The Tea Spot Organic Mate Limon Chai Loose Leaf Tea Review

A yerba mate and lemon party in a cup.

Today I will be reviewing The Tea Spot‘s Mate Limon Chai.  I want you to look at the picture above this post before you read this review.  Click the image and really look at the leaves.  That is great color.  I love nature, so I love how the yellows and bright greens of the yerba mate leaves really compliment each other.  The ingredients of this tea are yerba mate, chicory root, citrus peel & essential oil, lemongrass, hibiscus, ginger, coriander and cinnamon.

Last week, was Yerba Mate week, and as I mentioned yerba mate is very hard to blend with, so I am looking forward to this tea and seeing how they blended it.  The tea liquor color came out a light smoky brown.  On the nose you can really smell the citrus essential oil, there is also a bit of spiciness to the aroma of the tea.  Time to try the tea.  The body is lighter than pure yerba mate, and very smooth.  I wouldn’t have even guessed there was yerba mate in here.  The flavours and personality of the tea that immediately comes out is a bold citrus.  It’s sweet, clean, fun and flirty.  The tea then becomes more mature and the body begins to soften and become rounder.  The tea then finally ends off more deep and mature.  I think this would be amazing iced in the summertime on the patio with a bowl of fresh fruit!

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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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Aviva Passion Berry Yerba Mate Tea Review

I hope everyone likes the new layout! I just cleaned up the sidebar a bit. Let me know what you think!

I love it hot and cold.

I’m reviewing Aviva’s Passion Berry Yerba Mate Tea today.

This tea smells so good! It’s got a nice clean yerba mate scent with fruity notes. The liquor is a lovely golden tone with just a hint of earth tones. The ingredients are wild harvest grown yerba mate, hibiscus, cranberries, orange peel, apple and fruit flavouring.  Mmm I really like this yerba mate tea blend. It’s got the signature Aviva yerba mate taste that I’m now used to, it’s clean and strong with a nice hint of fruit on the finish.  I actually tried this tea cold as well, the aromas of all the other ingredients besides the yerba mate weren’t as pronounced anymore, but there was still a small hint of fruitiness.

5/7 Aviva Yerba Mate’s reviewed 2 more to go!

Here’s some tea wisdom for the day.

Tea is nothing other than this: Heat the water, prepare the tea and drink it with propriety. That is all you need to know. 

- Sen Rikyu, 16th Century Oriental Tea Master

Amen to that!

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Aviva Ginger Peach Yerba Mate Tea Review and The Health Benefits of Yerba Mate

No twigs, just leaves!

Today is Day 3 of Aviva Yerba Mate week. Today I will be reviewing their Ginger Peach Yerba Mate. The ingredients are wild harvest grown yerba mate, black tea, bits of ginger and peach. The dried teabag smelt faintly of apricots, yum! You could smell the black tea with the peach barely coming through because the mate, again, is so strong. The taste is nice and crisp, a little bit spicy like their Chai mate.  This is definitely a great tea for energy boosting because it’s mate mixed with black tea.

The health benefits of yerba mate are numerous, there are always new studies coming out.  A few of the benefits of mate from Wiki and the Yerba Mate Association.

• Studies are showing yerba mate to exhibit significant cancer-fighting activity.  Researchers at the University of Illinois (2005) found yerba mate to be “rich in phenolic constituents” and to “inhibit oral cancer cell proliferation” while it promoted proliferation of oral cancer cell lines at certain concentrations.
• Some users report a mental state of wakefulness, focus and alertness reminiscent of most stimulants, but often remark on mate’s unique lack of the negative effects typically created by other such compounds, such as anxiety, “jitteriness”, and heart palpitations.
• Mate contains contains elements such as potassium, magnesium and manganese
• The yerba mate plant contains a number of powerful phytochemicals called saponins.  These important phytochemicals, along with the many antioxidants found in yerba mate, stimulate the immune system and help the body fight disease.  When studying the role that saponins have within plants, it was been discovered that saponins are the plants’ active immune system and that they function as a “natural antibiotic.”
• Yerba mate can reduce the severity of some allergies and hay fever.  A recent study by Linda Rector Page, N.D., Ph.D., notes that yerba mate is helpful for opening respiratory passages to overcome allergy symptoms.  Yerba mate works by stimulating the adrenal glands to produce corticosteroids, which help suppress the inflammation and immune response due to allergies.
• Yerba mate quickens the mind and increases alertness and acuity. Yerba mate also provides sustained-release energy due to its complex combination of xanthine alkaloids, (including caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline) and nutritional support (including B vitamins and chromium).
• For many years now, physicians in Europe have been incorporating yerba mate in treatments for obesity. Heat production is a normal part of metabolism, and yerba mate stimulates this process, thereby increasing the body’s metabolic rate and the burning of stored fat.  Before the fat can be burned, it needs to be broken down into smaller particles.  The xanthines in yerba mate have properties that help break down fat through a process called lipolysis.
• A study conducted by Gugliucci and published in Biochemical Molecular Biology International (1995) claims low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad cholesterol”) oxidation is inhibited by extracts of yerba mate. Oxidation of LDL is considered to be the initiating factor to the onset of atherosclerosis (thickening and hardening of the arteries).

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Aviva Chai Yerba Mate Tea Review and Celestials Seasonings Giveaway

Aviva Yerba Mate Review Week Day 2.  I’m going to be reviewing Aviva’s Chai Yerba Mate tea today because I need to warm up and I think a tea would spices is just what I need.  Last week it was so sunny and hot that I was wearing a t-shirt outside, now fast forward to this morning.  When I woke up, I saw SNOW.  It’s APRIL!  Come on!  As I’m typing this review, there is about 2 inches of snow on the ground and the flurries are coming down hard. ;(

Look my cup is almost empty!

The ingredients of this tea are wild harvest grown yerba mate, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice, cloves and black pepper.  Yerba mate is hard to use as a base in teas because it’s so overpowering, you really have to use a lot of flavouring, herbs and spices to counteract the mate.  It is definitely a difficult base to blend with.  The aroma and flavor of the yerba mate a very potent, there is only a slight spiciness that comes through with this tea. It really helped warm me up!  I’m also getting a caffeine type rush though from the tea, phew.  I think this tea missed it’s mark as a chai, but if you like a strong mate with a hint of spiciness or you’re just drinking it for the numerous health benefits then this tea for you.  It’s also on sale right now; $18 US will get you about 207-214 teabags!

To enter follow me on Twitter or comment on my blog for the month of April until the 20th.

I’m very excited to announce Rocking the Republic’s first tea giveaway.  I hope to give away many more teas in the future from various tea companies.  For the month of April, Celestial Seasonings and I are partnering to do a giveaway.  The winner will be drawn on April 20th 30th 2009 before I leave for the World Tea Expo.  To enter please start following me on twitter or comment in the month of April on my blog on or before the 20th 30th.  And the contest is open to anyone and everyone.  The mystery tea gift package will be mailed out after I draw the winner!

Good luck everyone!

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Aviva Spearmint Yerba Mate Tea Review, Cedar Tea and Total Health Expo

Today kicks off Aviva‘s yerba mate week.  I’ll be reviewing the Premium Wild Harvest Yerba Mate to start.  This tea comes in a teabag for easy brewing.  It contains wild harvest grown yerba mate and spearmint leaf.  Their instructions for serving are:

Place one bag in a eight ounce cup. Add fresh water just off the stove and serve.

Like Wrigley's Doublemint Gum

You can steep for as long as you like depending on how strong you like the flavour, the mate won’t get bitter.  Okay let’s brew.  The smell has very much a traditional clean yerba mate smell.  The brew and the dried teabag don’t smell too minty even after I squeezed the teabag to try to release the aroma from the oils.  The color of the brew was a dark brown with an undertone of brilliant moss green.  Mm..  The yerba mate blended with the spearmint to create a very interesting taste.  The tea is only slightly minty, but the spearmint altered the taste of the yerba mate enough so that the entire beverage is different.  The yerba mate surprisingly didn’t dominate the tea. The two balance each other quite well.  The tea reminded me of Wigley’s Doublemint Chewing Gum!  It was quite refreshing with a clean finish.  I think this would be great to have as an iced tea in the summer with some fresh spearmint if you like minty teas.

Today, I also had a chance to try cedar tea, a traditional Algonquin beverage, at the Sugarbush Maple Syrup festival at Kortright and Bruce’s Mill.  It’s high in Vitamin C and super tasty!  Apparently people used to drink this to prevent/cure scurvy.  All they did was boil hot water with some cedar branches for a few hours and let it sit.  Sorry I didn’t bring my camera or I would have taken pictures of the tea!  They let the tea steep for a long time, so it was a reddish brown color much like a rooibos tea.  I found instructions here, but I wouldn’t recommend adding the white sugar – you can sweeten naturally with maple syrup or agave. Oh yes and if you are a Maple Syrup junkie like me, the festival is definitely worth checking out. It runs until April 18th so hurry up. The pancakes were soooooo good. If only they had pancake with dripping hot butter and maple syrup tea.

Next weekend is the Total Health Show.  I will be covering the on the 17th and blogging about it right after the show.  If you are in Toronto or the GTA I highly encourage you to check out the event.  Robert Bateman, Brian Clement (the founder of the Hippocrates Health Institute), Dr. Aris Latham and a host of other speakers will be there.  The exhibitors list is equally impressive.  My friend Chef Franceso will also be there promoting his raw food catering company.  I’m super excited!

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How To Make Yerba Mate Video

Due to popular demand from yesterday’s post, I am showcasing a video on how to use a bombilla (straw) and gourd to drink yerba mate, the way that everyone in South America traditionally drinks YB. Note that the gourd and bombilla aren’t only for style. A few months ago I came across an article stating that the health benefits of drinking yerba mate this style were more pronounced. Happy sipping!

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