Organic Brazilian green maté, loose leaf and unblended — the plain version, and the one to start with if you want to know what maté actually tastes like.
What maté is
Maté is made from the leaves of Ilex paraguariensis, a South American holly. It is not tea — tea comes from a different plant entirely — and it is not a caffeine-free herbal infusion either. It contains caffeine, somewhere between a cup of tea and a weak coffee per serving, which is precisely why half of South America drinks it all day.
This is green Brazilian maté, dried without smoke. That matters: the Argentine yerba most Europeans meet first is cured over wood fire and tastes strongly of smoke, which people either love or cannot get past. Green maté is cleaner and grassier — vegetal, faintly bitter, closer to a strong green tea than to anything smoked.
Brewing it — temperature is everything
80 °C, never boiling. This is the single mistake that puts people off maté for life. Boiling water scalds the leaf and pulls out a harsh, mouth-drying bitterness that has nothing to do with how the drink is supposed to taste. Boil the kettle, then let it stand for two or three minutes.
A teaspoon to a tablespoon per mug, five minutes or more, and you can re-infuse the same leaf up to three times — maté gives up its flavour gradually and the second infusion is often the best.
One thing worth knowing
The evidence linking maté to oesophageal cancer concerns maté drunk scalding hot, in the traditional South American way, rather than maté itself. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies very hot drinks of any kind — above about 65 °C — as probably carcinogenic, and found maté drunk at ordinary temperatures not classifiable as carcinogenic.
So: let it cool before you drink it. That is sound advice for coffee and tea too, and it costs nothing.
Note
Contains caffeine. Not recommended in large amounts during pregnancy — the guidance is under 200 mg of caffeine a day from all sources.
Mojo Maté
Mojo Maté
ORIGINAL MATE
ORIGINAL MATE
