Our Ingredients
What's in a CinderBird Instant Latte?
We have carefully selected all of the best ingredients we could possibly find for our recipes. Our decisions were made based on a a combination of taste, quality, and how the final product made us feel after consumption.
When developing our recipes, we wanted an on-the-go beverage that was not only simple to make no matter where we were, but also fueled us and made us feel great.
All of our ingredients are sourced from certified and licensed suppliers we trust and feel good about working with. Most ingredients are organic, and all are tested and checked for quality. You can read more about each one below:
Oat Milk Powder
Oat milk adds natural sweetness, body, and a pleasant mouthfeel to the Instant Lattes. We are pleased to have found a powdered oat milk that is made with gluten-free oats and no added fillers or artificial flavors.
The oat milk we use contains non-GMO mixed tocopherols. Tocopherols are simply a form of Vitamin E that helps to preserve the oat milk and keep it fresh longer.
Coconut Milk Powder
Coconut milk adds creaminess and a rich flavor background to our lattes. It’s one of our favorite plant-based milks because of its flavor and texture. It also contains a good amount of healthy fats and vitamins that we appreciate when we're out in the world being active.
If you’ve read our ingredients labels, you may have noticed that the coconut milk powder we use contains maltodextrin. Why? Maltodextrin absorbs oil and has the ability to transform it into a powder. It is commonly used for spray drying ingredients like sunflower or coconut oil to create powdered oils. The maltodextrin in our coconut milk is derived from organic, non-GMO tapioca, and is a gluten-free product.
Mushrooms
Our Instant Lattes include a blend of 3 specifically chosen functional mushrooms. We’ve personally included these mushrooms in our weekly coffee rituals for several years now and found that they’ve improved our cognitive function and overall health.
We love Reishi for its immune-modulating properties and the fact that it helps us get better, deeper sleep at night. We chose Lion’s Mane for its cognitive and anti-inflammatory benefits. Chaga is packed with antioxidants and shows promise for lowering blood sugar levels.
All of our mushrooms are Certified Organic (some of the chaga is wildcrafted), extracted in hot water, and made into a fine extract powder that can be easily dissolved in your latte. They’re tested by the most rigorous analytical testing in the top FDA registered labs in the country to ensure they don’t contain harmful chemicals and that they do contain high levels of the active ingredients that make them so beneficial to our health.
We’re also proud to say that we source mushrooms grown right here in the US. Supporting local mushroom farmers is very important to us and we’re so happy that you’re contributing to that cause by being a CinderBird customer!
Instant Coffee
We use instant coffee because it dissolves readily in hot water, and the whole point of our product is to make simple beverages that don’t require much time or cleanup to get the job done! Instant coffee isn’t known for its delicious taste, and we tried many, many different kinds before we found the one with the best flavor.
This coffee is minimally processed without the use of harmful chemicals, leaving it with nice roasty and chocolatey notes. Our instant coffee is organic, verified non-GMO, and fair trade certified.
Matcha
The matcha powder we use is superior grade organic Camellia sinensis from Japan. It’s shade-grown to enhance chlorophyll content and harvested by hand. Only the leaves are used in its preparation, stone-ground on granite mills in order to produce a very fine powder.
This grade of matcha is known for being rich in antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. It has a lovely grassy, herbaceous flavor that we think is offset nicely by the oat and coconut milks in our lattes.
Hojicha
Hojicha is a Japanese tea that’s made of the same plant as matcha and other green teas (Camellia sinensis). But there are several key differences in the way this plant is processed for tea.
While matcha is made only of young leaves that are hand-picked and carefully sorted, hojicha contains a mixture of mature leaves, stems and twigs. It’s also roasted, and this is where the difference in color and flavor really takes place. The flavor profile is completely different from matcha. Hojicha is toasty and roasty, and the final tea is a nutty brown as compared to matcha’s characteristic spring green hue. It's also extremely low in caffeine, similar to decaf coffee.
We only discovered hojicha a year or two ago and fell completely head over heels for its unique flavor. We believe it's the best low-caffeine option out there for diehard coffee fans! Like matcha, it's also high in antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins and minerals.
Cocoa
The organic cocoa powder we use is made from sustainably sourced cacao. It’s an alkalized cocoa, meaning it’s lower in acidity with a mellow, earthy flavor. We currently use it solely in our Mocha Latte.
Coconut Sugar
We considered many natural sweeteners to flavor our products. Personally, we found the taste of stevia and monk fruit to be unpleasant and overpowering in our blends. Although we liked that these ingredients didn't add additional sugar to our products, we strived for good taste first and foremost.
Our organic coconut sugar is made from the sap of coconut palm flowers. It’s a minimally processed sugar that retains many of the nutrients found in the coconut palm, including iron, zinc, calcium, and potassium.
We appreciate that coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index than table sugar and a subtle sweetness that’s darker and less cloying. We use it minimally to balance the flavors in our lattes, but we aim to make all of our products on the lighter side of the sweetness spectrum.
MCT Oil
Why did we decide to include MCT oil in our lattes? We’re glad you asked! We actually consider it essential for our on-the-go bevvies. MCT oil contains healthy fats that help to ease some of the negative side effects of caffeine, like jitters and the hard crash that can come later.
MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) are broken down quickly in the body, making them a source of fat that can be used nearly immediately as an energy source rather than being stored as fat in the body. There’s also been several studies that show MCT oil can enhance cognition. More physical and mental energy when we’re out adventuring? Yes, please.
Sea Salt
We chose Himalayan Pink Sea Salt because of its high nutritional value and unrivaled taste. Himalayan Pink Salt is still extracted in a traditional manner, without mechanical devices or explosive techniques. It’s harvested, crushed, and washed by hand.
This salt contains over 80 different essential minerals, including macrominerals like calcium, chloride, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium as well as many trace minerals.
Using just a touch of salt in our lattes helps to round out our flavor profiles and strike the right balance between sweetness and bitterness.