👍 BuenoDays puts the powder on the menu — Cermak & California 🍵

Most cafés make you ask what matcha they use, and a fair number don’t know. BuenoDays prints it: the last line of the matcha list reads Kodemari — single whisked. That’s Spirit Tea’s workhorse latte powder, the one behind good bars all over Chicago, and putting the straight pour on the menu is a small act of confidence. I didn’t order it — next trip — so this is a latte review.

The drinks are Mexican in reference and accumulated slowly. The matcha list: Momo (cardamom), Smoky Guayaba, Nube Verde (cucumber), Confleis Matcha — the signatures all run seven-to-nine dollars, the going rate for this kind of drink in Chicago — and the Tortilla Affogato, the most expensive thing on the menu, can be pulled with matcha instead of espresso. Every drink gets a card in the front window with a created date on it, telling you where the drink came from rather than what’s in it. The dates run 2021 to 2026: five years of drinks, invented one at a time.

I had the masa matcha — matcha over their toasted corn milk, a cheap milk swap on anything (there’s a masa oat milk too), sweet or unsweetened, your call. The honest verdict covers everything I tried: good enough, not mind-blowing, the masa matcha included. What earns that drink its sentence isn’t the taste — it was fine — it’s that somebody thought corn milk belonged under matcha, put it on the menu, and wrote a card explaining why. That instinct is the personality of the place.

They sell Rocky’s tins at the counter — single-cultivar Okumidori in 20g tins, around $1.30 a gram, which is honest pricing for single-cultivar — and pour Spirit Tea leaf tea. Milks run whole, oat, masa, masa oat, macadamia; syrups are made from scratch. Hours run early — 7a–2p weekdays, 8a–4p weekends — so it’s a morning stop.

The room is comfortable and there’s plenty of it — bring a layer, it runs a little cold — and the staff are low-key and friendly. The caps and totes in the window read “Made Possible By Immigrants”, which, next to a menu built on cardamom, guayaba and agua de pepino, is a statement, not merch.

If a sweet dairy latte is your drink, it’s well worth the stop. 4/5, and the rating is the café’s — the named powder, the five years of invention, the room — not any one cup’s. The straight Kodemari is what I’m going back for.

2901 W Cermak Rd, Chicago, IL 60623 · buenodays.online · 4/5