The Benefits of Yerba Mate Tea

One of the coolest little discoveries I've made recently in the area of boosting my personal productivity and energy level has been yerba mate tea.

Yerba mate is a type of herbal tea traditionally grown and consumed in South America. In countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Brazil, drinking yerba mate is an extremely common social practice, comparable to drinking coffee in America. Although much of its popularity in these countries is due to cultural traditions, the tea has a number of health benefits that make it an excellent alternative to drinks that are more familiar to Westerners, such as coffee and soda.

Yerba mate's main benefit is that it is a natural stimulant. It contains xanthines, which are chemicals in the same family as caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine, well-known stimulants also found in coffee and chocolate. I'll end the chemistry lesson there, and just tell you that basically yerba mate provides all the benefits typically associated with coffee, without any of the drawbacks. Yerba mate drinkers report that it has the same energy-boosting effect on them as coffee, but the energy gain doesn't follow coffee's frustrating pattern of pattern of providing a quick, jittery high followed by a rapid drop. The energy gain from yerba mate is gentle and gradual, lasts for long periods of time, and then slowly tapers off. Also, unlike coffee, yerba mate doesn't cause jitteriness or mental distraction, and in fact it actually increases mental clarity.

Besides these more immediate, short-term benefits, yerba mate has a lot of the same long-term benefits as herbal teas in general. In regular users, it helps reduce the risk of heart disease and even cancer.

Yerba mate is very inexpensive, and it lasts for an exceptionally long time due to the fact that the leaves can be re-brewed 2 or even 3 times without losing potency. Although you can't just walk into any grocery and buy it, I didn't have much trouble finding a little coffee shop in my area that sold it, and it's easily available online as well. Since brewing it in tea-bags actually weakens its effects, make sure that you brew it loose-leaf and then strain it. The little bit of extra effort is well worth it.

Even if you're completely addicted to coffee, I recommend you give yerba mate a try. If you're like me and you never used to drink tea at all, it will take a little bit of getting used to for it to become a habit. But once you make the switch, I guarantee that you'll never go back.