Be Jammin' Berry

Noticed that my grocery store was now stocking three different flavours of Yerba Mate drink from the Marley Beverage Company and so I picked up a can of each one to give them a try. I’ve had different drinks from this company before to mixed success – I think the most memorable was the pear flavoured “Mellow Mood” drink. It’s interesting to me that this company has a line up of “relaxation tea beverages” and now has a line up of ones for energy and stimulation as well…

I’ve tried a bunch of RTD yerba mate drinks before – they’re usually not good. I’m sad to say, that these three were NOT the exceptions to that rule. I’ll do a tasting note for each one, but damn – so unpleasant.

This was actually my favourite of the three, which is quite sad because it was the first one that I tried and when I was trying it I was just kind of disgusted the entire time. The overarching flavour is this mix of smokiness, mineral heavy earthy notes, and a sort of metallic finish – with the FAINTEST bit of berry. Now, I will say that most of those notes are actually flavour notes of yerba mate, so this definitely does taste like the tea and isn’t all flavouring/fruit juice (which is a win – in a way), but they’re REALLY unpleasant versions of the tasting notes naturally found in yerba mate. So, it’s like having an iced tea made from a very unpleasant and low quality yerba mate. I really think they should have either upped the berry flavouring to cover the unpleasant yerba mate OR added more sweetener – maybe both!? It’s just such bad yerba mate…

Would not buy this one again. Would not drink it again if offered…