Yerba Mate Background

Yerba Mate, also known as Ilex paraguariensis, is a small S. American tree. Its leaves contain caffeine and other xanthines and are often made into a stimulant tea. The lower caffeine levels make it a great substitute for coffee.

Known as a whole body tonic, this stimulating herbal beverage possesses benefits such as an increased mental clarity and an expansion of thinking ability. This state is especially suiting to periods of intense study and thinking over a long period.

How to use it?

Yerba Mate is a tea, and can be used like any other tea. Its most popular form comes in 500 gram (17.6 oz.) bags of loose-leaf tea that is dried and ground.

Yerba Mate gets its name from the traditional cup (called Mate as well) used to drink it. This cup, originally a dried and decorated gourd, can be made out of almost anything these days. In South America, where Maté was introduced to the world, Maté is still sipped from the Maté cup using a metal or wood decorative straw & filter called a bombilla.

The modern Maté drinker can choose any number of ways to extract the beneficial tea from the herb. It can be brewed like normal loose-leaf tea and filtered before pouring into a cup. It can be used in a coffee press, then the herb is pressed out of the way of the tea. It can be made into a flavorful iced tea to drink on a hot summer day. It can even be made like coffee, in a standard automatic coffee maker (make sure you use a large amount of the herb). And, if you have a Maté cup and a bombilla, you can do it the traditional way where the herb is infused with hot water.