So I'm not alone here. Lots of people are saying guayusa is similar to maté but with a coffee like effect. I found maté to be much nicer, smoother, simulating without burning you out.

I think the taste of maté is fantastic. I would easily vote for maté if coffee wasn't so convenient to use.

I prefer the effects of maté. I've been drinking it pretty often recently, but still not as often as coffee. Instant Folgers Crystals is such a convenient way to have coffee. In less than 15 seconds your coffee is ready to drink. There's no way to make maté that convenient to use. That and maté's high price prevent it from being my favorite. If maté was cheaper and as convenient as coffee, it would be my favorite for sure.

For me maté is like fine wine, it's pricey, and great for special occasions, but coffee is more of a household staple.

coffee seems to really burnme out these days..like drainme completely after a few hours and leave me feeling extremely dehydrates..and it increases inflamation of my degestive tract..whereas with green tea and mate is like the exact opposite..I dont know why...maybe other alks than caffine and the fact that coffee is very very acidic?

It sucks becasue I really like it with mescaline..but its not worht it I think..gunna try to stick to mate and green tea.

maté feels more like a detox herbal enregizing than coffee, which I like a lot and abused to work hard tought me to slow down for heart's (and liver's) sake.
Now I jongle, every now and then, with tea, coffee,, maté and others non-caffeine for special hard's jobs.
What would we do without these green goodies ?!!

I haven't seen your reply fractal, but I feel same, time to time, coff' is much more brutal to my body than others cofein leaves.

I've seen a couple mate instant extracts on the net.

Then, there's this stuff....

http://www.herbalremedies.com/yerroyin282o.html

.....I didn't find it to be that great, but I don't like stevia and maybe I just didn't use enough to get the desired effect. I never more than half a tsp. per cup of water.

The Ilex plants are my favorite.

I never saw instant mate tea before. That's great. I'll have to check that out. I like stevia.

Yeah man....I don't know. I just drank some of it over the past hour or so while watching a movie and eating a meal.

It's just not the same as a cup of warm yerba mate. It doesn't have that invigorating 'earthiness' and energizing effect.

It's definitely stevia strong. Have to kind of search for the yerba taste.

I do feel the effects of yerba from drinking it, but it's definitely mild compared to a true brew.

So I think it's still has at least some of the health benefits/stimulation of mate, but it's just not the same as the 'real' deal.

This is the website of the actual company if you wanna look through what they have.

http://www.wisdomofancie...amp;subpage=instant_teas


Edit: You know ron, as a convenient way to prepare a days worth of mate, before you go to bed each night put some mate in your french press and let it soak overnight.

Just pour in warm or hot or room temp water (depending on how strong you want it), stir it and let it sit for a few minutes...and then stick in the fridge.

When you get up in the morning all you have to do is press it, pour it and add some hot water. Repeat as necessary throughout the day. If it's made strong enough, to where it's a little too concentrated to drink straight, adding the hot water will bring it to just the right dilution and temperature.

That's how I used to do it anyway. It's very strong this way if done right.

Anyway, just a thought.

Yerba is wicked cheap... check out ma-tea.com. Gourd drinking is fun and all but the way I pull it off for daytime use is buy a cotton tea bag fill with a three tbs of yerba and put it in a pitcher of water and let it sit over night in the fridge. Good things happen

there was a cafe' where i used to live that made mate lattes with hazelnut milk in the espresso machine for me. im sure i was the only one who drank them like this, but oooo man what i would give for one now....
now all i use is the gourd. i think the key to efficient mate this way is the thermos. getting the water temp just right, and keeping it there in a good thermos. then u can keep refilling with no worries.