Matcha Mylkbar, St Kilda's vegan café for the health conscious, has been supplying yoga bodies, vegans and paleo peeps with powdered green tea goodness in the form of lattes, snacks, smoothies and bowls since it opened earlier this year. But now, it's taken things to the next level with its so called "Smurf Latte", a warm concoction of lemon, ginger, coconut, agave and the fabled E3 Live Blue Majik – powdered and super expensive blue algae. We're marvelling at the fact that it's blue – chefs steer away from the colour like the plague (except for blueberries) on the basis that in nature it usually indicates that something's poisonous.
Yesterday, Junkee popped the lid on it with the assertion that blue algae has zip benefit in the health department. We needed to find out for ourselves whether the live blue algae latte was worth not only the hype, but also whether at eight bucks a pop it's worth it full stop.
So we put a Smurf Latte in the hands of our Time Out Melbourne team and put the question to them: what do you think?
"It doesn't really have much flavour – the only flavour I'm getting is the coconut milk. It kinda tastes like a regular latte, but without the coffee hit, it's just sweetness." Jenny Vu, account manager.
"I would never spend eight dollars on this. Taste wise, I can just taste coconut. It looks funny because it's blue, but nuh, not into it." Stefan Bugryn, account manager.
"I'm sorry that you had to pay a million dollars for this Meg, you'll have to expense it. I hope I'm getting healthy drinking this. It tastes sour – the combination of the lemon and the coconut creates a sensation of off milk. I'm not a total cynic, but this seems a bit weird." Rose Johnstone, Melbourne editor.
"It's like lukewarm, funny milk. It reminds me of a not well-brewed chai latte without the spices." Shelley Strauss, marketing coordinator.
"Well, it's inoffensive." Adam Jones, digital content manager.
"I love it, I'm all over this shit. For a start, I'm digging on the colour. I'm loving that it's the same colour as Blue Heaven milkshakes from my youth, without the toxic colours and flavours to make me nuts. I love everything coconut anyway, I'm enjoying – it's coconutty, lemony goodness. It has, however, given me dog breath." Meg Crawford, lifestyle editor.
So there you have it, folks – only one of our number gave it the thumbs up. Not that it'll stop the crowds from having a go...