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Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#161

Post by pantalaimon »

VonGuard wrote: post #147
pronlover723 wrote: post #144

I just wish Club Mate was popular in the states. I love it and it's super popular in Berlin but I have yet to introduce it to a single person in the USA who like it (T_T)

2600 Magazine on the East coast and Noisebridge on the West Coast are the only 2 registered distributors of Club Mate in the USA. If you are in SF, you can get one at Noisebridge for $5.

Are there any attempts to produce it locally? $5/bottle is crazy, here you can get a crate of 20 bottles for 15€ [0]

A few years ago there was a real boom with many small soda companies/startups popping up to challenge the Club Mate hegemony with their own Mate brews. Many disappeared again but some did stick around, so there is still a good variety in Mate vendors.

There are still many rather small operations too [1][2], so entering the soda market doesn't seem to be that hard compared to other things. And having a product that's mildly addictive is good for customer retention.

[0] https://www.flinkeflasche.de/categories/52 [1] https://kolle-mate.de/ [2] https://www.flora-power.de/

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#162

Post by the_af »

shostack wrote: post #152
the_af wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing the straw is definitely the way to go here in Argentina. Note: I'm Argentinian but I don't like mate and sharing a straw feels gross to me. Other Argentinians tell me there's something wrong with my genes. Mate is a social thing here. You're supposed to share and there's a ritual about how the round goes, who prepares the mate for the rest of the group, and how you signal that you don't want to drink anymore.…

I'm not following the joke, can you elaborate?

Sure thing!

Mate is traditionally drank with a metal straw, a small "cup" (the gourd) and a bottle with hot water, which we Argies always call a "termo" (after the thermos brand, much like many people call tissue paper "kleenex"). This bottle is used to constantly refill the gourd, since each "serving" of water only lasts a couple of sips. Note the yerba mate inside the gourd lasts many rounds of sipping until it also needs to be changed.

So to drink mate in Argentina, you need yerba, one straw, one gourd, and one termo per group of people, because we share the mate. But Uruguayans don't share their mate, even though they are heavy mate drinkers, so each carries their own mate and termo under their arm, everywhere. Hence, "they are born with a termo under their arm".

It's not really a joke, more like a friendly description of Uruguayans and mate.

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#163

Post by trehalose »

serioussecurity wrote: post #124
innagadadavida wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has 27g of sugar per drink. are there any options to not have sugar or sweeteners? I was hoping at least this company will be more health conscious.

Yerba Mate is brewed, like tea. You can buy the herb and brew it yourself, like loose tea. Yerba Mate is not a company, it's a drink with three thousand of years of history. The reason many energy drink companies add so much sugar is that it's extremely bitter. I like mine bitter, and many drink it straight.

I certainly wouldn't call it "extremely" bitter, but I guess it might be for you. To me, it's somewhat bitter but much less bitter than coffee. There's a lot of genetic variation in human bitter taste receptors, and different foods/beverages just taste inherently different to different people, before people even begin to develop preferences and acquire acquired tastes.

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#164

Post by MrDresden »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #72
MrDresden wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, my island is not disconnected from the wider world. It is just prohibitively expensive to ship individual products in. Also there is no Amazon or its like here. Hello back from Iceland!

I see the https://metamate.cc/ mentioned elsewhere here seems to deliver to Iceland. Don't know about the cost though, maybe acceptable? They are based in Berlin and seem well stocked? Edit: You know, thinking about the amount of flights to and from Kevflavik, no matter if commercial airlines, or business jets doing a stopover there for refueling, I feel there is a niche to exploit. For something like a mini UPS/FedE…

Thank you for pointing them out. Have already sent them an inquiry about their drying process.

It isn't that there is difficulty actually transporting goods here.

It is that with transportation and import fees the products can, and often does, double in price. For cheaper things, it simply doesn't make financial sense to pay 4-5x the product price in fees.

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#165

Post by mgarciaisaia »

erie wrote: post #156

There is some weird thing about it in my country, pre-war,'Yerba mate becomes a major import commodity On 8 December 2019, the Central Bank of Syria included mate in the list of basic commodities supported for import. This underlines its significance in Syria as Syria is considered the world’s largest mate importer. Syria received 34.5 thousand tons of mate from Argentina in 2018, according to the National Institutio…

They mentioned Syria in the proposal to add a Mate emoji

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#166

Post by GekkePrutser »

innagadadavida wrote: post #115
penumbral wrote: post #63

Coming from an Argentine family Yerba Mate is great. I'm American but have been drinking it frequently since the time I was 14 or so. I drank tons in college but took a multi-year break a few years down the line due to reflux issues that it made worse. Those are some things to look out for - heartburn, sinusitis, negative changes in mood, tension headaches. I notice that there is a huge difference between Yerba Mate…

It has 27g of sugar per drink. are there any options to not have sugar or sweeteners? I was hoping at least this company will be more health conscious.

Maybe you mean the club mate drink popular in the hacker community? (Incidentally it displaced jolt cola in that role)

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#167

Post by MarianoAlamos »

serioussecurity wrote: post #124
innagadadavida wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has 27g of sugar per drink. are there any options to not have sugar or sweeteners? I was hoping at least this company will be more health conscious.

Yerba Mate is brewed, like tea. You can buy the herb and brew it yourself, like loose tea. Yerba Mate is not a company, it's a drink with three thousand of years of history. The reason many energy drink companies add so much sugar is that it's extremely bitter. I like mine bitter, and many drink it straight.

That's right. I prefer it with a bit of sweetner, though. And the last time I bought online I got an orange flavored yerba from a brand called CBSé - probably the best one I've tried yet. This brand has lots of different flavors of yerba, it's excellent. The place I discovered it is Pampa Direct, here https://pampadirect.com/mate-yerba-mate/

Re: Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021)

#168

Post by doodlebugging »

gen220 wrote: post #138
doodlebugging wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A related species is Yaupon Holly that grows all over the Gulf Coast region from Texas to Florida. That one is Ilex vomitoria and is the only native caffeine producing plant that grows in north America. I make tea from the leaves after roasting them for a few minutes on low heat. You can find Yaupon Tea for sale in quite a few places now after articles about it appeared a few years back. It is a hardy bush that can f…

Do you have a Yaupon brand you can recommend? I tried some in college and found the taste too bitter (like the leaves had been improperly-stored for way too long, kind of like how basil tastes when poorly-dried). But I'm very into the idea of finding a good Yaupon, insofar as it reduces the carbon footprint of shipping things around the world & such.

I have several large yaupons growing on my place and I use the leaves from them.

There are quite a few outfits selling yaupon tea now and they are based all over the Gulf Coast. I haven't tried any commercial teas since reading about yaupons several years back. It looks like everyone and his dog who has ever tried to figure out what to do with all the yaupons on their property has chosen to market tea leaves. Some look like actual orchards but many advertise they sustainably or organically prepare the leaves. To me that means that as soon as they get an order they head outside to the thickest place and trim some branches and then go roast them and bag them up for shipping.

There are several outfits that distribute through grocery stores here in Texas. They sell blends of yaupon with other herbs. I'm not really an herbal tea person. I like a Earl Grey, a Chai, a green tea, etc but when you start throwing flowers in I brew some coffee. I understand that Earl Grey has bergamot but it isn't the main character get to do the tea leaves do the talking.

https://catspringtea.com/ NW of Houston in the heart of the yaupon thickets.

https://lostpinesyaupontea.com/ Hill Country yaupons

https://www.ritualyaupon.com/ Dallas company with canned teas.

https://www.texteacompany.com/ Piney Woods in East Texas. They look uncommitted to the task since they are surrounded by yaupon but claim to be out of stock. LOL

Those are all Texas yaupon tea companies. There are also others in the Carolinas, and other Gulf Coast states.

It does make a great tea which you can drink alone or with a sweetener like honey.

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