Long time no tasting notes. Well, okay, it’s been like a week. That feels like a long time to me, though…
In that week, several new teas have launched alongside a bunch of returning fan favourites. I’ll write tasting notes for all of the new ones shortly, but I’m starting with this mushroom boosted matcha. It’s a relatively simple organic blend of matcha with four adaptogenic mushrooms: reishi, chaga, cordyceps, and lion’s mane. Our first time ever carrying the last two mushrooms, in particular. In case my dear Steepster friends have forgotten, I am allergic to mushrooms. So, take a moment for that to sink in.
I fully developed a mushroom matcha without ever tasting it. I mean, I’m pretty proud of myself for this one! I had to rely heavily on other people to taste it for me so we could get the balance right. I don’t know from personal experience because, well, I can’t drink them. But I’ve looked at A LOT of different functional mushroom products (ie. Four Sigmatic, Mud Water, etc) and the big common criticisms that I see are that the texture is pasty/chalky or gritty and that they taste too much like soup/broth. So the big goal with this matcha was to create something that just tasted like, well, matcha. Same texture. Same taste. No added flavourings to mask anything or sweeteners. Just a nice, functionally boosted matcha.
Well, as I do with every mushroom tea that makes it to market, I’ve tasted this tea EXACTLY ONCE. Just a sip. Which was then spit out. I’m sorry – yes, allergies are really serious but my personal and professional curiosity is just too much to not taste it at least once. I need to understand what we’re selling!
So… did I succeed? I think so! Really, the mouthfeel is so impressive to me. When dealing with microground powders it’s so hard to get a smooth consistency and I really found this to be identical to the matcha itself. No grit. No chalk. I’m very happy with that. As for the taste, it tasted maybe just a smidge earthier than a typical matcha? Not in a way that says soup stock or unpleasantly savory/bitter, though! If you hadn’t told me there were four kinds of mushrooms in this blend and I’d drank a cup then I’m confident I’d have just thought it was a grade or varietal of matcha that had a little more natural earthiness. I also probably would have gotten really sick from drinking a full cup – but that’s a me problem. Damn allergies preventing me from being involved with BIG industry trends! Such a personal frustration…
Anyway, that’s Super Shroom Matcha! I think it’s such a great addition to this rapidly growing market of adaptogenic mushroom products. I honestly don’t know if this is true now, but at the time we developed it (like, years ago) it was the ONLY mushroom boosted matcha product I’d ever seen before. I’ve seen chaga matcha now, but not anything with all four of the mushrooms. One of the hardest teas I’ve worked on just ‘cause of my personal limitations, but I’m heckin’ proud of it.
Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
