In South America, preparing and sharing yerba mate tea is steeped in tradition. And, as this article explains, few people know more about it than the folks at Guayaki Products.
Guayaki Yerba Mate Recipes (Posted on their packaging)
Using a french press, tea pot, add 1.5 tsp of loose leaf yerba mate per cup. Add hot water (160-180°F) and steep for 3-10 minutes. If using an automatic coffee maker, add 1.5 tsp loose leaf mate for every 1 cup water and brew as you would coffee.
Guayaki Mate Latte Recipe
Prepare tea using recipe above. Into a 12oz cup, add 8oz hot yerba mate, sweetener and 4oz steamed milk. Top off with milk foam.
Cold Brewed Yerba Mate (Also called Terere): Our Favorite!
While traditional Yerba Mate calls for steeping the tea leaves in hot water, our absolute favorite recipe is for cold-brewed yerba mate (also known as 'terere').
3 reasons we LOVE cold brewed yerba mate tea:
1) Cold brewing is super simple and easy to make! (In fact, it is hard to mess up -- as opposed to using hot water where just a couple extra minutes of steeping your tea in hot water can result in extremely bitter taste.)
2) Cold brewed tea has a mild taste (less of the bitterness from tannin and caffeine that many people associate with yerba mate tea steeped in hot water).
Many Americans, unfamiliar with yerba mate tea, describe the taste as something akin to 'drinking cigarette ashes.' And, that's when it is done right! The taste gets even worse if you let the tea steep too long or use overly-hot water. Fortunately, cold brewing yerba mate prevents much of this bitterness from developing.
3) Drinking cold brewed tea help us avoid the potential health concerns associated with drinking hot beverages. Anyone who drinks hot coffee or tea knows how easy it is to burn the tongue and roof of the mouth. In fact, burns are almost impossible to avoid when you consider that many hot beverages are served between 170-210°F -- but it takes only a 149°F beverage to cause a burn. And, apparently, it is this repeated cellular damage to the mouth and tongue that may even increase our risk of developing throat cancer. So, health concerns is just one more reason to feel good about drinking cold brewed yerba mate.
Our Favorite Cold-Brew Yerba Mate Recipe:
- Add 2-3 heaping tablespoons of dried, loose-leaf yerba mate to a wide-mouth quart jar.
- Fill with tap water, add sweetener and a flavoring like mint leaf or vanilla (if desired) and a splash of orange, lemon, lime, cranberry or other acidic juice.
- Place in the refrigerator overnight. The long, cold soak allows the tea to release much of its flavor and nutrition.
- In the morning, pour the contents through a strainer into another wide-mouthed quart jar.
- Return the filtered tea leaves back into the first jar, top it off again with water (and optional juice) and put it back into the refrigerator.
- Repeat these steps several times throughout the day before discarding the original tea leaves. (Yerba mate leaves continues to release taste and healthy antioxidants through multiple soakings.)
The reason we like to add an acidic juice is two-fold: it adds a nice flavor (though cold brewed yerba mate has a pleasant taste by itself) and 2) adding something that's acidic helps release the energizing caffeine that's contained in yerba mate.
If you've tried yerba mate but didn't care for the taste... or if you'd simply like to try this deliciously energizing and nutritious beverage -- we hope you'll consider cold brewed mate tea. And then, please share your feedback and suggestions in the comments below.