I may have mentioned in past blogs that I am a tad bit of a tea nerd and am currently working at a tea shop. Being surrounded by tea, having an interest in its benefits and teaching people about the joys of tea be it here on my blog, clients that I see or at the tea shop. While I find many teas interesting there is one that stands out, that is Yerba Mate. This tea, unlike black, green, white, oolong and matcha, comes from the Iles Paragurieensis A. St Hilaire tree rather than the Camilla sinensis plant. Iles Paragurieensis A. St Hilaire trees are native to South America ( specifically Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Southern Brazil) and have not been successfully cultivated anywhere else in the world.
A brief history of yerba mate starts with the Guarani tribes that were native to the area where the trees grew wild. With the Spanish colonization of the region, Jesuit monks who came from Spain were the first to build plantations in the 16th century. Following that into the present day, it has now become popular amongst tea drinks for its high caffeine. Yet it is still mostly consumed in its native regions of South America and by the Syrian migrants that came back from South America as they are the second largest importer of Yerba Mate.
While traditional brewing methods can vary within the South American regions, it is usually brewed in a dried gourd and consumed through a specialized straw called a bombilla. A bombilla, pictured below, is a straw with a spoon-shaped bottom that is covered with a strainer. This is because of how Yerba Mate is brewed by adding the loose leaves and stems to the glass, be it the traditional gourd or more westernized glasses, to hot or cold water and then it’s left to steep before consuming it through the straw without straining out the leaves. Different regions have different steeping methods as some use cold water while others use hot water, and let it steep for different amounts of time.
Although the brew practices may differ, the popularity of this drink in native regions is massive. It is common for people to drink at least 1 litre of yerba mate tea per day, with Uruguay consuming up to 10 kg of raw Yerba mate tea each year per capita.
Yerba mate comes in two forms, roasted and green. Yerba mate goes through a five-step process to make the tea.
1. Harvesting raw material (6-12month old),
2. Roasting/blanching, roasting gives you roasted and blanching gives you green yerba meta
3. Drying,
4. Maturation ( crushed and placed in a cement or cedar chamber for at least 12 months to develop flavours, and increase the methylxanthines, polyphenols and antioxidants),
5. Sieving (like other teas larger pieces are separated from small pieces and dust), and packaged for sale.
When it comes to the health benefits Yerba Mate has been fairly well studied. Although it seems that extracts are used for many of the studies, as extracts are more concentrated and consistent when compared to tea. With this in mind, Yerba Mate studies show that it is anti-inflammatory, promotes healthy immunity, helps with athletic performance, helps with gut health, and may help with fat metabolism. This seems to be the impact of the combination of the polyphenols, caffeine, minerals, vitamins and fatty acids that are found in the Yerba Mate. Cold-brewed tea that is steeped for 45 minutes seems to have a high concentration of these compounds. This does however depend on growing conditions, solid quality, cultivation, processing, region and brewing method. Yerba Mate tea can also be brewed multiple times with some evidence showing that the second brew seems to be even higher than the first brew when looking at the concentration of the polyphenols and caffeine.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of the research that can be done on the subject of Yerba Mate and I am so excited to learn more. For now, I am personally going to keep it as a regular on my tea roster and look for more ways to consume it more regularly. If you’re looking for a tea that is high in caffeine, close to 80mg per cup which is equivalent to a cup of coffee, then this might be a good tea for you to try and see if you enjoy it.
Sources:
- Lutomski, P., Goździewska, M., & Florek-Łuszczki, M. (2020). Health properties of Yerba Mate. Annals of agricultural and environmental medicine : AAEM, 27(2), 310–313. https://doi.org/10.26444/aaem/119994 (PDF:https://www.aaem.pl/pdf-119994-52236?filename=Health%20properties%20of.pdf)
- Gawron-Gzella, A., Chanaj-Kaczmarek, J., & Cielecka-Piontek, J. (2021). Yerba Mate—A Long but Current History. Nutrients, 13(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13113706
- Sulaiman, N., Pieroni, A., Sõukand, R., Whitney, C., & Polesny, Z. (2021). Socio-Cultural Significance of Yerba Maté among Syrian Residents and Diaspora. Economic botany, 75(2), 97–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-021-09523-6
- de Vasconcellos, A. C., Frazzon, J., & Zapata Noreña, C. P. (2022). Phenolic Compounds Present in Yerba Mate Potentially Increase Human Health: A Critical Review. Plant foods for human nutrition (Dordrecht, Netherlands), 77(4), 495–503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-022-01008-8
- ALKHATIB, AHMAD. Yerba Maté and Exercise Performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 50(7):p 1525, July 2018. | DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001583
- https://www.foodandwine.com/tea/why-you-should-be-drinking-yerba-mate-tea