Yerba Mate Mango

I’m trying to use up my teas. Ever feel frantic about how much you have and root through your cupboard to see what you haven’t had in ages? and then suddenly feel better when you deplete the massive pile by one cup?? ha! oh dear I need help…
but it was oh so good! if not a little stale.

More of Sample Saturday … This comes from IndigoBloom and a big thank you to her for this pick me up! I am dragging today – daughter had to be at work at 8am to record her first on air segment after only being on the job for a week. Its going crazy fast for her. Now if I can only get her confident with her driving so mom here can rest! LOL
This tea is very nice. I did not smell any mango in the dry state but as soon as the water it the leaf the smell of fresh juicy mango hit me in the face like a truck!
This is not a sappy sweet tea at all – a VERY natural mango flavor indeed and I LOVE it!
It does have a slight sweetness to it though – is that the mate maybe?
It has a light, bright, cheery taste to it and a light cleansing mouthfeel.
Oh my how good this would be iced!!!
As a matter of fact I have enough to make one good cup of iced a large cup if I combine what I have left of the dry leaf and use the wet leaf in a re-steep. Oh yeah! :)
Thanks again IndigoBloom!

And thanks again, Indigobloom! I’m trying to get through a bunch of samples before my new orders arrive :D

I’m a touch worried that this one will taste similar to the Mango Mango Rooibos, or have the strange flavour of green yerba mate that I’m not sure I’ve acquired a taste for yet.

Oh, not bad. Tastes a little smoky, sweet. Mango is hard to pick up but is present. Actually, I’m wondering if this sat too close to the lapsang souchong, since I can’t think that this one would have smoky notes in it normally…

Either way, not bad, but wouldn’t rank in my favourites either.

Tried this one yesterday morning but didn’t blog it because I used boiling water and . . . it definitely got burnt. It wasn’t horrid, but I decided to wait and retry it today.

I brewed it up today, hopeful since the cup last time had an amazing mango scent despite the burnt factor. The mango flavour is definitely present, and more so the hotter the water. The mate has a nice roasted flavour to it, which doesn’t overpower but instead makes me thing of mango over an open fire. I’ve never tried it, but it can’t be a bad thing, right? And it isn’t in the tea, either. I’m thinking next time I’ll try it on a hotter temperature that isn’t boiling and see if I can get more mango since it was no where near as strong when I brewed it like a green.

Up and down all night panicking about teachers’ college applications, needed to stay awake somehow. This is such a delicious sweet energy punch, without much of the fuzzy pollen-y flavour I sometimes get from mate.

Dang, this one is my fault. I set about making tea while I tidied my kitchen and got distracted by arranging my teaware. To the point that I forgot about the tea completely and let it steep for way, waaaay too long. It’s not bad, it’s just very…MATE, with a back hint of mango. Which sucks, because I know how juicy and yummy this one can be. But I also enjoy straight mate, so it will be no issue to finish this mason jar-full. I’m just excited that I finished my 1.5 L of water before 4 so I could have a high-caff blend like this!

I woke up early this morning with a big to-do list, and needed something that would give me a big caffeine hit. This mango-flavoured mate (thanks again to aisling of tea and De!) sounded like it would deliver.

And boy, did it ever! I didn’t notice it at first, but I really did feel less tired, and managed to get through some important stuff to do before I head out for a job interview today (fingers crossed). The mango flavour really comes through in the dry leaf, and although it’s less apparent in the liquor, it’s still there. The smoky, grassy taste of the mate is still dominant, but adding some honey really helped. I don’t think of this as a comfortable staple tea – this is the kind of tea to drink when you really need to get stuff done.

So here I am, about to dash off to the interview. Hopefully the caffeine buzz will help me along.