Yerba Mate Tea – A Caffeinated Herbal Tea

Yerba Mate Tea – A Caffeinated Herbal Tea

Yerba mate tea, often just called mate, is an herbal tea made out of the leaves of Ilex paraguariensis. This plant, being in the Ilex genus, is a species of holly, related to the familiar American holly or English hollies. Yerba mate is unusual in that it is one of the few caffeinated herbal teas, indeed, the only caffeinated herbal tea that is widely available in western countries.

Yerba mate is not technically tea (the only true teas come from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis), and, even though it is technically an …