In with the High, Chilly Mashed Kenkey, out with the Low

Yesterday, after getting Indomie with +Esi Cleland-Yankson, she asked that we go get something to drink as well. So we walked to the nearby Kuuks Market at American House to buy some drinks. Not alcohol o! My first instinct when buying any drink in Ghana is to go for a local option. Like palm wine. Bissap. Sobolo. You know? They didn't have any. I was going to settle on Vita Milk, which I love. But then I wandered about more, and saw another interesting drink - "Chilly Mashed Kenkey". Lovely, just lovely. Someone has packaged "Mashke". I was definitely buying. It's local and fits the bill of the moment. Indomie and Mashke. Esi got a Snapple. I love Snapple too but I already explained my rationale.

Does it have a Standards Board sign? Esi asked. If it was approved by the Ghana Standards Board, then it was a good product. I have no idea what Standards Board approval looks like. It's some Adinkra symbol like that. I couldn't find anything to indicate that the Ghana Standards Board was allowing Chilly Mashed Kenkey to sell in the market and in our supermarket fridges. On the packaging, it did have a website though. And an email address. That must mean this is for real right? Right. Never mind that they misspelt packaging as packageing, but hey, we do that in Ghana all the time. It is made from Ghana's indigenous fante kenkey. Proudly Made in Ghana, the inscription added.

We got to the Meltwater Incubator and opened the bottle cap. I had to carefully remove some plastic from the top, I guessed it's there for preservation purposes? I held up the bottle, agaped my buccal cavity and was crado to have tear-rubber mashke go sinking my oesophagus. However, the mashke wouldn't pour! It was thick and frozen or something. So I checked the website - chillymashedkenkey.com. Cool website. I realized I knew the folks who built the website for them - Kubator Labs. I proceeded to send them an email and bcced the Kubator Labs folks. I wrote

Hello,

I saw your chilled mashed kenkey drink at Kuuks Market (the one with the Sarkodie painting) at American House.

I was excited to get it even though it didn't have Standards Board symbol on it.

Because you had an email address and a website, I took it seriously and thought this must be a good product.

I started having it and when I tried to pour the thing, it wouldn't come.

So now, I have a 3/4 drink left with no motivation to continue. I am not sure refrigerating it would help because it will be hard to pour.

Here's some feedback for you. Please do what about it. Maybe I will buy next time.

More vim though,

Ato.

Yeah, I sent the email. I've not gotten a response. When I get it. I shall continue this blog post. But for now, you can read this. When you see this in a market somewhere, you can choose to buy it or not or just remember this blog post. Or go make some nicer mashed kenkey :-)