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Yerba Maté

In the search for a natural stimulant without side effects and toxicity, Yerba Maté currently holds the most hope. Yerba Maté is an invigorator of the mind and body, a natural source of nutrition, and a health promoter. Yerba Maté deserves the attention of every person interested in optimum health.

What is Yerba Maté:

Yerba Maté (pronounced: yer ba mä tA) comes from yerba meaning herb + maté, the hollow gourd used as a bowl or container for brewing yerba maté.

Yerba Maté is a beverage similar to tea, very popular in South America, brewed from the dried leaves and stemlets of a member of the holly family known botanically as Ilex Paraguayensis. The drink has a taste similar to a cross between green tea and coffee.

Like other teas, it is dried, chopped, and ground into a powderous mixture. Unlike other teas, mate is traditionally sipped from of a hollow gourd, through a special metal straw (traditionally silver) called a bombilla (bom-BEE-ya or bom-BEE-zha in Argentinean pronunciation). "Bombilla" means, literally, "little pump" or "straw" in Spanish.

Mate is also toasted and prepared in a similar manner to tea. You can easily find "tea bags", prepacked "iced tea" packages and bottles. (LatinMerchant.com carries a complete selection of Yerba Mate.)

How to Prepare and Drink Yerba Mate:

There are many ways to drink Yerba Mate. You can drink it with hot water, which is called, in Brazil, chimarrão, with cold water, called tereré or as an iced tea. Each one of these drinks require a different preparation of the plant.

For traditional preparation you will need:

A Gourd - Natural gourds are used (usually the hard shell from a local fruit), traditionally, though gourd-shaped vessels made of metal or ceramic are also common. Gourds are commonly decorated with silver, sporting decorative or heraldic designs with floral motifs.The gourd must be cured before the first use, see below for instructions on curing the gourd. (Available in our Non-Food Items Section)

A Bombilla - A metal pipe, which has a strainer at its lower end to prevent the minced leaves from reaching the mouth. The bombilla acts as both a straw and sieve.The submerged end is flared with small holes or slots to allow the tea in, but block the chunky matter that makes up much of the mixture. (Available in our Non-Food Items Section)

After placing an abundant amount of mate in the gourd (1/2 of gourd or more), water is added.

Some people add sugar and/or other herbs (such as mint). Some replace the water with milk, especially for the children. You drink and replenish the mate with hot water many times until the liquid comes out with almost no taste.

How to Cure the Gourd Before Using:

The mate infusion must be prepared using a cured gourd. The curing process adapts the gourd to the kind of infusion for which it is going to be used. The curing process is divided in two steps: initial curing before the first use and the curing that results from the everyday use of the gourd with only one kind of infusion (for example pure mate with no additives).

The initial curing has two purposes: the removal of soft tissues if using a natural gourd and the adaptation of the gourd to the particular kind of yerba mate infusion.

For the removal of soft tissues, wash your gourd with boiling water and scrap away any loose tissue with a spoon.

To cure the gourd:

• For pure yerba mate (with no additives like sugar), fill the gourd with fresh yerba mate and add boiling water. Let stand for a day. Rinse the gourd and repeat for two or three days.
• For "sweet" mate, wet the gourd with boiling water, add two or three teaspoons of sugar and a small piece of burning coal. Cover the gourd mouth and shake vigorously to burn (caramelize) the sugar on the sides of the gourd. Empty the gourd and proceed as instructed above.

Gourds are divided in two categories: curable and incurable. Incurable mates are those made of non-porous materials (glass, metal, china, etc.). Incurable mates lose all "memory" of the taste when they are washed. For best flavor a curable Gourd should be used.

Cleaning the Gourds:
The gourd should be hand washed only using hot or boiling water and NO soap or detergent. Do not put the gourd in the dishwasher. Keep the gourd dry between uses, placing a paper towel or napkin in the gourd after use will help absorb excess moisture.

Ingredients/Composition of Yerba Maté:

Despite claims to the contrary, Yerba maté does contain caffeine although the level is relatively low compared to coffee or tea. Yerba maté also contains significant amounts of vitamins and minerals and other chemicals of note such as theobromine and theophylline.

Mate contains xanthines, which are alkaloids in the same family as caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine, well-known stimulants also found in coffee and chocolate. Sellers of mate products often claim that the primary active xanthine in mate is "mateine", which they say is similar to caffeine but with fewer of its negative effects.

The plant is classified vaguely, according to Western herbal medicine, as aromatic, stimulant, bitter, aperient (laxative), astringent, diuretic, purgative, sudorific (sweat inducing), and febrifuge (fever reducing).

Studies show that the Yerba Maté has the following components: water, cellulose, gums, dextrin, mucilage, glucose, pentose, fat substances, aromatic resin, legumin, albumin, xanthine, theophylline, caffearin, folic acid, caffeic acid, viridic acid, chlorophyll, cholesterin and essence oil.

Mate contains numerous vitamins and minerals. There is the usual array of resins, fiber, volatile oil, and tannins that characterize many plant substances. And there is also carotene; vitamins A. C, E, B-1, B-2 and B-complex; riboflavin; nicotinic acid; pantothenic acid; biotin; magnesium; calcium; iron; sodium; potassium; manganese; silicon; phosphates; sulfur; hydrochloric acid; chlorophyll; choline; and inositol. In 1964 one group of investigators from the Pasteur Institute and the Paris Scientific Society concluded that Mate contains practically all of the vitamins necessary to sustain life.

In addition to the regular nutrients, Mate contains a substance belonging to a specialized class of chemical compounds called xanthines. Though only small amounts of these substances occur in Mate, their presence has generated a huge amount of attention. The primary xanthine in Yerba Mate is called Mateine. Mateine appears to possess the best combination of xanthine properties possible. For example, like other xanthines, it stimulates the central nervous system; but unlike most, it is not habituating or addicting. Likewise, unlike caffeine, it induces better, not worse, attributes of sleep. It is a mild, not a strong, diuretic, as are many xanthines. It relaxes peripheral blood vessels, thereby reducing blood pressure, without the strong effects on the medulla oblongata (end part of the brain connecting to the spine) and heart exhibited by some xanthines. We also know that it improves psychomotor performance without the typical xanthine-induced depressant after effects.

Researchers at the Free Hygienic Institute of Hamburg, Germany, concluded that even if there were caffeine in Mate, the amount would be so tiny that it would take 100 tea bags of Mate in a 6-ounce cup of water to equal the caffeine in a 6-ounce serving of regular coffee. Consequently, the active principle in Yerba Mate is not caffeine!

Dr. Jose Martin, Director of the National Institute of Technology in Paraguay, writes, "New research and better technology have shown that while Mateine has a chemical constituency similar to caffeine, the molecular binding is different. Mateine has none of the ill effects of caffeine." And Horacio Conesa, professor at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School, states, "There is not a single medical contraindication" for ingesting Mate. Clinical studies show, in fact, that even individuals with caffeine sensitivities can ingest Mate without adverse reactions.

Medicinal/Therapeutic Properties:

Yerba Maté is used in popular medicine and employed in commercial herbal preparations as a stimulant to the central nervous system, a diuretic, and an antirheumatic.

It has seemingly always been the most common ingredient in household cures of the Guarani. They use it to boost immunity, cleanse and detoxify the blood, tone the nervous system, restore youthful hair color, retard aging, combat fatigue, stimulate the mind, control the appetite, reduce the effects of debilitating disease, reduce stress, and eliminate insomnia.

Yerba Maté is basically a stimulant drink, eliminates fatigue, stimulating mental and physical activity. It has a beneficial effect on nerves and muscles; it also enhances intellectual work.

Perhaps the main area to benefit from Mate is the gastrointestinal tract. Reported effects range from immediate improvement in digestion to the ability to repair damaged and diseased gastrointestinal tissues. Constipation, acute or chronic, can easily be overcome through the use of Mate. Mate appears to work mainly by softening the fecal mass, but it also appears to stimulate normal movement of the intestines to some degree.

Mate has the ability to increase mental alertness and acuity and to do it without any side effects such as nervousness and jitters. It seems to act like a tonic, stimulating a weakened and depressed nervous system and sedating an overexcited one. Our knowledge of Mate's effects is currently limited to observations of behavior changes such as more energy and vitality; better ability to concentrate; less nervousness, agitation, and anxiety; and increased resistance to both physical and mental fatigue. Improvement in mood, especially in cases of depression, often follows drinking the tea. This may be a direct or indirect result of increased energy. One of the remarkable aspects of Mate is that it does not interfere with sleep cycles; in fact, it has a tendency to balance the cycles.

Yerba Mate supplies many of the nutrients required by the heart for growth and repair. In addition, it increases the supply of oxygen to the heart, especially during periods of stress or exercise. Mate has become a favorite of body builders and anyone interested in the health benefits of exercise. The metabolic effects of Mate appear to include the ability to maintain aerobic glycolysis (breakdown of carbohydrates) during exercise for longer periods of time. This results in burning more calories, increasing cardiac efficiency, and delaying anaerobic glycolysis and the resulting buildup of lactic acid during exercise. Reports of Mate reducing blood pressure are not uncommon.

A consistent observation in most South American literature on Mate is that it increases the immune response of the body, stimulating natural resistance to disease. This results in a nourishing and strengthening effect on the ill person, both during the course of the illness and during convalescence, sometimes dramatically accelerating recovery times. Exact mechanisms of Mate's action have not been worked out, but they involve both a direct action against infectious organisms, and an effect on overall resistance to disease. The nutritional content of the plant probably plays a major role here, but it is also probable that other constituents contribute to the action by stimulating the activity of white blood cells.

Acknowledgments:

• Wikipedia article "Yerba Mate".
• Description of the Yerba Mate Copyright © 1997 Omar Stradella http://platense.dyn.dhs.org/personal/argentina/mate_desc.htm
• http://noborders.net/mate/what.html

Disclaimer: This article is for information only. It is not intended to imply or encourage the use of Yerba Mate for any use other than as a beverage.

LatinMerchant.com carries a complete selection of Yerba Mate.