Cameron B. select Send Message

Another tea from the Bluebird order! This one was definitely a total wildcard on my part, as I have such little experience with maté and absolutely none with chicory. But for some reason I kept going back to it, so I figured I might as well get some and try it out. I know chicory is often used as a sort of substitute for coffee, so I figured it would mostly likely be roasted and possibly somewhat bitter. I will say, my 25 grams of this tea has one tiny piece of freeze-dried raspberry in it. So, either the packet of this tea didn’t have ample raspberries or someone else got all of them when it was divided up. I’m hoping this doesn’t have a ton of impact on the flavor… Another thing, the ingredients lists only roasted maté, but mine appears to be a mix of both green and roasted (unless the crumbled green leaf is something else). Dry, it smells very much like sniffing a giant roasted nut of some kind, possibly cashew.

I admit it, I actually made this twice. The first time I steeped it for 5 minutes and it was super bitter. I figured I should give it another chance before writing any kind of note (although the directions did say 4+ minutes). This time I stuck to 4 minutes, and thankfully it’s not quite as bitter (although it still has bitterness to it). I’m assuming the bitter quality is just a part of the chicory and I’m not still brewing it incorrectly…

Overall, the taste is also similar to roasted nuts, and definitely a creamy and fleshy nut like a cashew or macadamia. There is a fair amount of bitter (possibly from both the cacao and the chicory) but it doesn’t overpower too badly. I must say, I don’t really taste chocolate at all here. I do, however, taste a strong roasted flavor from both the maté and the chicory, and it’s very nice and slightly reminiscent of coffee. I definitely don’t taste any raspberry at all, or anything close to a fruit taste.

This is definitely an odd one, and I may experiment with even shorter steep times to bring the bitter quality down even further. It would definitely take milk well, though I don’t generally add milk to my teas.

Edit: I forgot to mention that there’s a certain umami quality to this tea that makes it seem very broth-like. It almost reminds me of miso soup! (in a good way :D)