Guayaki

With fish tacos at Mendocino Cafe. Refreshing!

I’m slowly becoming a fan of Mate the more I try it. By itself I cannot get over its strange, almost abrupt herbal flavor, but I do enjoy its energy boost similar to drinks like Red Bull. I saw this flavor at Target and figured I’d give it a try and I’m glad I did. The chocolate spice is not strong, but it does mellow out what bothers me about mate…makes it more palatable. That being said, it’s not a bad choice.

I guess I just need a little energy today :D

wonderful classic. I have had a million cups of this in the last few years. It’s my favorite yerba so far. i’m looking for something different just for fun. Does anyone know of any particularly exciting yerba concoctions?

side note: never buy the tea bags of this brand unless you don’t mind chunks in the water (they break and are sealed poorly)

Though I do get more of an immediate boost from a cup of coffee, I enjoy drinking Guayaki Yerba Maté much more than a typical cup of coffee. Easy to brew and serve (hot or iced), with a wonderfully earthy flavor, maté has become part of my daily morning ritual. Highly recommended straight up or with a touch of mint and lemon, depending on personal preference.

i like to have this with mint mate to make orange mint mate… delicious!

Was in a hurry this morning, so I decided to throw a few teabags of mate in the to go mug. Green tea never tastes good in the mug, so this is just to get me started before I get to work and can have a proper cup of tea. Mate gives me wings.

Drank yerba mate this morning to wake me up after working until 3am the previous night. It wasn’t doing the job, so I moved up to something stronger.

When I tried this hot I hated it. But when cold brewed in the fridge… Now that’s a different story. It’s so much better! It has lovely notes of orange and a light cherry flavor. Very refreshing.

This could possibly be one of the worst tasting teas I’ve had – ever. I don’t know what it is, it could very possibly be just me. But I can’t even finish a glass of this! Which is sad, because I bought a box I now have no use for. Something about the citrus and this almost burnt green flavor, I just can’t. Sorry to all the people who really like this one, but I guess not all teas work for all people. I have a box up for grabs, if anyone wants to trade.

umm this has 120mg of caffeine per can.
it’s 11:33pm and i probably shouldn’t have even had the half a can i did.
it tastes nice. but the flavor is really kinda hard to describe. i mean, basically it’s carbonated and sweetened mate tea. i’d definitely buy it again. i don’t drink soda but i could easily enjoy this regularly.

While I have an appreciation for bitter flavors that are awesome (dark roast coffee, certain teas, wicked dark chocolate, etc), my introduction to Yerba Mate was, “Whoa…too bitter for me.” However, I have such fond memories of my visit to Guayaki in California, I just had to try it again. This time I picked up a box of this cocoa infused blend. I tried it with lots of positive attitude but inner bracing against possible bitterness. OH…my…yumminess! Delicate sweetness, light cocoa and spice flavor, warming and delicious. Frothed with a little milk/non dairy bev. and a touch of honey, this became a latte of cocoa laced with spices; the yerba mate’s earthy and vegetal flavor creating a lovely counterpoint.

I drink this tea for energy, but that’s about it. I can’t say that I particularly enjoy the flavor.

I got a bag of this one in a swap and I feel terrible because I don’t remember who it was from! Usually I can tell from the handwriting but obviously there’s none on a teabag. I’m thinking… Kallieboo? Anyway, I don’t have that much experience with mate so I am always happy to try more!

no-tea related rambling below!

The name of this tea brought back so many memories. I majored in cultural anthropology in college, and a book about the Guayaki Indians was the first ethnography I read in my very first anthro class. My college required two courses in the social sciences as part of the core: I took sociology and hated it (but anthro and socio people notoriously don’t get along haha), and decided to give an intro anthropology class a shot for my second.

Looking back, that was the book that got me hooked. It dealt with incredibly complex and decisive topics that often wouldn’t even be touched upon even in a college class: homosexuality in native groups, coming-of-age rituals that involve mutilation, and endocannibalism. I knew anthropology was the major for me when it could get me to see something as foreign and “scary” as cannibalism as a beautiful process. In case you think I’m crazy endocannibalism is not eating random people, but usually includes death rituals in the tribe where a passed member is eaten so they live on forever. In their society, no person is truly dead: they live on forever in the bodies of their friends and family. Kind of beautiful, and very strange.

Anyway, I ended up digging up a lot of my old books because of this tea and flipping through them. I miss my old classes so much! I honestly have half a mind to contact some of my old professors and ask them for reading lists for their classes haha.

end rambling

And now, the tea! Though really, there’s not much to say about this one. It is nice, though unfortunately the top fell off of my honey while I was squeezing a little in so there is WAY too much and it kind of just tastes like honey. The cherry and orange are present but in the background, a very mildly flavored blend.

And the mate… well, I’m still not sure how I feel about mate. It tends to taste like hay to me (unless it is of the roasted variety). Which is funny, because I love guayusa because it tastes like the forest. But hay… not really sure how I feel about this. I need to expand my mate education!

Thanks so much, CharlotteZero for this one! For some reason I assumed with this being a chai, that the yerba mate would be roasted. I can tell pouring the water and it turning a lovely shade of sea foam green that it is not roasted. I’m glad I didn’t use boiling water then, or it would have burnt the yerba mate. I taste tested after brewing for five minutes, but I thought it needed some more and brewed another five. I’m also not sure how the spices can be their best if I didn’t use boiling water. It’s a conundrum… use boiled water and you ruin the yerba mate. Use cooled water and the spices aren’t as pronounced. I don’t know. I like this, but I could be wrong… it seemed there was some stevia here. Not the Celestial Seasonings pumpkin ridiculous level of stevia though! A good yerba mate and some nice spices, but I kept noticing that stevia.