Inspiration : less mess
Yerba Maté (aka. mate or maté) is way better than coffee in taste, cost, and effects. Don't believe me, try it my way. Conventional brewing techniques will ruin maté.
The pre-made commercially available jars of maté can be quite good, but tend to be costly, weak, and grossly sweetened. The loose tea maté is very inexpensive, but when made wrong can be very messy, taste like sneakers, and have all the caffenine crashing effect of coffees drinks.
Tools :
- big pot
- Nalgene water bottle
or any way to measure 1 liter of water
- fine mesh strainer
- big jug for storage
- 1 gal clean water
- 2 cups loose maté : I prefer the locally available Yerba Mate Cruz de Malta
for $12 per kg bag. Check your neighborhood markets. I've seen this stuff in everything from Italian, Persian, Indian, to Chinese markets.
- optional: your favorite natural sweetener
- optional: lemon juice
The key to getting a good "creamy" mate taste is to minimize the steep time and temperature. I've found 75C to be ideal with at most a 5 minute steep. I use a basic dilution to achieve this by adding 1L of room temp water (20C) to 2 liters of boiling water (100C). If you have the good thermometer
that's likely your best bet. - boil 2L of water
- mix with 1L room temp water
- add loose mate
- wait no more than 5 minutes
- strain
- discard mate
- strain
- discard mate
- strain
- discard mate
- strain into final jug
- optional: add sweatener and lemon to taste
The extra sediment will continue to flavor the mate, so for each straining cycle be prepared to discard the silty bits on the bottom. Anyone tried a centrifuge ?
Deviations: DIY Beverage Bubbles
Club-Mate and makezine.com: Hacking Club-Mate have carbonate varieties which are super delightful on a summers day. I'll have some to share on the playa.
I cannot decide whether to go cheap with this janky looking thing: Beer Carbonator
Or do I go wild with the think geek carbonator caps.
Or does dry ice do the trick. You gotta be brave to do this math.
Sources
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