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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?
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
I don't really know if I would call herbal teas medicine.daisy said:Just keep in the back of your mind that like all herbal teas, Yerba Mate is a medicine[/FONT]
Exactly. One of the reasons people drink it is as an alternative to caffeine.jpinmaryland said:I am not sure what is in it that makes it a stimulant but I dont think it's the caffeine.
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.