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Just want to start this off with thanks to Fusion Tea Room for this sample!

I’ve been away from Steepster for a little while, and it’s because life has been busy! I’m still posting regularly on my blog and have a special treat for readers today (or early tomorrow, depending on some things), but I’ve also been out and about, enjoying my life a lot.

In any case, while I’ve tried Mate a couple of times and it’s alright each time, I always planned to taste the samples from Fusion Tea Room, but I wasn’t writing about Mate just yet, so I kept putting it off. Well, recently at work, our Media Team has been working on a recruiting video and one of the people interviewed talked about how he doesn’t drink coffee, but only Mate (“which has every nutrient your body could need,” according to him). After hearing that line repeated indefinitely as the Media guys edited the video, I got a hankering to try some more of the Mate I’ve got hanging out in the cupboard.

So here goes!

The smell of the dry Mate reminded me of the beginnings of a pumpkin pie, which I think is generally the point. Once brewed, the aroma is pretty powerful and actually caught me off guard at first. It almost is more coffee-like than anything else in the smell, but with the spices that were detected earlier for certain.

The liquor as-is was definitely reminiscent of coffee to me, just without the bitterness. It is hard for me to describe. So I added some sugar (as Mate instructions always seem to include “add sugar and milk to taste”) and it definitely sweetened and was a little nicer. But I remembered how much more I enjoyed the last Mate I drank once I added milk, so I did so here as well.

Once the drink was completed (in my opinion), the creaminess could lend itself to the task of ensuring the right mouth feel/texture to the drink so it really was just like pumpkin pie.

So far, with flavored Mate, I find that I like them best once sugar and milk have been added. We’ll see if this continues to hold true as I explore further!