Maté Citron Cerise

Day 16 of the Dammann Freres advent calendar. I’m afraid my notes on this one are a little sparse, unfortunately. Hot, the most prominent notes were cherry and cranberry. I couldn’t taste the lemon so much as feel an acidic citrus juiciness at the end of the sip. I quickly decided that this would be better iced and let it cool/stuck it in the fridge. But then I drank it during a busy workday and forgot to take notes! I remember enjoying it. I definitely thought it was better iced than hot. But nothing sticks out in my memory as to particular tasting notes, or thinking “wow this is really good,” or even “wow this is really bad.” It did the trick, it was kinda different than what I normally drink which made it fun, but it ultimately just wasn’t super memorable.

Dammann Frères Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 16

Yay, this is one of the ones I was most excited to try from the advent! I happen to love yerba maté, so I’m always happy to see it in flavored blends.

I wasn’t sure if I’d like this one, not being a cherry fan, but I’m actually loving it. To be fair, the flavoring is quite subtle. A lot of the flavor is coming from the maté itself, which I really like, so I’m not complaining. It has such a softly earthy, herbaceous flavor with notes of hay and dry leaves and dark honey. It’s a really, really tasty green maté base, and then in the background I can taste the cherry and lemon being layered in. The cherry is more on the tart side, thank goodness, so it doesn’t end up tasting like a cheap lollipop or cough syrup. I wouldn’t call it authentic per se, but more like a cherry Jolly Rancher sort of flavor, which has more tartness to it than a traditional cherry candy. The lemon is soft as well, and helps lighten up the cherry but also stands a bit on its own in the finish. It’s not a sour lemon, but it’s not candy either, maybe a bit like lemon peel but without the bitterness?

Regardless, this is easy my favorite from the advent so far and I need to buy more! :)

Dammann Frères Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 16

I both a) oversteeped this so the earthy roasted notes of the mate are in full power, and b) am drinking it in a rush. Sorry mate!

Ignoring my blunders, I get lots of citrus on the back of cherry, cranberry and lemon. For me, cherry is the dominant addition to the mate’s muskiness (it reminds me a little of pot – that green funk; but it’s also kind of “fresh” like mint). It’s also a bright contrast to the base. I don’t dislike it, but the earthy bitterness of the oversteeped mate and tartness of the fruits give the blend a medicinal bent, and are infringing on what would otherwise be a solid cup.

I may have enjoyed this more if I had payed attention to steeping it. I’m definitely enjoying the juicy cranberry-cherry-with-lemon finish, regardless.

Cold Brew!

Picked this up because I thought the cherry lemon combination was pretty cool to see come out of DF, especially on a mate base. It didn’t feel very traditional DF in flavour direction, and it’s always really interesting to see what companies do something a little outside of the box that they sort of build around themselves…

It is majority yerba mate, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The dry leaf aroma is very light but does smell a bit like lemon and some sort of red fruit. I wouldn’t call it cherry, necessarily. As a cold brew I really only got the yerba mate in the taste with maybe just a hint of lemon. It made me think of La Croix, actually, as I drank it because it was sooooo mildly flavoured that it was sort of that “the memory of XX flavour” or “XX flavour in the other room” vibe that La Croix gets made fun of for a lot. The mate itself was nice though; grassy and naturally sweet with a bit more of a smokiness to it than I’d expected.

Flavours are harder to perceive when cold though, and there’s so much yerba mate in this that I think when cold brewing it was probably SUPER easy for it to quickly over power what small amount of flavouring has been used – so I’m not judging this one yet until I get a chance to make a hot cup. And, just to clarify, I don’t expect it to be wildly flavoured/sweet or cherry lemon flavoured in the way that I would from other companies. In know that with DF blends the base tea always comes first, and I appreciate that quality greatly. I just want to taste some flavouring.