- Jun 25, 2026
- 101
- 9
Elsewhere I detailed my mastery of cold brewing yerba mate:
This morning I no longer want to drink Peet's, I need some caffeine, and I don't really feel like running to the store yet. I still have half a 500g bag of Barao de Cotegipe brand natural yerba mate, done with a terere grind. It's supposed to be cold brewed in the traditional Paraguayan gourd and metal filter straw manner, but I blew all that off when developing my own approach to cold brew. I was worried that the traditional way would be absolutely loaded with caffeine and would blow my doors off. So why not hot brew? Who needs rules.
I'm pretending this is coffee. I've said this is "stronger than tea, weaker than coffee" but I only ever brewed a 1 tblsp dose, so who knows? For safety I'm starting with 2 tblsp of the terere grind. It's a mix of very fine particles and large pieces of plant matter.
I'm using cheap unbleached filters that I typically only use for removing cold brewed coffee grounds. When cold brewing I used a fine tea strainer mesh, and I tried to avoid drinking any sediment. I think the sediment makes my guts feel bad. Perhaps they are loaded with tannins. I quit drinking tea decades ago because of the tannins; now that I know more about brewing and filtering, perhaps I could try again sometime.
I poured the water at 95*C. The plant material is floaty and doesn't want to form a bed. It wants to climb to the top of the funnel and stick all over the sides. I wasn't very patient this time and allowed a full lake to the rim of the funnel to happen. Next time I will try to keep the lake very small and all the yerba mate closer to the bottom of the funnel.
This cheap filter is going to jam up due to the small particles. The last bit took a long time to drain, but at least it did drain. I'm doubting my extraction was all that efficient, but on the other hand, yerba mate with a terere grind is inherently quicker than coffee. That's why cold brewing takes only 2 hours and with coffee I'm in the 5 to 8 hour range, depending on the coffee and the grind.
The taste? Well it's similar to what I've accomplished with cold brewing, but not quite as good. I might be tasting my paper funnel, not sure about that. I did rinse it. I could switch to the higher quality Melitta bleached filters if I still find myself worrying about that.
I'm somewhat lacking tasting vocabulary for this, as there isn't really an industry for tasting yerba mate as far as I know, the way there is for coffee. The "sweet green grass" flavor and aroma is fine and should be there. It's the main way I dialed in my cold brews, and it's reasonably fresh now. However there's also a "dry yellow grass" flavor that I'd like to get rid of. I suspect that cold brewing didn't extract much of that.
The storage of yerba mate is much more forgiving than coffee. This bag has been open for over 2 months, and it's only been tied with a chopstick and a rubber band. It's not a particularly good seal, it's just better than leaving the bag wide open. The bag is some kind of mylary reflective thing inside. I started noticing some minor flavor differences after maybe 3 weeks, but it's just not the same game as coffee, which goes downhill so fast. Anyways I don't think the quality of the yerba mate is the problem. It's fairly fresh, if not perfectly so.
I think the yerba mate to water ratio is appropriate. My mug is 12 fl. oz. I did get a caffeine hit. Not quite as much as coffee, but getting close to it. Maybe it'll be equal when my extraction efficiency improves. I clearly "missed" a lot of material with this brew.
This morning I no longer want to drink Peet's, I need some caffeine, and I don't really feel like running to the store yet. I still have half a 500g bag of Barao de Cotegipe brand natural yerba mate, done with a terere grind. It's supposed to be cold brewed in the traditional Paraguayan gourd and metal filter straw manner, but I blew all that off when developing my own approach to cold brew. I was worried that the traditional way would be absolutely loaded with caffeine and would blow my doors off. So why not hot brew? Who needs rules.
I'm pretending this is coffee. I've said this is "stronger than tea, weaker than coffee" but I only ever brewed a 1 tblsp dose, so who knows? For safety I'm starting with 2 tblsp of the terere grind. It's a mix of very fine particles and large pieces of plant matter.
I'm using cheap unbleached filters that I typically only use for removing cold brewed coffee grounds. When cold brewing I used a fine tea strainer mesh, and I tried to avoid drinking any sediment. I think the sediment makes my guts feel bad. Perhaps they are loaded with tannins. I quit drinking tea decades ago because of the tannins; now that I know more about brewing and filtering, perhaps I could try again sometime.
I poured the water at 95*C. The plant material is floaty and doesn't want to form a bed. It wants to climb to the top of the funnel and stick all over the sides. I wasn't very patient this time and allowed a full lake to the rim of the funnel to happen. Next time I will try to keep the lake very small and all the yerba mate closer to the bottom of the funnel.
This cheap filter is going to jam up due to the small particles. The last bit took a long time to drain, but at least it did drain. I'm doubting my extraction was all that efficient, but on the other hand, yerba mate with a terere grind is inherently quicker than coffee. That's why cold brewing takes only 2 hours and with coffee I'm in the 5 to 8 hour range, depending on the coffee and the grind.
The taste? Well it's similar to what I've accomplished with cold brewing, but not quite as good. I might be tasting my paper funnel, not sure about that. I did rinse it. I could switch to the higher quality Melitta bleached filters if I still find myself worrying about that.
I'm somewhat lacking tasting vocabulary for this, as there isn't really an industry for tasting yerba mate as far as I know, the way there is for coffee. The "sweet green grass" flavor and aroma is fine and should be there. It's the main way I dialed in my cold brews, and it's reasonably fresh now. However there's also a "dry yellow grass" flavor that I'd like to get rid of. I suspect that cold brewing didn't extract much of that.
The storage of yerba mate is much more forgiving than coffee. This bag has been open for over 2 months, and it's only been tied with a chopstick and a rubber band. It's not a particularly good seal, it's just better than leaving the bag wide open. The bag is some kind of mylary reflective thing inside. I started noticing some minor flavor differences after maybe 3 weeks, but it's just not the same game as coffee, which goes downhill so fast. Anyways I don't think the quality of the yerba mate is the problem. It's fairly fresh, if not perfectly so.
I think the yerba mate to water ratio is appropriate. My mug is 12 fl. oz. I did get a caffeine hit. Not quite as much as coffee, but getting close to it. Maybe it'll be equal when my extraction efficiency improves. I clearly "missed" a lot of material with this brew.
