Mateina was one of my favourite booths at the first MTL Tea Festival so it was nice to see them back again this year. Predictably, they had shifted their booth focus to more of their RTD line up – and it makes a ton of sense, their loose yerba mate is good but they’ve practically exploded in grocery stores with their RTDs. You see them everywhere. The yerba mate boom in canned drinks is very real right now…
I was pleased to see they were serving their new Mango Key Lime. Myself and several other coworkers have been curious about this flavour combination for a long while, but it is CONSTANTLY sold out. Very, very hard to find. I may be wrong, but I think this might be their only RTD flavour they don’t also have a LLT equivalent of as well.
It was fucking awesome. Like, I immediately understood why it keeps selling out everywhere. The mango flavour was super fresh and it had just a hint of that almost pine like green quality that I love; but still plenty juicy. There wasn’t a lot of lime but it made an impression too; just a fleeting pop of acidity in the top notes that just immediately made you salivate. All of that with a foundation of lightly grassy yerba mate. It was stellar. I probably would have bought some for at home, but they were only selling them in case packs instead of individual cans…
But I am gonna be stalking my grocery store, for sure.