nice. It’s not even a terrible mouthfeel, which is so often a concern with powders like this. But damn it’s hard to ignore that aftertaste.
