Argentinian drink - Yerba Mate

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Ripliancum

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Has anyone ever tried the Argentinian Drink called "Mate"? Does anyone know what it is? or if its good or bad for you?
 
Are you refering to Yerba Mate? I have had it. I was not impressed. It tasted OK, but not great. It was fun to drink though.
 
I agree that it is an acquired taste. If you've been raised drinking Yerba Mate you probably think it's great, but I don't think that I could drink it long enough to acquire the taste. Just like the "down under" staple/treat called Vegemite (a yeast extract) is relished by those who grew up with it, I still cannot go back for seconds.

Yerba Mate is a tea and I do not care for hot tea although I drink iced tea daily. Perhaps if I tried it cold it would be more appealing.

Here's a link that will go into history and details:

http://www.noborders.net/mate/what.html
 
Yerba Mate comes in two types,smoked and non smoked. I drink the non smoked and have been for about 7 years as part of my diet to control blood pressure. For me it is good hot or cold.
 
Aurora said:
I agree that it is an acquired taste. If you've been raised drinking Yerba Mate you probably think it's great, but I don't think that I could drink it long enough to acquire the taste. Just like the "down under" staple/treat called Vegemite (a yeast extract) is relished by those who grew up with it, I still cannot go back for seconds.

Yerba Mate is a tea and I do not care for hot tea although I drink iced tea daily. Perhaps if I tried it cold it would be more appealing.

Here's a link that will go into history and details:

http://www.noborders.net/mate/what.html

Vegemite, I wasnt raised on it, but i have a jar of it in my cabinet. mmm. The same with mate, I drink it hot, but I use a good amount of sugar.
 
I agree that it is an aquired taste. I had to drink it for a while before I got the taste for it. I prefer mine with sugar and lemon.

There are, however, many different mixtures with different flavors. I prefer a sweeter mixture with some peppermint thrown in with the others.

It is traditionally served in a wood cup and drunk with a silver straw that features a filter at the end. The mate is tossed into the cup with the hot water and the filter keeps you from sucking up the leaf particles.

Mate is all about socializing. It is drunk with close friends, usually sitting in a circle (like a peace pipe).
 
Just keep in the back of your mind that like all herbal teas, Yerba Mate is a medicine, and should be treated as such - with due care and caution. Do not use if on a caffeine-reduction diet, of if suffering from fibrocystic breast disease. Excessive use can be purgative and emetic. Caffeine is addictive.
 
Thanks for the health tip, daisy. So it's a central nervous system stimulant, sounds like a morning thing then.

I've never had it, either, think I'd heard of it but had no idea what it was.

Interesting....
 
daisy said:
Just keep in the back of your mind that like all herbal teas, Yerba Mate is a medicine[/FONT]
I don't really know if I would call herbal teas medicine.
 
Its a pretty awesome drink. However I would pt. out that it does not have very much caffeine, very little. I do second the thought that you should not drink it if you are on medication or have kidney troubles. My father (85 years old) drank some and got too wired. He said he felt "punky, funky and junky."

I am not sure what is in it that makes it a stimulant but I dont think it's the caffeine. Or if there is caffeine there is something else as well.

As an aquired taste. It takes 3 maybe 4 days and then I was hooked.
 
jpinmaryland said:
I am not sure what is in it that makes it a stimulant but I dont think it's the caffeine.
Exactly. One of the reasons people drink it is as an alternative to caffeine.
 
I checked out that Widpedia link above. Maybe not the best site for informatoin but they say that there is a bit of caffeine in it. (Varies from almost as much as coffee to about 1/3 less) but there are also Xanthines which are alkaloids from the same family as caffeine but not the same.

Some claim that there is a coffee isomer (left-handed version or vis versa) of the caffeine molecule but that seems to be a wives tale.

Now I recall my dad is also on heart medicine and this is what may have thrown him off, he got dizzy and his heart raced. The site says that it will stimulate the cardio system. So probably not for people on medicine.

I drink it mostly w/ sweetener, but if I have time I love it with lemon and sugar. Awesome...
 
It looks like there is some varying information re:caffeine in Yerba Mate. According to this site it does containe caffeine. Here is a quote from the site
In recent U.S. campaigns, yerba mate marketers claim that yerba mate contains no caffeine - rather, a chemical similar to caffeine called mateine. Mateine, they say, possesses all the benefits of caffeine and none of its negative effects (or so they would have consumers believe). Fact: yerba mate does contain caffeine. It has been chemically and scientifically identified, documented, verified, and validated to contain caffeine for many years by independent chemists and scientists around the world ("independent" being the operative term here). This fact continues to be confirmed by independent research every year. The caffeine content of yerba mate has been assayed to contain between .7 and 2%, with the average leaf yielding about 1% caffeine. In living plants, xanthines (such as caffeine) are bound to sugars, phenols, and tannins, and are set free or unbound during the roasting and/or fermenting processes used to process yerba mate leaves, coffee beans and even cacao beans. The mateine chemical "discovered" is probably just caffeine bound to a tannin or phenol in the raw leaf.
 
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