Banana Cherry Green Yerba Mate

This sample comes to me via Ian – so thanks for letting me try it!

I’m fairly new to mate blends so I don’t have much to compare this to. The dry leaf smells a bit banana like but I’m not picking up on any cherry.

I steeped this via regular infuser mug method. The brewed tea is very similar to my inital impression. I’m picking up on lots of mate and the banana but where is the cherry? I thought this needed a little… something so I added some soymilk to it and I liked it better that way, now it reminds me a bit of chunky monkey. I liked this fairly well, not sure if I would buy any for the personal stash, but if I had it around I would most certainly drink it.

I did manage to get a 2nd steep out of this, although it is much lighter in flavor and mostly tastes like mate…

Thanks again, Ian!

Revisiting this tisane today. I do like this, it just wasn’t quite what I expected when I first opened the pouch. With a fragrance so distinctly banana, I expected the flavor to be strongly BANANA. But, my first couple of sips were more yerba mate than anything else, sure, there were hints of banana and cherry, but they weren’t as strong as I expected them to be. However, the flavors do develop as I continue to sip, and now the banana is well-balanced with the yerba mate, and I like the way these two ingredients meld together. The sweetness of the banana softens the vegetative, earthy tones of the mate quite nicely. The cherry is more of a hint, which sort of weaves its way in and out throughout the sip, but is especially noticed in the aftertaste, where there is a cherry sweetness as well as a hint of tart.

This is actually quite good.

I drank this last night after browsing through my box that LiberTEAS sent me and I decided I needed some caffeine.

I did two steeps (I did the first iced) and I enjoyed the second one (hot) waaaay more. The first tasted (and smelled) sort of like bubblegum, and I was kind of turned off. I made the second one hot, however, and I liked it a bit more! It tasted less artificial. I still couldn’t pick out a solid banana or cherry flavor, but it was still pretty good.

This is my first yerba mate. I only used 1 tsp in 8 oz. of water because I read that online somewhere for steeping instructions. I’m not sure if it would be better or not with more leaf. It definitely isn’t too watery.

But that’s probably because I’m tasting A LOT of banana in this cup. I don’t really like banana flavorings, let alone in tea. I believe I’ve said this before. I also am left wondering what yerba mate really tastes like. All I can think of is…tea. Hello, Captain Obvious! But alas, descriptive words are eluding me today.

I’m not getting much in the way of cherry either. I think I’d like a pure cherry flavored yerba mate over this. Overall, I don’t fault the tea as much as I fault my own taste buds. I’m afraid the last few 52teas blends have been a bust. This is just not my thing. But if you like banana, this is your tea!