a friend of mine used to always drink a tea called celestial seasonings 'morning thunder'. i remember the picture of a buffalo on the box. i think it had black tea and smoked yerba mate. a large mug with 3-4 tea bags was definitely a booster. not really sure what the smoking does to the alkaloids tho.

Ron that is the whole point of the test to see if you can tell the difference or not.

I've been drinking yerba this week and I have to agree there is a buzz coming off it that is unlike tea or coffee... not sure if I'd class it as psychedelic, but surprisingly psychoactive.

Bufoman, I can tell the difference between Yerba mate and the others. It's very clearly different in me. So I'll know which pill contained it. Because of that, tests for it's psychoactivity are going to be tainted. Get my point?

What I mean is this:

1) Caffiene pill
2) Yerba pill

I take them not knowing which is which on separate occasions. I'll be able to tell which one is the Yerba mate pill easily because the effects are so different from caffeine and they last longer. Not just a little different. So if the psychoactive effects are purely placebo, it's not going to help the test because I'll know which pill is Yerba mate.

I think most people would be able to tell which is not pure caffeine because Yerba mate lasts longer. But if they didn't know about the longer duration of Yerba mate, then maybe they might have a hard time telling the difference, but I still doubt it.

Now if the pills were Kola nut and Yerba mate extracts, that would be harder, but still pretty doable. The reason is that Yerba mate lasts longer in me. For me Kola nut is a shorter stimulant, more like coffee but it feels more like Yerba mate.

The length of the Yerba mate is a dead giveaway to it's effects in me. It's like longer lasting Kola nut, but still unique. It's more like Kola nut than anything else I've tried.

You see the problem? To test its psychoactivity, and be sure it's not placebo, it needs to be done with someone that doesn't know the differences between them.

Having rediscovered yerba thanks to this thread, I have fallen in love with it and have been drinking it almost every day to very beneficial effect. It makes me feel good and be motivated in a work situation, and makes me chatty and interested in a social one. Without it, I am often easily bored and unmotivated.

Now, the reason I had previously avoided it was because I can't stand caffeine.
-COFFEE makes me really edgy, jittery almost paranoid.
-TEA (the normal stuff from India) is better because I remain calmer, which may be due to the lesser caffeine amounts or perhaps due to this calming teanine stuff that they tout as it containing on the packs. However, it's effects on me are mild and I am neutral on its usefulness.
-CAFFEINE PILLS give me similar effects as coffee, but without the horrible taste and stomach trouble, and I feel a little more energised. Still, I don't like them. I have used them many times.

-YERBA MATE, however, is very different and a lot nicer. At traditional levels of consumption, I get very stimulated but I actually enjoy the experience unlike with coffee. There is still too much caffeine for me, and after a couple of cups I do find myself start to get too jittery to work and crash a little, even if I am feeling good. I have since realised that lowering my dose to just a cm or so of yerba in a mug is best for me, whereas before I was drinking a mug 1/2-3/4 full of chopped yerba from a pack. I still get the feelgood and sufficient stimulation, without the negative effects that I associate with coffee or caffeine pills.

I believe there is a chemical other than caffeine in yerba that is either (a) counteracting the negative effects of the caffeine such that I can enjoy the experience, or (b) making me feel good and perhaps stimulated also of its own accord.

Finally, I have also noticed that I am at least paying more attention to sound. Sound and music in particular sounds clearer and more interesting, although this could be just because I am actually listening for it. It's a bit like how when aya first starts coming on sounds become very noticeable, but it does not go as far as when they start to sound altered psychedelically. It's possible that it's placebo because I had already read this thread. I can't say if I get this with caffeine alone, because I hate the stuff and the only time I take caffeine pills is when I've been up all night so everything is weird due to sleep deprivation anyway.

Finally, though I used to think the stuff tasted nasty, I now love the taste and more importantly the smell. It has a sweet malty smell that excites and pleases me. What do the two chemicals you highlighted smell like, Ron?

I don't know what eugenol smells like, but I can smell hints of safrole in Yerba mate tea. It's obvious to me that it contains safrole. It's a smell like that of sassafras, or very slightly like nutmeg. The smell is faint though, so the amount it contains is very small.

Actually the safrole could be counteracting the negative effects of the caffeine and could be causing the unusual effects of Yerba mate. It's a sedative, and is very mildly psychoactive and is expected to alter the effects of caffeine if enough is present.

Safrole's structure is very similar to MDMA as you can see in this pic below.

I have drank Yerba maté on and off for a few years, and greatly prefer it's effects to Coffee, but not the taste (which is the reason I keep going back to coffee...yumm). There is a definite enhanced clarity and warmth to things I don't get with coffee, but I never thought of it in terms of psychedelic; if anything, I'd say it was closer to low doses of amphetamine. Everybody's brain and body chemistry is different though, and I imagine different people react to things in different ways. Then again, I have never tried brewing 15 grams of leaves; the most I have tried is 3 tea-bags. I am curious now about combining it with Sassafras Tea, or maybe good Green Tea (I get a better lift off of good Green Tea than just about anything).

As a general rule, I don't care for strong stimulants like speed or cocaine, never have. I do enjoy my morning coffee or Yerba or green tea though. It would be cool if one could catch a mild psychedelic lift with a Yerba \ Sassafras blend of some kind. I may give that a shot this weekend.

Did you ever try that?

^ I did. I brewed it cold like terere. It wasn't anything super strong as I only used a tbsp of sass but my vision was definitely altered and my head had that sort of gushy feeling. I let it sit in the gourd for three hours before drinking it with ice lemon juice and stevia added.

^ That sounds tasty!

I like stevia and use NuStevia usually in my coffee. That's some good tasting stevia extract. Sometimes I like the flavor of the whole stevia leaf though, especially when making peppermint tea.

Was there any potentiation of the sassafras do you think?

I mean it was an overall unique experience. I've never really felt much from sass except tired.

1992, I'll have to try that mix and report on it. It sounds nice.

C. Brown sugar
1/4 C. Powdered instant yerba mate tea
1/2 C. Butter; softened
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 Egg
3/4 C. White, organic flour
3/4 C. Chopped walnuts

Mix sugar and powdered yerba mate tea, add softened butter, cream until well-mixed, add vanilla and beaten egg; slowly add the flour until well mixed; blend in nuts and pour/press into buttered 9"x13" pan.
Cook in a moderate oven, 350-degrees, for 25-35 minutes or until lightly golden in color.
For a decadant and caffeinated variation: divide the recipe in half and add a teaspoon of powdered instant coffee to one half, layer in the pan, and add melted semi-sweet chocolate chips to the top; let cool before cutting and serving.
The Yerba Mate Tea Gourd "Greenies" are chewy and have all the complex, bittersweet flavor of a chocolate brownie. You might want to just eat them with milk though... instead of with your mate. It could be too much of a good thing!! My head was spinning the last time I tried them... and couldn't resist the temptation to eat more with my yerba tea!


Just ate some of these with no nuts and double the yerba stated in the recipe. Good stuff

^ Now that's creativity at work! Very cool recipe!

I just found my locally owned grocery carries yerba all other stores don't for some reason. It was only 1.50 about for cruz de malta loose leaf so I tried some way more euphoric and better than coffee, or tea regardless of type. I can't drink coffee anymore because of the jitters and insomnia it causes. Maybe I'll work my way up to 10 grams,but it's pretty strong didn't notice anything psychedelic maybe a dampening of sound like others talked about.

I recently purchased Yerba Mate capsules for the first time. I took two at once. Maybe an hour afterward, I became slightly concerned and unsettled because I thought I had not taken any psychoactive substances that day. Yerba Mate certainly has a peculiar psychoactive effect for me, and I was not aware that it did.

I live in Argentina.. and here we drink a lot of Mate... i never feel the effect similar to MDMA but is a great stimulant to drink in the afternoon ...in the morning i dont like i prefer coffe....

Interesting question, I'd say that yerba mate can feel mildly psychedelic for me, although most of the time it's not. Comes down to how you prepare it, and how strong it is. I drink yerba mate every day, so a regular daily dose just acts as a stimulant for me. To really get off on yerba mate, I make what we call "hippy strength" yerba mate:

Get a big pot, and put about 1/3 of a kilo of yerba mate in the bottom. Cover it with hot (not boiling!) water, put a lid on and let the whole thing sit for about 45 minutes, then strain it off. You can do one more steeping the same way if you like. If you do this right, the tea should come out sludgy-brown in colour, with an oily sheen on top and very bitter tasting.

A cup of this potent brew has caused a mild empathogenic response, or sometimes I've seen auras around people after drinking it. Tolerance goes up very quickly though, if you drink sludgy brown mate regularly then my body just adapts to it and it stops effecting me as strongly. This is something to do just once in a while, making a brew way stronger than you are used to.

My friend who taught me this method actually got symptoms of caffeine poisoning once from drinking this stuff. He went through about 2/3 of a kilo in a day, said he was feeling super tired so he kept drinking more and more hoping for a lift. He ended up getting nauseous and shaky instead.

Wow, that sounds intense. I drink a lot of Mate, as you may have guessed from my user name and I can easily imagine that getting to be 'too much'!

I usually do 3 heaping tablespoons in my morning brew, and I sip on that throughout the day. Often I re-steep it; this is from a tea mug and not a gourd. Obviously this is just a morning pick-me-up and not a psychedelic dose, though loading the gourd full is quite enjoyable as well.