Tea Type: Oolong/Yerba Mate Blend
Where To Buy: Teaqualibrium
Product Description:
Close your eyes and imagine sitting in a field of fresh strawberries— breathe in the intoxicating scent, pick a plump berry and let the flavor burst in your mouth. Teaquilibrium’s organically grown Strawberry Vanilla is delightful and gently energizing. The distinct flavor of green yerba mate magically blends with the smooth toasty cocoa aroma of the oolong, organically grown strawberries and topped with a hint of vanilla. As with all of our Little Black Dress teas, Strawberry Vanilla is an exclusive Teaquilibrium blend.
Try Strawberry Vanilla hot or chilled. For a delicious and refreshing pick me up, cold infuse Little Black Dress Strawberry Vanilla and serve in a pitcher with fresh strawberries.
organically grown ingredients: oolong tea, green yerba mate, strawberries, natural strawberry and vanilla flavors.
how many cups? approximately 45 tsp. per 3 oz; that’s about 90 eight oz cups at 18 cents per cup*
preparation: heat water: 195 F, scoop: 1.5 tsp/8 oz., steep 34 min.just steep a little longer the second time.
Tasters Review:
I really had no idea what to expect from this tea. But sometimes I think it’s a great idea to go into a cup like that! Here are my findings on Little Black Dress Strawberry Vanilla from Teaquilibrium…
First off this certainly smells wonderful! It’s a gentle aroma but you can pick out both the strawberry and the vanilla. When it comes to taste it’s a great combination of flavors! The Strawberry is juicy and sweet and the vanilla is creamy and smooth. Both paired with the Yerba AND the Oolong it makes for a truly unique blend and flavor! It’s sugary-sweet and refreshing!
Normally I don’t ever put anything in my teas! When I was trying this I must have been in rare form and thought with my 2nd infusion that I would sprinkle some sugar in it. Honestly, I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did! It was like a different tea! It was still good and tasty but different and still equally as unique. By adding the little bit of sugar to it – it seemed to cancel out the vanilla a little as well as a bit of the creaminess. It also intensified the strawberry flavor. It sort of reminded me of fresh picked strawberries with sugar on top…that sort of flavor!
I must say I like this one hot and/or cold…maybe a little bit more cold, actually, and I also like it with or without sugar! A very nice offering from a very nice tea company!
Organic Fresh Green Yerba Maté from Maté Factor
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Yerba Maté
Where to Buy: Maté Factor
Company Description:
100% Organic
Why Does Our Fresh Green Yerba Mate Tastes So Good?
We do not age our Yerba Mate: All other yerba mate sold in the USA is aged for 1-2 years before being packaged, according to cultural traditions from Paraguay, Uraguay and Argentina. However, in Brazil, mate is commonly prefered as fresh as possible. The Mate Factor prefers this style, since it preserves the life-giving nutrients and the fresh green taste.
Our Yerba Mate Process is an Art: We have spent years perfecting the “art” of creating delicately delicouse Yerba Mate. We have painstakingly learned the vast array of factors that control the final flavor and vibrance, in order to produce, The Mate Factor.
No Smoky Flavor: We dry our Mate; using an art we have developed that preserves the natural flavor and also keeps our original green flavor Mate tea free from smoke. This low heat process protects natural enzymes that exist in yerba mate.
100% Certified Organic: We use one hundred percent certified organic Yerba Mate, responsibly grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, preserving the environment where our Mate is grown.
Ingredients: 100% Certified Organic Fresh Green Brazilian Yerba Mate;. (Never Smoked Never Aged)
Taster’s Review:
People can change! Example: If you would have asked me a week ago if I liked yerba maté, I would have responded with something like: “I like yerba maté in some blends, and I like the roasted yerba maté, but I don’t really care for green yerba maté.” This is the stance I’ve held on maté for many years now, ever since I first tried green maté.
Unflavored, unblended green yerba maté tends to be too earthy, vegetative and even somewhat smoky. It was a lot of everything that I don’t really care for in tea – I like a little earthiness to a tea sometimes, but, I’m not crazy about an overtly earthy tea. The same goes for vegetative and smoky qualities. And… green yerba maté tends to be all of these things… and not enough of something else to keep my interest.
But… as I said at the start… people can change. I LIKE this yerba maté! And this is green yerba maté at its simplest – plain, unflavored, unblended green yerba maté – no fillers, flavors or other additives.
After reading the information from Maté Factor about this tea, I understand a little as to why my taste seems to have done a complete 180. This is an unaged, unsmoked maté – just pure, dried leaf. In it’s purest form like this – green yerba maté is actually quite delicious.
The flavor is light and rich. It’s a little earthy and a bit rustic. It has a fresh sweetness to it that is quite nice. It tastes a little bit vegetative. It’s really very pleasant and invigorating!
It is refreshing to find a tea that totally changes my ideas about it. When I first received this tea, I was apprehensive. But now, I know – there’s nothing to fear when it comes to yerba maté! It’s delicious!
Misty Morning from Good 4 You
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Yerba Maté & Herbal
Where to Buy: Good 4 You on Etsy
Company Description:
♥ A lemony yerba mate’ blend to lift the mind’s mist every morning, day or night! For memory, concentration and mental alertness. Recommended for studying & staying focused. There’s feverfew in it too, to possibly help a headache. A tea made for the crown chakra.
Ingredients: yerba mate leaves, lemon grass leaves, lemon balm leaves, gotu kola leaves, gingko leaves, rosemary leaves, stevia leaves, sage leaves & feverfew flowers and leaves. (CAFFEINATED)
Taster’s Review:
I want to start this review by saying that I really like this company. Good 4 You has a shop on Etsy, and for those of you who are unfamiliar with Etsy, it’s a fantastic venue where artists can sell their wares. I sold my teas as well as my art on Etsy, and I love it there. So I was excited to receive hand-blended tea samples from this Etsy store.
The package arrived and it was hand decorated – a nice touch! – and the packaging for each of the teas that I received is very cute and thoughtfully executed. I have nothing but respect and admiration for this company, and I urge you to support handmade!
OK… now that I’ve said that – this tea is alright. I am not a big fan of green Yerba Maté, I find it a bit too earthy for me, but, here, the other herbs manage to smooth out some of the earthy qualities for my palate, which I appreciate.
There is quite a bit going on with this blend. There’s the Yerba Maté, it’s vegetative, it’s earthy, and it provides a richness and depth of flavor to this tea blend.
Then there’s the lemon grass and lemon balm. These two ingredients provide a nice, lemony sweetness to the blend. It’s not terribly tart – a bonus – the lemon here tastes smooth.
There is a savory quality to this blend – I can taste the combination of rosemary and sage. This is a classic culinary combination, and it offers a unique and flavorful contribution to this tea blend.
Then… there is the stevia. Here’s the thing. I really wish that tea blenders/artists would not put stevia in their tea blends. I am not really crazy about stevia as it is, I like it ok sometimes… but most of the time, I detect a funky sort of aftertaste from it that I’m just not wild about. Basically, the main purpose of stevia is to add sweetness to a tea (it’s sweeter than sugar), but if I want to make my cup sweet, I’d like to do that myself.
The stevia aside, I think that this blend makes a decent cup of tea. It’s not my favorite blend, but, I like that it is a handcrafted blend. I like the creativity and thoughtfulness that went into making this blend. It’s tasty and I like that I feel more alert after having enjoyed a cup of this tea. It is a FEEL GOOD kind of tea that I can feel good about drinking!
Pirate Tea from Design a Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black with Yerba Maté
Where to Buy: Design a Tea
Company Description:
All that’s missing is that pain in the butt parrot and a buried treasure; like we said, you will remember after 1 cup of Pirate Tea where the treasure is… or at least where you lost your car keys! This is a hardy chai with a very pleasant sweet pineapple aroma and after taste. GREAT COLD
Taster’s Review:
I am not generally a huge fan of Yerba Maté. For the most part, I can take it or leave it, although sometimes, I come across something pretty spectacular. I even blended a pretty spectacular Yerba Maté blend… if I do say so myself.
But, Yerba Maté isn’t necessarily my favorite … know what I mean? It’s kind of like rooibos. I don’t dislike rooibos… but, it’s not something that I crave usually either.
BUT… this blend… I can actually see myself actually craving! It is so good.
It is a blend of black teas and Roasted Yerba Maté (generally my preference when it comes to Yerba Maté). The Yerba Maté is not an overwhelming presence in the cup (perhaps that is why I like it so much?) but the deep earthy flavor is there, as well as the roasted quality from the Maté.
The black tea is also not an overwhelming presence. I can taste it, but, it seems to be providing more of a smooth presence to help curb the edge that can sometimes be part of the flavor of the Yerba Maté. Together, the Maté and black tea create a very smooth, yet rich, deep, earthy flavor.
The pineapple is the strongest flavor in this cup, but it is not an overly aggressive flavor. Rather, it is pleasantly sweet and juicy, and provides a beautiful contrast to the earthy character of the Yerba Maté and the warmth of the masala chai spices, creating a perfectly harmonized balance of flavors.
There is also vanilla flavoring added to this blend, which is soft and smooth, and gives the whole blend a hint of creamy, sweet goodness without being too obvious.
This is an amazing blend – definitely one of my favorite Yerba Maté blends, and perhaps the best I’ve tried from Design a Tea. That’s saying quite a lot, because I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve tried from them! This one is a real winner!
Organic Chai Yerba Maté from Maté Factor
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Yerba Maté
Where to Buy: Maté Factor
Company Description:
Mate Factor Organic Chai Mate Tea combines traditional Indian chai spices with our Fresh Brazilian Yerba Mate! You’ll love the spicy aromatic flavor of this bestselling, full bodied tea!
Ingredients: Green Yerba Mate, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cardamom, Ginger, Cloves, Chicory, Black Pepper
Taster’s Review:
Seamless. That is how I’d describe the spice flavor of this Yerba Maté. The masala spices are so well balanced in this blend that it is difficult to discern one spice from the next. I can taste the ginger, the cinnamon, the cardamom, the cloves, even the black pepper, nutmeg and chicory… but, because they are so well balanced they seem to work in harmony with each other, and create a seamless flavor that is very delightful and invigorating.
The Yerba Maté used in this blend is a green Maté, which gives the blend an earthy characteristic. The chicory gives the cup a roasted quality – if you didn’t know you were drinking green Maté, you might mistake this for a lightly roasted Yerba Maté. The chicory adds a lot of depth to the tea, as does the deep, earthy flavor of the Maté.
The spices are spicy yet sweet. It is not the strongest spicy chai I’ve tasted; even so, it is one of the better chai teas I’ve encountered just because it has that very pleasing seamlessness that I mentioned previously. I can almost taste the “love” in this tea – whoever created the recipe for this blend had a great love and passion for chai, it is evident as I taste it.
I enjoyed this hot, but it works equally as well as an iced tea – very pleasantly refreshing! I added a dollop of agave nectar to my cup to bring out the spices – but I didn’t go latte (not yet, anyway, I might do that with my next cuppa!) however I think that it would be very good latte as well.
This is a tea that I would recommend to all chai tea lovers. Yes, it is a bagged tea – but, once you’ve tasted it, I don’t think you’re going to care! It’s really that good!