I’m not surprised Adagio started carrying yerba mate – actually I’m a bit surprised that it took them so long. Yerba mate has been fairly well known in N. America for several years at least – I remember seeing bags of Guayaki in the grocery store since I was a kid – so it’s certainly not a new thing. I am admittedly a sucker for free samples so when Adagio offered the set of four free with a $19 purchase I was sold – even though I found out later that Adagio upped their shipping cost to Canada much to my annoyance.
The dry mate smelled wonderful when I opened the sample bag and took a sniff. It was a fresh, sweet, orangy and lemony scent that made me think of candies. After it brewed it smelled more like those Vicks lozanges – but since those are practically candy anyway it’s not a bad thing. :D
Unfortunately the sweetness of the scent didn’t transfere over to the taste for the most part – the resulting drink’s flavour is sort of a mild, citrusy grassy-herbal flavour with the faintest of bitter edges at the end of each sip. The flavour doesn’t taste fake which is a point in its favor, and except for the very end it feels quite smooth in the mouth.
It resteeps well like most yerba mates do and it held on to its citrus flavour decently. Lack of flavour when resteeping is fault I’ve noticed with most of Adagio’s favoured blends. I’m not sure if it’s the mate base or if they’ve improved their blending methods but this is an improvement certainly.
