Samurai Chai Mate

Thanks to Madeline Alyce for sending me a sample of this tea!

I’ve been curious to try a few mates in the morning in hopes that they may WAKE ME UP! This reminds me a lot of Teavana’s white chai, which was also okay in my opinion. The cinnamon is very strong here, it’s kind of sweet and reminds me a bit of bubblegum. I liked this a bit better with soymilk. I think next time I will try using slightly less tea because the spices are a bit overwhelming. The DJ Booth mentioned a tongue numbing feeling and I am also getting that. Sometimes it happens with a tea strong in cinnamon or clove.

I will gladly finish off the sample that I have but will probably not need to get any more of this…

i’m addicted to the scent of this after a steep! couldn’t put the teapot down…and i wouldnt have if i didnt have to pour out the pot of MateVana (steeped them at the same time for comparison)

even now, my nose is in the empty teapot as i type….sigh…
the taste is ok. it has a tinge of sweetness that is just right. but the scent in the teapot is still the best…ahhhh

Sip down day #3/ tea #1

I got this in a swap from TheDJBooth. I’m not generally a fan of mate. Actually I hate it, almost as much as rooibos, I have found one that I can manage. But this one sounded too good not to.try.
I LOVE chais, especially in the fall. I don’t think I’ve ever met a chai I didn’t like. I was fully expe tcing to dislike this one.

It smells fantastic, both in the dry notes and once steeped. It’s very spi rd smelling, a menagerie of spi es…. And a little like cinnamon gum.
It’s a little on Tue sweet side. It doesn’t quote taste as spicey as it smells, which is unfortunate. This isn’t my favourite chai, but its decent. I think this will probably stay in my cupboard for mornings I need a jolt of caffeine.

ok so i don’t LOVE chais. they’re fine enough.
and i don’t LOVE mate. though it’s fun for variety.

but i’ll try ANY tea once. maybe even twice. :)
i got a local running friend into tea and she came over to my house SO excited about this one. which is the cutest thing. and i already knew we had very different taste in tea (among other things; ie; i went to art school and she is in the military) but i told her i’d gladly take a sample anytime!

so. i tried it.
‘if you don’t have anything nice to say…’ so, um, i liked the lemongrass very much :)

haha OKAY OKAY i’m joking! this was actually a very nice mate. i’m not gonna buy any, but it’s a cup that the label and smell would have me thinking i would hate, and i actually truly enjoyed it.

it’s good and sweet spicy balanced. invigorating is a good word for it. lemongrass and licorice. but still light and bright. i might even take another sample if it’s offered to me. cheers.

First ever visit to an actual teavana store as I live in Canada and there are no teavana’s nearby :(
so as I landed in Miami Florida the first thing I did… Teavana!!!! Tried this as a sampler then ordered a cup :) pretty solid, lots of spices kinda of over doing it but I admired the amount of flavor they were able to pack into this particular tea . Lots of cinnemon, a little too much if you ask me but it’s a chai and chai’s are supposed to be like that, kinda why I was never a huuuuge fan of chai.
The blend with the red rooibos was facinating and had a interesting first couple sips. By the end it got tiring and overdone . It left me with a bloaty tea feeling, however all in all, I was impressed by the flavor. So as it wasn’t my favorite , some will enjoy it if they are big fans of chai. It gave me quite an energy boost as I may add as when I get off a plane I always feel out of loop.

A chai maté. Alone, that sounds like either a delicious mixture or a huge disaster. I’ve gotta put this in the delicious mixture category, because I think this will be my new morning maté. Upon opening the package, I got a really strong, spicy cinnamon smell (almost like Big Red chewing gum). After brewing up a cup and taking a sip, I was sold. Aside from the strong, sweet, and spicy taste, I got hints of almond, coriander, orange, and pineapple. And it all worked together beautifully. If you like a spicy, complex tea that’s also a caffeine pick-me-up, go for this one. It’s yummy.

So, I love chai. I should get more specific than that though, and say that I love chai lattes. Presumably one could wave some soy/milk/cream and sweetener in the general direction of a cup of chai and have done with it, but I am not that person. I like the malty-foamy-cozy-creamy parts of drinking chai, so that’s almost always how it’s prepared.

Not feeling well in the last month led to a spontaneous trip to the nearby Teavana, to which I had never been for no reason other than that I never made time to go. It also led to a flurry of spending done under the auspices of needing these various purchases to feel better, which in hindsight is weak justification even for me, but there you go. This was among the things I brought home…along with the Masala.

I should say right out that I’m just not qualified to rate this as far as being a mate, since I haven’t to my knowledge ever had any mate besides this stuff right here. As chai goes…

Today is the first day I haven’t combined it with the Masala, and I’m sort of surprised. I don’t know why I was daunted by the smell of it…it smells sharp and acrid, almost fruity (some part of me thought ‘potpourri’), a much ‘brighter’ smell than the smoky, cinnamon-heavy, shadowy smell of the Masala. I’ve been mixing them half and half and enjoying it a lot, but wanted to add a tasting note for some of these before I go through them, so decided to brew it up by itself. I wasn’t sure what to expect from making this one alone. I thought it might be overpowering or tangy, or…I don’t know. It’s not, though. It’s still a little bit fruity and floral (every time I use those words I feel like they’re not quite right, but they’re as close as I can get), but the steeping brings the cinnamon out a lot. It’s a much more balanced flavor than I anticipated. My first thought is that it would make for a fantastic option for iced chai when the weather warms up, though I wonder if putting it on ice would make the cinnamon more difficult to sense again. Something to look forward to finding out, for sure.

2 tbps. in 2c. water, simmered for a few minutes, and then 2c. milk added (1c. whole, 1c. 1%), brought to simmer again, removed from heat, stirred for a few minutes before straining to keep it from scalding. Turbinado sugar to taste. Not precisely sure on the steep time though.

Thanks to Michelle for sending this along.

I actually drank this a couple days ago, while working on an assignment for school. I really needed some caffeine, and knowing tea might not be quite enough, I thought about coffee. Now, I have nothing against coffee, but I’ve really tried to cut back on it when I can and drink tea instead. Also, I didn’t want to support Starbucks if I could help it ;) .. And then I remembered I had this tea. Yerba Mate is known to contain LOTS of caffeine, and since I needed a “fix” I figured this was the perfect time to try it.

Since I knew Yerba Mate wouldn’t need to expand, I put this is a tea filter, boiled some water, and let it steep while working on my assignment. Not sure how long I brewed it for – at least 6 minutes.. maybe closer to 8? It was not bad at all. I agree with the other reviewers that it tastes a lot like Big Red gum, since the cinnamon is so strong. It’s definitely not a bad tea, and was tasty enough to drink the whole thing.

I general, I plan to limit my Yerba Mate intake since I don’t want to have caffeine overload. In general, I don’t like to “need” it to get through my day. But there are definitely dragging days. I wonder how this compares to the Mate Vana, the other mate tea Teavana sells..

This definitely rings in as Teavana’s flagship in my book. There isn’t a single other tea or tisane in their repertoire that even compares.

Again, here we are making the distinction of a ‘spice’ tea or a ‘fruit’ tea, as this blend gives you quite a bit of both. The cinnamon is very much the dominant flavor of this blend, which is always something that wins points in my book (why you would keep a pointy book, who knows).

Past the cinnamon, I taste the very wonderful candied pineapple flavor, which then gives way to all the other spice flavors. It is really a very flavorful blend. What’s interesting is that I don’t particularly consider myself a fan of either mate or rooibos. This blend though, man, it’s just the perfect combination of flavors to tie those two base herbs together. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or some such.

It had been awhile since we had made some, so Missy brewed it up tonight… very pleasant. Although, maybe not the best thought for a nighttime blend… hrmm.

My OvationTeas order will be coming soon… and the Samurai may finally have to defend itself against an upstart challenger. Queue the Rocky music!

This is a really attractive blend with a nice balance of shapes and variety of color. Picture a drinkable potpourri.

This is all about subtlety. The fragrance is a light citrus with a hint of cinnamon. Brewed, this is only slightly warm from the Indian spices and has a faint licorice aftertaste from the anise adding just a bit of sweetness.

One point where subtlety gets thrown out the door, however, is in the power of the Maté. Mistakenly, I drank this too close to bedtime and didn’t sleep that night. This is a morning only beverage.

One of my friends just sprung some tea samples on me. She brought this mate to breakfast with her and I was very glad she did so. I had it hot, plain, and kept the tea ball in there the entire time I was drinking so it got stronger as I was drinking.

It was interesting. I think I was tasting the roobios prominently in this blend along with the cinnamon. It spicy. I didn’t really taste any of the other fruit that was supposed to be in there though.

It was tasty and I would have a cup if it was offered to me, but I don’t think that I would run out and get a tin of this for myself.

I bought this from their latest sale, because I love Chai/Chai blend, which is this plus White Ayurvedic Chai (in what proportion, one can only wonder). I have the WAC and thought it was weak on it’s own, so if I don’t like this on it’s own either, I could always blend them.

The aroma of the brewed tea is of cinnamon and other spices blending in. First sip is cinnamon and a fruity tone. Yep, I’m getting the pineapple mostly but the other flavors are melding in. Since I like pineapple (mmmmm, pineapple upside down cake) and cinnamon, I’m finding this very good. Little too much ginger for my (sensitive) tastes, but that isn’t a fair criticism imo. Overall it is sweet (added tbs. of honey, but think it would be sweet anyway). Aftertaste is back to the pineapple and cinnamon. Haven’t tasted (green) mate on it’s own, so not sure how it’s playing in here, but not noticing much beyond the fruit and spices.

Will see if this perks me up tonight (groggy)… tgif!

My husband treated me to a couple samples of Teavana, so we’re enjoying this tea tonight and the Earl Grey tomorrow morning.

It was Jake’s first visit to a Teavana, but after watching what happened with my mom and reading some of the stories here we were prepared. We left the cards at home and only took the cash with us that we intended to spend. We were very up front about a $10 budget for tea samples, and it was so funny to watch the shop girl get more and more frustrated as she tried to push the $16/2oz teas!

But moving on to the actual review ;)

For the preparation, I used about two tablespoons of tea and two tablespoons of Sugar in the Raw in a 2-cup teapot, then a nice dash of milk once I’d poured the tea into our mugs.

From the start I was surprised at how mild it is – not exactly the fierce warrior brew I’d expect based on the title. Although my tongue does tingle slightly, it’s not exactly a kick in the mouth. The cinnamon overwhelms most of the other flavors, and I can’t really pick out the fruity elements. I can understand why other people have described it as tasting like Big Red. It’s actually kind of true.

I also can’t detect the mate element. I didn’t realize it was a mate when we bought it – there was absolutely no vegetal smell – and I was worried about it when we got home. Luckily (for me at least, because I have yet to enjoy a good mate experience) the taste is not present at all.

Sipping this, I can easily picture myself putting together the elements of a new story but I’m not exactly ready to strap on a cuirass and go to war!

I received a free sample of this and was not excited about it as this isn’t one I liked the sample of in the store but, when I made it at home it was pretty good.
At least it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it.
more notes to come

Thanks The DJ Booth for this sample :-) This is pretty good. Its strangely sweet though which was surprising. I agree with one of the other reviewers it almost has a cinnamon gum taste to it. The dry leaf and steeped leaf smell delicious but I feel like the taste doesnt match up. But still a decent mate blend.

Steep Information:
Amount: 5 tsp
Additives: none
Water: filtered, boiling, 1 cast iron teapot full
Tool: Cast Iron Teapot with Mesh basket strainer
Steep Time: a little over 6 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell:
MilitiaJim: It smells kinda like Jaegermeister. Very medicinal.
AmazonV: Peppers, cardamon, cinnamon.
Steeped Tea Smell:
MilitiaJim: It still smells medicinal.
AmazonV: Peppers, cardamon, cinnamon.
Flavor:
MilitiaJim: vaguely spicy
AmazonV: Sweet, orange, clove, cinnamon
Body: Full
Aftertaste: spicy
Liquor: cloudy orange-green-yellow

The taste reminded me of the holidays. We drank it as tea and did not make it as proper chai.

Post-Steep Additives: MilitiaJim added 1 tsp German rock sugar -“better now, sweet and spicy.”

Resteep: 7 min – weak, watery, cinnamon clove water with a hint of citrus – dumping it.

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/03/teavana-loose-leaf-mate-tea-samurai.html

I feel very confused by this tea.
Last time I had it, I had added a tiny bit of sugar, but even that was too much for this tea. It made it almost undrinkably sweet. It wasn’t right. So, today, I’m trying it straight up.

I’m finding this one to be confused. I almost feel like it’s having an identity crisis. This tea knows it should be chai flavoured and it’s trying, but at the same time, I feel it’s trying to be something mellower and softer than what it is. It’s trying to be fruity too, but it’s not quite succeeding.
The cinnamon is the strongest flavour in the tea for sure. It’s really all I can taste. I think I can taste the caradmon too. I thought it was nutmeg for a moment there. It’s almost got a cinnamon/nutmeg taste like the cookies I make, but it doesn’t quite work for me for this tea. I might have to try it with milk or try it as a latte.

Straight up I leave feeling sad… haha It’s such a sweet tea… it’s too much…

Love drinking this tea in the winter time

I picked a few ounces of this up at my local Teavana store last weekend as I love both chai and mate teas. I decided to give it a try this morning.
To begin with, the scent of the dried mixture is amazing. I loved the spicy aroma. Even the tea steeping was quite intoxicating.
I used just a touch of rock sugar and a bit of coconut milk creamer. The first few sips were quite delicious, but I must admit that the clove and cinnamon almost became overwhelming for me. Eventually, that was all I could taste and they were quite overpowering.

I will give it another try, because the initial flavors were so good, so we’ll see.

I did use only 1 tsp instead of the recommended 1 1/2. I’m glad, because I think 1 1/2 tsp would have been very overwhelming.

This has to be one of my favorite teas to drink in the morning. Make a cup of this and you’ve got the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. Nice for those mornings that you need an extra kick!

The smell is almost intoxicating. As another reviewer mentioned, it smells a lot like Big Red bubble gum. Lots of cinnamon and other spices in this one. I’d almost recommend using 1 teaspoon instead of 1.5 just because the spices can be overwhelming sometimes.

So far this is my only mate tea that I’ve tried but I have a feeling it’s going to remain my favorite.