Yerba mate extract 10:1: concentrated mate leaf
Few drinks come with as much etiquette attached as mate. A gourd is packed about three quarters full with dried leaf and twigs, water at 70 to 80 degrees goes in, hot but never boiling, and everyone drinks in turn through a bombilla, the metal or wooden straw that sits in the gourd. Prepared with cold water instead, the same thing is called tereré. The Guaraní were drinking it long before Europeans reached the region, and their word for the leaf, ka'a, means nothing more elaborate than herb. Mate itself is Quechua: mati is a vessel for a drink. Jesuit missionaries put the plant into cultivation on plantations in Misiones around the middle of the seventeenth century, which is where yerba mate turned into a crop traded far beyond its own valleys.
Botanically it is Ilex paraguariensis, a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. It starts life as a shrub and, left alone, matures into a tree of roughly fifteen metres; growers keep plantation trees at three to six metres so the evergreen, leathery, saw edged leaves stay within reach of a picker. Its flowers are small and white green. The species is native to the subtropical belt that covers southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Argentine province of Misiones, and those same countries still supply the world: Brazil accounts for roughly half the crop, Argentina for a little over a third, Paraguay for the remaining tenth. Harvested branches are usually dried over a wood fire, which is where the smoky note in the cup comes from.
What 10:1 means
In a 10:1 extract, ten grams of leaf have been reduced to one gram of extract. The 3 grams in this sachet therefore correspond to something like thirty grams of dried mate leaf, so you need noticeably less of it than of loose leaf. Dissolve a small amount in hot water, give it a few minutes, and work upwards gradually rather than starting with a heaped spoon. The taste is herbaceous and grassy with a frank bitter edge; honey, lemon or a splash of fruit juice takes the edge off if you find it too much. Mate leaf naturally holds 0.7 to 1.7 percent caffeine by dry weight, plus 0.3 to 0.9 percent theobromine and polyphenols including quercetin and rutin. A concentrate packs those constituents more tightly, which is the whole point of buying an extract.
Storage and good to know
Keep the sachet cool, dry and dark, and out of reach of children. Mate contains caffeine by nature, so bear that in mind if you are sensitive to it. If you take medication, are pregnant or are breastfeeding, speak to your doctor first. Using herbs remains your own responsibility. The same herb extract category at Avalon Magic Plants also holds Maca 5:1 from Lepidium meyenii, Muira puama 25X, Motherwort 12:1 and Pink Lotus 50X.
