This is roasted yerba mate with organic cacao nibs and all natural chocolate and malt flavors. It is one delicious energy kick! If you missed our last yerba mate blend, you can read more about mate and it’s properties here. This is our first roasted mate blend. The previous mate blends were made with green yerba mate. The difference in flavor is similar to the difference between a black and a green tea, though the roasted mate still has tiny bit more of a vegetal taste than black tea.

You should definitely check out the link above and read about Yerba Mate and caffeine. We have compiled some interesting information there.

Our Tea of the Week for the week of November 30, 2009

Just $8.99 for 2 ounces (20-25 cups)
with FREE Delivery to the US and Canada!
Get yours while it lasts.

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Check out all of the amazing blends we have in stock HERE

But for this week: what a treat! The green yerba mate is like a slightly vegetal but very smooth green tea, but with more caffeine. If you are interested in learning more about mate, you can read what I wrote about it when we created the vanilla mate here. For any subscribers or other customers who got the vanilla mate and were disappointed, I have to confess that the vanilla mate was really one of my least favorite blends. I consoled myself by saying that I certainly don’t have to like all of the teas we create as long as our customers do, but I honestly don’t think the vanilla/mate pairing was a good one. If you disagree and/or would like to try it out for yourself, as of this writing there are three pouches of the Star’s Vanilla Mate remaining.

Having said that, I will tell you that this Blackberry yerba mate is light and sweet and delicious. We put just a few real blackberries in with the blend, and talk about refreshing and revitalizing! This is a tea I think a lot of people are really going to enjoy. I fully expect to hear stories of people who swore they didn’t like green tea or yerba mate until they had this. But I’ll leave that for you to tell me about, and please do. It just takes a moment to leave your comments below. I’ll be looking forward to reading them.

Congratulations to Lillian S. aka zenbitch, a self-proclaimed freelance designer & lover of tea and follower of 52teas on Twitter for sending us this week’s photo contest’s winning entry. Check out her submission below; she even found a teacup with Twitter -ing birds on it. For her efforts, Lillian gets a free pouch of our Blackberry Yerba Mate shipped directly to her.

If you are a photog or a shutterbug and think you’ve got what it takes, follow us on Twitter and stay tuned for details on next week’s photo contest. If we use your photo on our label for the tea of the week, we’ll send you a free pouch. We are working on adding a page to the website here about the photo contest with an upload button and all of that, but for now, stay tuned to us on Twitter and we will announce the theme for next week’s contest soon.

Our Tea of the week for the week ending 01.31.09

Blackberry Yerba Mate

2oz. (20-25 cups) DELIVERED for just $7.00

Hurry! Only 0 left!

StarLight from the Tea Drinkers group on Myspace suggested we blend a green yerba mate with vanilla. I thought it would be even cooler with some white chocolate chips added.

For anyone not familiar with yerba mate, it is a tisane from a plant grown in South America.  In some areas of South America, mate is more popular than coffee, and I imagine if you like coffee, South America would be the place to get good coffee, so it really is good stuff.  Our green yerba mate is (to me) something similar to a green tea, but with absolutely no astringency to it.  It’s very smooth, slightly grassy and sweet.

A common misconception is that yerba mate does not have caffeine in it, possibly due to the widely reported absence of many of the potentially negative side effects of caffeine (such as anxiety, diarrhea, “jitteriness”, and heart palpitations).  Yerba mate does, in fact contain caffeine, but physiological effects of drinking yerba mate are hard to attribute to something as simple as caffeine.  It has been my personal experience that drinking yerba mate gives me a bit of added focus, quite literally.  I find that everything appears to be sharper in appearance and my level of alertness increases dramatically.  As reported by many, many other yerba mate drinkers, I also have failed to feel any of the negative effects that other caffeinated beverages sometimes cause.

There are some fascinating discussions about these physiological effects and about the properties of the plant itself online, including some disussion of its potential as an MAO Inhibitor.  MAOIs are used to treat depression which could explain the calming effects of the beverage.

If you are interested in reading more about yerba mate, here are a few links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate

http://www.erowid.org/plants/y…..try2.shtml

http://www.erowid.org/plants/y…..try1.shtml

http://gosouthamerica.about.co…..bamate.htm

http://www.erowid.org/plants/y…..meline.php

At Zoomdweebie’s, “We’re Nerdy About Tea!” is more than just a slogan.  We really enjoy looking into all the facets of the products we offer, but please rest assured that despite all of the interesting tidbits presented here and elsewhere on the web about yerba mate, this is a beverage that has been consumed for hundreds of years, possibly thousands of years.  It is widely available and considered as safe as tea or coffee, and we wouldn’t offer it otherwise.

Our Tea of the week for the week ending 12.20.08

Star’s Vanilla Mate

2oz. (20-25 cups) DELIVERED for just $7.99