What is Yerba Mate?

Yerba Mate is often said to be the most nutritious plant in the world, and it is like Green Tea in many ways, only better. Yerba Mate consumption is so unique that it requires a buying guide.

Yerba Mate is a sought after source of difficult to find nutrients: Vitamins B-1, B-2, A, riboflavin, carotene, colin, pantothenic acid, inositol and 15 types of aminoacids.

Yerba Mate contains significant quantities of the all important iron, potassium, and magnesium minerals, something Green Tea lacks. Also, Yerba Mate is drunk in a very special way that allows it to provide the purported benefits of Green Tea better than Green Tea does.

Yerba Mate produces an energy like coffee and teas, but without the muscle tension so that one is able to stay relaxed yet alert.

Yerba Mate is about the plant, not the water. Traditionally, one uses as little water as possible to extract the maximum nutrients from the Plant. The traditional way is to use a special gourd and straw; they combine to create a "reverse french press" in which a large amount of nutrients can be extracted with very little water. There is historical and contemporary evidence to suggest that Yerba Mate, when combined with the special way of drinking it, brings about the most health benefits of any single plant.

Yerba Mate Facts:

• Yerba Mate is a tropical or subtropical plant, needing high temperatures, high humidity and up to 1500 mm of annual rain.
• In the wild, Yerba Mate requires about 25 years to reach maturity.
• Grows up to 49 feet tall.
• The leaves are elliptical, cuneiform or oval, with slightly serrated borders.
• Yerba Mate flowers between the months of October and December.
• The flowers are small, dioicous, polygamous, with corolla and calyx in a tetrameric disposition.
• The fruit somewhat resembles a pepper berry.
• Vitamins B-1, B-2, A, riboflavin, carotene, colin, pantothenic acid, inositol and 15 types of amino acids (F. Alikaridis 1987)
• Yerba Mate comes from the dried leaves and stemlets of the perennial tree Ilex paraguarensis, a name given by the French naturalist and botanist Auguste de Saint Hilaire in 1822.
• Division: Anthophyta
• Class: Magnoliopsida
• SubClass: Rosidae
• Order: Celastrales
• Family: Aquifoliaceae

FROM: Neglected Crops: 1492 from a Different Perspective. 1994 J.E. Hernándo Bermejo and J. León (eds.) Plant Production and Protection Series No. 26. FAO, Rome, Italy. This chapter author is G.C. Giberti - Centre of Pharmacological and Botanical Studies, Buenos Aires, Argentina -

Botanical description

The maté is a dioecious evergreen tree which grows up to 18 m in height. The leaves are alternate, coriaceous and obovate with a serrate margin and obtuse apex. The inflorescences are in corymboid fascicles, the male ones in a dichasium with three to 11 flowers, the female ones with one or three flowers. The flowers are small, and simple, number four or five and have a whitish corolla. The fruit is in a nucule; there are four or five single seed pyrenes (propagules).

Maté flowers in the spring (from October to November), has entomophilous pollination (diptera, hymenoptera) and fruits from March to June; dissemination is endozoic (birds). There is a rudimentary embryo in many externally ripe seeds which causes a long period of germination From the time of sowing.

FIGURE 29: A) Maté (Ilex paraguariensis) | A1) inflorescence | A2) flower | A3) fruit | A4) gourd and tube for consuming the infusion.