How To Drink Yerba Mate

There are an infinite number of ways to live, and an equally infinite number of ways to drink Yerba Mate. We prefer the traditional way to drink yerba mate used in Yerba Mate drinking countries, both for the unmatched nutrient extraction that produces the benefits of yerba mate, as well as the joy one experiences in this unique drinking method.

Still, our love for Yerba Mate is so great that we can appreciate all the different, creative ways that people choose to drink yerba mate in order to connect with this soul awakening plant. 

There are 2 items that Yerba Mate drinkers traditionally use to best maximize the benefits of yerba mate tea:

• A Special Yerba Mate Gourd, which is also called a mate cup.
• A Filtered Yerba Mate bombilla, also called a mate filter, or mate straw.

The Reason?: The special shape of the mate cup compresses the yerba mate tea around the bombilla, allowing the maximum extraction of the helpful nutrients. Ultimately the yerba mate gourd and bombilla allow the compressed yerba mate's benefits to be time released throughout the day. The yerba mate gourd and bombilla are fundamental, time-proven tools, which have benefited yerba mate drinking cultures for centuries.

Yerba Mate Gourd / Mate Cup

The mate cup performs two important tasks:

1) Yerba Mate Gourd Compresses Yerba Mate to Create Suction

As the yerba mate expands in the mate cup, it uses the shape of the mate cup to compress the yeba mate tea around the mate straw. The compression serves three functions:

• Helps to control the release of nutrients and phytochemicals from the yerba mate
• Helps prevent clogging in the mate straw 
• Helps to create suction so that the nutrients can be pulled from the herb

2) Mate Cup Enhances the Flavor of Yerba Mate

The mate cup reduces the bitterness of the yerba mate tea and adds back any flavors it may have absorbed from previous uses. People often refer to this as the "memory" of the gourd, which continues to mature over time and helps one feel connected with their gourds. So, for example, if you drink yerba mate with honey, the mate cup will add a sweet flavor evertime you use it to drink yerba mate.

The three traditional methods to drink yerba mate use a yerba mate gourd and bombilla. Still, there are other ways to drink yerba mate. We invite you to explore each of these methods.

• More detailed instructions using hot water: How to drink yerba mate
• More detailed instructions using cold water: Terere
• How to drink yerba mate out of an automated server: YerbaCup®
• Yerba mate tea bags: Mate Cocido
• Yerba mate sun tea: Mate Sun Tea
• Use a coffee machine: Yerba mate coffee maker
• Use an espresso machine: Mate espresso

General Yerba Mate Benefit Note:

You have heard that there are health benefits to teas and herbs, but yerba mate is unique in that it actually delivers the health benefits to you because of the extraction method used.

Jane Higdon, Ph.D., Oregon State University, writes that it may be difficult to drink enough of other teas "to reach sufficient plasma and tissue levels of tea polyphenols to realize a protective effect."

When you drink yerba mate with the the mate cup and mate straw, then you can truely extract the benefits.  The American Chemical Society supports this claim by noting that the "direct measurements in people's blood" when using a tea without the yerba mate gourd and mate straw are "typically less than one-tenth" the amount shown to produce any significant result (2003). Fortunately, when you drink yerba mate with the mate cup and bombilla, it increases your ability to gain its many benefits. Laboratory tests confirm that drinking mate with the yerba mate gourd and bombilla appears to be the only way to receive health benefits that the other herbs fail to deliver (Bixby, 2005, c.v. Palermo, 2003).