Roasting your own mate

Even though I couldn’t taste the chocolate through my cold, I developed a thing for 52tea’s malted choco mate, and subsequently Davidstea’s jumpy monkey. I’m going through so much of it I tried to find some roasted mate at local health food store, but all I could find was green mate which I really don’t like. So yesterday I tried roasting my own mate on the stove and the results were pretty good – I love the richness of the roast flavor and blended it with some cocoa nibs I had hanging around from chocolate making.

I was wondering if anyone else roasts their own mate, and whether there were some good blending ideas out there?