During the last Tea Exchange, Lavínia sent me a package from Brazil! She packed in a lot of things, including a lovely handwritten letter (if only my handwriting was that nice) and a box of roasted mate tea!

I’ve never had mate tea before, but I knew that it was a tisane that actually contains caffeine. I also heard that it’s supposed to be made and drunk from a gourd, but since I didn’t have that, I took out one of my favourite tea cups to use. Hopefully that didn’t affect the taste too much.

The dry leaves looked like chopped up stems. Mate made from the dried leaves of the yerba mate and according to Wikipedia, are “dried, chopped, and ground”, which explains the look of the dried leaf. I didn’t notice any particular scent from this.

The tea liquor was a dark brown colour, very much like houjicha. In terms of taste, it was pretty similar but I’m guessing that’s the effect of the roasting on the leaves. Apart from the roasted notes, I also got some pretty prominent woody and herbal notes, with a minty aftertaste.

Overall, I really enjoyed this! Apparently mate is full of caffeine so I’m going to try drinking this in the mornings and seeing if it’s slightly gentler on my stomach compared to tea. Thanks again, Lavínia for giving me this to try!!

Featured Image: Photo by Me