Yerba Mate, the Coffee Slayer

There is a worldwide dependence on coffee. Almost as bad as our dependence on oil. Whereas oil runs machines, coffee runs people. It has tons of caffeine, which keeps people wired, focused, and productive. Besides an occasional splurge, I've never bothered with coffee; it makes my stomach feel funky, and besides, I always have plenty of energy. I don't need to kickstart my battery in the morning, it comes pre-charged.

There is one circumstance that I like to drink coffee. When I had to pull all-nighters in college, I'd have one tasty coffee and I'd be set for the night. The night is an amazing time for productivity. For those of us sun-lovers, there are fewer tempations at night - you can't just run down to the beach for a surf, or procrastinate because the weather is nice. At night, the darkness is silent, devoid of vision. Most people are asleep; they're not calling your phone every ten minutes. I can work peacefully at night - but caffeine is an essential tool for keeping awake.

Enter Yerba Maté. It's a plant, a leaf, nothing more than old fashioned tea. But it's also highly nutritious and highly caffeineted. It taste a bit like earth; yerba maté is more dirty than coffee, but it has none of the bitterness. It's smooth like a mudbath on your face - without actually drinking the mud. My friend Keri went to Chile once an brought me back a maté gourd, along with a bombilla, which is the metal "straw" that strains the loose leaf as you sip. So there's a nice traditional element about it. It's fun to look at a handsomely carved gourd, standing lightly on its thin, sculpted, metal legs, in between your productive thoughts.

Actually, once upon a time, I got a similar nostalgic feeling from coffee. When I was travelling in Vienna, Austria, I heard that coffee houses were of utmost cultural importance. I went to Café Roma, which two Austrian friends recommended. It wasn't about drinking coffee, it was about the coffee experience. A waiter wearing an immaculate black tuxedo brought over a menu of coffee, and I picked a Mocha, while sitting on cushy velvet and surrounded by tall glass windows. It turns out the waiter brought me an extra dark espresso (Note: a Mocha has no chocolate in Austria). As I watched the grey drizzle outside, I reflected on how nice it was to be inside, sipping my coffee.

So that was a worthy coffee moment. But I'm not in Austria. I'm in my sailboat, sitting on my thrift-store cushions, typing away at 1:00AM. I want to keep writing, because the night has no distractions. The curves of my wooden maté gourd fit in quite nicely with the generous teak wood (slightly faded) in my cabin interior, so I refill it with hot water, and sip at the earthy goodness.

Reference: http://www.guayaki.com