For new followers, it can be unsettling.
For amateurs, it is a real pleasure. But you should know that each yerba has its own flavor, vegetal, smoky, more or less bitter, etc.
We will discover together the different taste textures of mate.
But then, what does mate taste like? How can you sweeten this drink? And what are the different types of mate?
The taste of mate
Yerba mate has a taste of its own, almost indefinable. Like many other products we know, such as red wine, tobacco, coffee and others, yerba mate falls into this category.
When you first taste it, the taste can be, for some, very particular or even slightly destabilizing. But with time, like all products with character, the palate gets used to the flavor, it becomes refined.
Mate , to be appreciated, must be consumed multiple times. Some will appreciate it from the first sips, others less. One thing is sure, the more you try, the more you will appreciate and develop a palate fine enough to discover the multitude of flavors that characterize this plant.
The taste of mate is characterized by a rather bitter flavor. More bitter than coffee or some types of tea. There are many brands of yerba. The type of cultivation, the type of yerba, the composition and the know-how will drastically influence the final flavor of the infusion.
A yerba harvested before maturity, grown in full sun will have a very bitter taste.
Our organic mate is grown in agroforestry . This method of cultivation, in the shade of trees, in the heart of biodiversity, combined with a harvest at maturity, every two years, will allow the leaves to concentrate the natural sugars and thus result in a sweet mate, with a long and delicious finish.
The 3 types of mate
The three different types of mate
This herb is also characterized by its different possibilities of transformation and work on the leaf.
You can find 3 main types of mate :
Each type of yerba has a very different taste, we will try to describe them as precisely as possible, but it is best that you taste each alternative in order to discover your personal preferences.
Green mate is freshly harvested yerba mate. This yerba is very sweet , very fresh and vegetal. It is similar in taste to green tea in its sweetness, but is different in its very particular notes specific to mate.
The matured mate can be matured between 3 months and 24 months. As with a wine, a cheese or a piece of charcuterie, the longer the maturing time, the more the flavors will concentrate and move away from the taste of green mate. We mature the yerba for 24 months in order to find a nice bitterness, a balanced sweetness, balanced by a measured acidity with a finish in the mouth of nuts.
Roasted mate is a drastic departure from the previous two types. Like coffee or cocoa, the leaves are roasted following a specific recipe. The roasting time will greatly influence the final flavor, it is necessary to master the roasting to perfection in order to get the best out of the leaves.
Roasting gives the infusion a taste that is literally between coffee and tea, you will find the strength, the roasted and caramelized notes specific to coffee , balanced by the sweetness in the mouth of a tea. Some also manage to find certain notes of smoked tea.
When you consume your hot drink in the traditional way in a calabash, the taste experience of yerba will be more interesting. Indeed, infused in a natural calabash made from a squash, the latter will bring an additional flavor , very pleasant. As you taste it, the mate will gradually soften.
The tasting experience is therefore multiple. We advise the uninitiated to spit the first sips of the South American drink, especially if they consume a very bitter yerba.
