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Yerba mate provides an energy boost similar to coffee, but with less caffeine and more nutrients. Learn about mate’s top mental & physical health benefits.
Billions of people start the day with a hot cup of coffee or tea.
But in some parts of the world, people wake up with a drink you may not be familiar with — yerba mate.
Yerba mate, or mate for short, is a traditional South American brew that’s been said to offer the “strength of coffee, the health benefits of tea, and the euphoria of chocolate” all in one beverage.
It was called “the drink of the gods” by many indigenous South Americans and later “the green gold of the Indios” by European settlers.
First, let’s take a look at the many evidence-based mental and physical health benefits of yerba mate.
Then we’ll explore how to prepare and drink yerba mate tea for maximum health and enjoyment.
Yerba mate is a traditional drink made from the dried leaves of an evergreen holly, Ilex paraguariensis, a native plant of South America.
This plant is found in the wild but it’s also cultivated on plantations.
In countries where yerba mate is widely consumed, its cultural importance is on a par with coffee cafés and Japanese tea ceremonies.
Drinking yerba mate tea is often a social event.
Yerba mate is so loaded with nutrition that it’s been said to contain practically all the micronutrients needed to sustain life.
Each serving of mate contains the following vitamins and high concentration of these minerals:
Yerba mate is high in compounds called saponins.
Saponins are natural emulsifiers that boost the immune system and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
Yerba mate also contains potent antioxidants known as polyphenols.
These plant-based compounds modulate the overactive immune response that contributes to seasonal allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes.
As strong antioxidants, they offer protection against certain kinds of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Everyone wants to be as smart, productive, focused, and creative as possible, and yerba mate may help.
Yerba mate contains a moderate amount of caffeine, the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world.
The brain-enhancing benefits of caffeine are commonly known.
It enhances memory, mood, and alertness.
It makes you more motivated and productive by stimulating production of the neurotransmitter dopamine.
But besides caffeine, yerba mate contains two related compounds, theobromine and theophylline.
These three alkaloids work together to provide unique, mild stimulant effects, as they also do in coffee, chocolate, and tea.
[Brain supplements, smart drugs, and nootropics — how do they compare?]
Yerba mate has found a niche following among brain hackers seeking to optimize mental performance.
Bestselling author Tim Ferriss is among the world’s most famous biohackers.
He’s experimented extensively with brain-boosting substances of all kinds, including smart drugs.
In the end, his all-time favorite brain-enhancing substance is yerba mate.
He prefers it over coffee since he experiences no crash and finds it non-addictive.
And unlike smart drugs, it has no “payback time.
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