[penumbral]

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 brands in terms of the perceived effects. Lately Union Suave and Rosamonte have not been sitting well in my stomach or mind (irritability, lack of concentration, tension headaches, etc). Taragui Liviana and my new favorite Playaditos are the best for me. I've been drinking them twice a day with no perceivable ill effects. Although I do lose some endurance performance on the high end when drinking Yerba Mate before running which I've tracked with a chest mounted heart rate tracker.

I'd like to send the different brands off to a lab to have a better understanding of WHY I feel such a difference in the effects when going brand to brand. I'd assume its due to different concentrations in the three primary Xanthines - Caffeine, Theobromine, Theophylline. Anyways, definitely worth the squeeze, but don't be surprised if you need to try a few different brands to see which affects you the best.

[gosukiwi]

Playadito is great. There's a kind of Yerba Mate that is easier on the liver and stomach now called Cachamai, and there's some alternatives too. It normally comes in with extra flavors such as Mint, Orange, etc.

I'm Argentinian, been drinking Mate daily (sometimes several times a day) since I was ~18 (32 now) and that Yerba is great :)

[drukenemo]

Are there negatives effects on the liver from consuming mate?

[gosukiwi]

You can have dried lips caused by the liver (at least that's my understanding), but that's if you consume a lot, daily, for a long time

[petre]

I'm a tea drinker (green Chinese types like Zhen Mei are mainly my thing) and occasionaly also consume Yerba Mate. Rather than saturating a high amount of the dried plant with hot water and drinking it with a traditional silver straw like people do in South America, I just prepare a normal infusion like one does with tea, with a metal straining net infuser leaving it for four minutes. It's easier on the stomach this way. It's also good in combination with lemongrass.

[gen220]

I've done the same for years. I think most of the ill effects of mate come to people because they're "overdosing" inadvertently.

If you steep a "tea" quantity of mate, I've found it to produce a remarkably long-lived, smooth, non-jittery sense alertness.

The only times I've ever felt like how coffee or black tea make me feel, is when I put in a 1/4 cup of mate and drink it the traditional way.

[ibatindev]

We also do that when you have to serve mate for a large crowd and it receives the name of ´Mate Cocido´ => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_cocido

[Projectiboga]

I do a double brew where I steep the mate first, let it sit in partial quart bottles, then I brew a soup pot of Oolong tea and strain after 3 minutes I then add the tea to the mate as a kind of double brew. I may now strain the tea-mate combo after a shorter period. I still need to read the article.

[innagadadavida]

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.

[serioussecurity]

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.

[trehalose]

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.

[pmoleri]

Acquired taste, just like coffee or beer. They don't need sugar.

[MarianoAlamos]

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/

[darksaints]

Yerba Mate doesn't have any sugar in it. You might be looking at a packaged drink, but Yerba Mate itself is nothing more than a tea-like herb.

[GekkePrutser]

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