Yerba Mate tea, a guest post by Veronica C

Our favourite tea blogger Leah has asked me to write a guest post on mate, a south american infusion with roots that extend back to pre - colonial times. Being Uruguayan myself, that was a tall order.

Believe me, I've pondered a lot on what to focus this post about mate: its history, its chemistry, its benefits... but finally I've decided to write about what southern-bound visitors and infusion lovers won't easily read about: the very soul of mate.

Anyhow, some facts first.

To make mate you will first need yerba which translates "herb" to English, and this is where some misunderstandings begin. The word "herb" has some "illegal" connotations but in Spanish the word means just the dried leaves of a bush (Ilex paraguariensis) that grows in the heart of the continent. The production process include the industrial drying of the leaf that is then crushed and stationed for up to a year before being packaged to be consumed.

    Fresh yerba leaves

Infusion-ready product

Mate can be purchased on every retail corner of my country; In Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil, Bolivia and Chile. You can easily see there is a dimension on mate that goes beyond countries and nationalities, a common ground on people that share the same taste. It represents  the culture of whole continent.

Now imagine you live in the countryside, maybe as a Guarani native in pre colony times or a Gaucho in extensive cattle farms. When dawn breaks or dusk falls, the grassy hills surround you until the horizon and there is a sense of beauty but loneliness because this corner of the world has always been  sparsely populated.

This means, cows and dogs are keeping you company... not a very entertaining way to live.

So mate will be right there next to you, keeping you busy by the fire, preventing your feeling down and lonely. Scientists explain that the high caffeine level on the dry leaves keeps you away from depression and sleep (link here) but people like to say, the mate becomes your compañero (alas, in English, your soul mate).


The ceremony of mate:


Well, with the mate it is not exactly a japanese tea ceremony. The native Guaranis that began this tradition were rather simple people. Also the Spanish conquistadores and their descendants were rather tough people that would not invest too much time on it: after all it was supposed to be a way to sanitize water by filtering through layers of leaves.

Traditional mate should be drank out of a "calabaza" (dry pumpkin) like this one. It is fully recyclable and environmentally friendly.

The calabaza is filled 2/3ds with yerba and boiling water is poured on it. After it has soaked the yerba expands to almost fill the container and you are ready to sip the infusion through a metal straw.

Burning hot, bitter tasting, aromatic, earthy flavour filling your mouth and nostrills.

And your soul.


Different ways to drink mate:


In Uruguay: people go to public places carrying thermos and mates. You can pick out a uruguayan person in a huge crowd, because of this feature. Here are two pictures I took at the beach at the same time, notice most people sipping mate.

By the way, this is Punta del Este, a posh resort

In Argentina: drinking mate is more home-oriented. Hot water is poured out of a kettle, because it would be sipped more or less in a hurry before leaving for  work. Also, sugar is usually is mixed with yerba, something other southeners deride for being "childish".

Alone: already discussed this on the country side, but mate has found it's way to the urban environment and for instance is sipped by students trying to prevent falling asleep while cramming for tomorrow's exams.

In a group of people: well, I know this will seem disgusting to many of you, but good manners involve sipping the mate and passing it on to the person next to you. A total stranger or your closest friend or partner, whomever. Again, the high caffeine level will prompt lively conversation, jokes... you know, we latin americans like to talk a lot. And loud. Mate is defined as the beverage of friendship.

Mate cocido "cooked mate": For the rest of the world who does not want to get involved into the dry pumpkin, thermo and metal straw thing, you can drink it as an infusion. Bitter, earthy, very scant colour, it's not your usual camomile or your favorite tisane

Hope this posts brings to you a different approach to mate, but if you are looking for the traditional one, like Wikipedia here you can find it. Hasta pronto amigos!!

Tg Tea- a review of green tea

Hello fellow tea lovers! I recently met Hua and Sophia of Tg on Twitter and they offered to send some of their new products from their startup business. I was excited, because a lot of tea that I'm typically sent is black tea and a green tea company is a nice change of pace. That's exactly  why Hua and Sophia created their business, one day they went to a grocery store because they were thirsty, but didn't see anything that was refreshing as well as low calorie in the way of soft drinks. In the hot tea aisle of the food store, they were not impressed with the selection of green tea, either. None of it comes from the source. So Sophia and Hua teamed up with a great idea; to make low calorie iced tea as well as hot tea to the streets of Great Britain. If you look at the photo below, the packaging is quite artsy. The packaging of the tea is influenced by London street art.

Since Tg (pronounced Tea-G) is a start up business, I told Sophia and Hua that in my post about their tea, I'd try and get the word out in addition to the tea review. They're simply two tea lovers that took their passion for tea and put it into a bottle. Quite literally! When they got their packaging art and bottle art printed, they took to the streets to take some photographs. Here's one of my favorites:

Okay, let's get to the review. So the Tg I will be reviewing first is the Green Tea with Jujube and Osmanthus. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of Osmanthus the flower until I was sent some of this tea. I looked it up and it's a flower that's native to Asia and has a ton of health benefits. Most notably is: it relieves stomach pain, promotes lung health, moisturizes your skin, helps keep you hydrated as well as removes toxins from your body. In China, many people will put a handful of these beautiful leaves into a pot of boiling water to infuse with their tea. Here's what they look like in the wild:

I've heard of Jujube before, but I couldn't really figure out where from. It's a red date that adds sweetness to the green tea and it has many antioxidants. You can see the tea leaves, Osmanthus and Jujube in the actual teabags:

There's a healthy amount of tea in the pyramid tea bag. I'd say about 4 grams of tea. It's really important not to pour just boiled water over green tea, you need to wait a few minutes for the water to cool down. I'd suggest 2-3 minutes, or it can ruin the taste of the tea. Then, pour the hot water over the teabag and steep for about 3 minutes. Look how beautiful this is-mid steep:

Fully steeped it's even better/ The colors of the Osmanthus, green tea leaves and Jujube make a pretty sight:

I tried this tea with and without sugar. It tastes refreshing, earthy and crisp, but if you add sugar it really brings the flavor of the Jujube out as well as the tea. If I'm in a refreshing hot tea kind of mood, something that just truly goes down smooth and simple, I won't add any sugar. However if I'm in a mood where I want something sweet, I'll add sugar and it tastes really good.

Let's move onto the Iced Tea! So they sent me three of them, one with Ginseng, one with Ginseng and Jujube and finally one with Ginseng and Mandarin. Of the three, the iced tea with Mandarin was my favorite. There's something so refreshing about iced tea with a citrus fruit added to it. They only have 30 calories a bottle, so it's sweet, but not overly sweet like how Lipton Iced Tea is. The benefit of green iced tea is that it not only hydrates you, but is proven to be better for you than black iced tea, because of all the antioxidants in green tea. Here's a photo of the tea I drank today on my dining room table:

If you like green tea, you'll love their hot tea and their iced tea. If you've never had green tea, I'd suggest giving Tg a try. It's good to support local businesses. Great job, Sophia and Hua, I'd give your tea 5/5, it's the best green tea I've ever had. Get yours here!

Khongea Assam Gold- Canton Tea

I was contacted directly by Canton Tea to try and review their award winning Khongea Assam Gold. This was exciting because for me, Assam has some sentiment. This past summer when I was in Bristol, England with Ollie when he was finishing up his internship for a start up company in the space sector Assam was our go-to tea. He'd text me on his walk home from work and I'd time it perfectly so that when he walked in the door I'd have two mugs of Assam ready to drink and talk about his long day at work. Nostalgia is such a strong emotion, I have it for last summer despite it not even being a year old memory. I'd sit on the bed and he'd sit at the wooden table because the apartment he had for his internship was a studio with a shared bathroom. I only stayed with him a few weeks until we made the move to Wales, but he lived in that tiny, tiny apartment all summer while he worked.

Anyways, let's move on to this delicious tea. It's very smooth with lots of golden tips and a sweet, pleasant aroma. I steeped it for about 3.5 minutes, because leaving it in any longer would impact the strength of the tea. It produced a rich crimson colored brew which is very malty in taste. What is great is that this Assam is pleasantly strong without being overpowering, which is an issue with most Assam tea.  Here is a photo of the beautiful leaves:

Note: this image is from the Canton Tea Co website, I did not take the photo myself.


How beautiful are those leaves? If you like black tea, you should give this a try. I love Assam, especially with dessert. I love having a good sugary cake alongside a cup of Assam with a few drops of milk in it. When I take a bite of the cake and I get the sugary goodness in my mouth I wash it down with this Assam and it's the perfect combination. Yum.  I give this tea a 5/5 rating because there's not a thing I would change about it.


This tea is the second flush of Assam which is the best, and it's a great price at $7 for 50 grams or £5 for 50 grams. They ship worldwide and they have prices in American Dollars, Pounds and the Euro. Canton Tea Co has given my readers a 10% off discount off their entire order of tea, just use the discount code TRBL10 at checkout for the discount. (TRBL stands for Tea Reviews by Leah! How cool!)

Leah