Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Yerba maté



In an effort to curb the increasing effects of an anxiety disorder by decreasing my caffeine intake I have started substituting black and green teas for coffee, and in particular Yerba maté which ostensibly contains some caffeine, but additionally another stimulate which I find betters suits my needs for focus, and desire not to "tweak-out" after several cups.

Intially I avoided this tea altogether because after tasting the traditional communal gourd of maté, offered to me by my mother's Argentinian ex-boyfriend, I decided that the tea tasted significantly like boiled cigarette butts. Moreover, I love good coffee. The West coast transformed me into an unrepentant coffee snob to such an extent that diner coffee (which, previously, I downed like water) has a flavor of hot soil to me.

But I find maté preferable because it doesn't make me feel simultaneously exhausted and jittery as mugs of coffee tend to do. The only draw back, however, is that the stimulant appear last as long as a coffee might. Also, I've noticed with a little vanilla soy milk, or some honey the flavor can be sufficiently augmented.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

green tea often has more caffeine than coffee (individual changes in volume consumption caused by differing beverage preferences also effect the intake, obviously); moreover, mate isn't from the tea plant at all

SkidMarquez said...

Well mate is not a "green tea" plant certainly, but I've read that green tea has less than a third of the caffeine of a cup of coffee.