Aviva Ambrosia Yerba Mate Tea Review

I usually don’t do any tea reviews at night except for herbal and rooibos teas, because caffeine even in small doses keeps me up at night! Today is the last Aviva “instant” yerba mate drink I am going to review. Tomorrow I will be reviewing their loose yerba mate, so stay tuned!

The Aviva Ambrosia yerba mate tea contains wild harvest grown yerba mate, black tea and fruit flavoring. The liquor was a medium to dark brown, with a green undertone. The tea smelt of their classic yerba mate flavours – clean, light, woodsy and slightly sweet. The black tea and the yerba mate worked well to create this energy elixir. Only after a few sips I could feel the caffeine kicking in. This tea reminds me of a mild chicory root tea. I couldn’t taste any of the fruit flavorings though.

Overall, after this whole Aviva yerba mate tea week, I have to say their instant teas are good for value. $18 for 207-214 teabags right now, which works out to about 8-9 cents a teabag. They’re good to brew for energy and caffeine when you need it. However, if you are looking for a gourmet high end yerba mate blended tea then this isn’t it. Yerba mate as I mentioned is a high tea to create a blend with because it’s so strong, you would need to only use a very little bit if were going to use it in a blended tea.

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Mighty Leaf Tea – Oolongs – Jade & Wuyi

I am reviewing two Mighty Leaf Oolongs today.  A little background on Oolongs before we start. Whereas white teas are not fermented and black teas are fully fermented, Oolongs are somewhere in the middle. The percentage can range depending on how the farmer chooses to produce the oolongs. Fermenting the tea gives it more complex flavours and can bring out more nutrients. This is why cabbage rejuvelac, kombucha and kimchi are so healthy because they are purposefully fermented to increase its nutrition.

Oolong has a long history of health benefits ranging from weight loss (as the wuyi oolong tea has been recently popularized for… you know those annoying facebook ads promoting it as a magical weight loss tea) to lowering the fat intake of food.  So yes it is definitely a tea you must try if you are a budding tea connoisseur.  The experience of a white, green, black, oolong, puerh, to herbal tea are all different experiences.

The Jade Oolong was very vegetal.  The smell of the dried leaves was very intense.  It reminded me of the smell of the marijuana plant.  The color of the tea came out a peachy yellow.  You can see from the picture.  The body was light and it left a very golden taste in my mouth and throat after consumption.  A very good sign of a good tea is how long you can still taste the “goldenness” of the tea after consumption.  Yum.  There are some extremely expensive teas that allow the tea drinker to experience the taste hours afterward.  People pay for this!  So pay attention when you are sampling teas.

The Wuyi Oolong was heavy in body than the Jade.  The color came out reddish brown.  It was definitely more rich in tannins that the Jade which is why the color is richer as well.  Tannins are what gives reds its brownish color.  It’s interesting to note that when I swirled the tea around in my mouth and spat it out, I caught notes of apricot in the tea.  Yum!  I love the fruity notes in the teas.  The Jade oolong after I spat it out had more vegetable notes like bok choy and leeks.

The leaves expanded significantly after steeping.  The green tea leaves actually expanded more than 50% and were fighting for space in the tea ball.  If anyone has any better tea steeping utensils feel free to send them my way!  I need new tea accessories.  I will give you a huge shoutout and thank you!  The tea ball I used for the Wuyi tea is heinous and an embarrassment to tea around the world.  I found a full sized tea leaf in the Jade Oolong pile while digging so that was pretty cool!  The Wuyi tea leaves were a lot more broken down.  I hope you understand from this image and from the tea comparisons how two oolong teas can be so different in character side by side.  Just like people I guess!

All good oolongs can be steeped for multiple infusions.  So for the tea conscious drinker this works out to pennies per cup.  The  Wuyi Oolong costs $30.32 for 4 oz or 113.4g.  If you use about 2g of tea per teacup, this should get you about 56 cups of tea and if you steep multiple times we’re talking about 16 cents a cup.  Way cheaper than going to a “coffee” shop.  The Jade Oolong is priced at $49.80 for 4oz about.  Click on the Mighty Leaf link on the side of my website and you will get a 25% discount.  Have a tea-riffic day!

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