The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-06-20
WILL MATE Be
POPULAR DRINK
AFTER JULY |?
South American Beverage is
Harmless and Has Kick, "
Says Sanborn.
By WILLIAM r. sANsoRN

BY WILLIAM r. sANBoRN
The man who discovers or invents
a beverage that becomes the vogue,
and so genuinely good that 1t will be
entitled to be known as the American
National Drink? will be on his way to
fortune. He will also make many
others rich, In all parts OF the country.
We said discovers or invents," for
the reason that the coming temperance
beverage may have already been CEN
turtles in use in another part of the
world. If the drink referred to is as
good as 1t IS claimed, no one can
blame the people OF Paraguay and
other South American countries for
liking 1t. At any rate, there will be
a general tendency to try it out" when
once prohibition holds national sway,
and indeed earlier II the people are
ever given a chance. After tryout 1t
will stand or fall on its merits.
Coffee. tea, the cocoa bean and yerba
mate are the only four plants or shrubs
known to contain caffeine, and each IN
a differing degree. The tea plant Is
properly a shrub, and the cultivated
coffee cherry seldom attains height
of twelve feet, because it is trimmed
to suitable height for handy pick
ing. We are all familiar with the
cocoa bean, but many are not aware
that cocoa and chocolate contain CAT
feline, but they do.
South American Yerba Mate.
What Is known in this country as
Paraguay tea is the dried leaf or
small tree which grows In Paraguay
and Brazil, and from which natives
of many South American countries
brew a refreshing drink. The tree IS
now cultivated on a large scale and
there is no limit to the"mate" these
countries can produce If they flnd a
market for the leaf. 1t is said, how
ever. that they were already selling
about SIT 900 900 worth of the leaf
in South America, annually. before the
war broke loose, and had at that time
lust introduced an extract of mate
into Germany.
This ''Yermate" was designed to be
added to settler or carbonated waters,
and when so used the beverage is sim
liar in color to beer, either light or
dark, according to the quantity of ex-
tract used 1t may be well to state,
however, that 1t is only in the color
that it resembles beer. 1t is entirely
notwithstanding, does not taste Ike
beer, and yet it has bracing and ex-
hiIarating effect not obtained IN the
same degree from the caffeine in any
of our beverages.
A recent writer on the subject says:
Mate is said to be harmless, but after
the third cup you feel strangely
tempted to talk of confidential sub
iects, to think of the past, or dream
of the future" This refers to the
use OF mate as tea, the form. IN
which it had been used by the native
Indians of Brazil and Paragu for
unknown years before their discovery
by the Spanish and Portuguese in the
sixteenth century. Europeans who
have settled in the the various South
American countries" writes Harold
Jewell, have adopted mate largely
on account of its valuable qualities
in hot and depressing seasons, and as
a preventative of hunger and fatigue.
Admittedly, it is for those very same
reasons that coffee, tea and cocoa are
drunk Both tea and cocoa have been
standard rations of British soldiers
and sailors, and more literally so in
tropic seas and countries, for many
years.
How Mate Differs.
In its chemical composition mate
in some respects is very similar to
tea and coffee, but it contains much
less tannin than coffee, and 7consid
erably less caffeine or alkaloid than
either tea or coffee. Coffee contains
cafeol, strong essential oil, of which
there is barely trace in mate.
But should mate be introduced into
this country, as it very probably will
be, we shall find it to differ in this
respect from all our soft drinks. Fol
some reason yet unknown to chemists
mate produces an exhilaratlon s1milal
to that of beer, but without any oil
the after effects observed from the use
of various alcoholic beverages. AS
stimulant and also as refreshing
beverage much may be said for mate
il it possesses all the virtues claimed
for it. Among the claims made fol
mate is that it possesses peculiar eff
cheney in the cure of alcoholism, which
is important if true, particularly a
this time when the nation is going dry
Mate has been selling at Il to /;
cents per pound at South American
ports, and little of it seems to go
long ways. For instance it is sair
that by using but one teaspoonful pc
cup one can get six or eight cups o
the infusion from the original spoon
full. After being infused for four o
five minutes the decoction can b.
drunk and another infusion made from
the same leaves, and so on for mum
Der of times.
Mate has an agreeable flavor, W,
are told, and about twenty millions o
South Americans drink it, even largel,
in the coffee countries. But the ma
tives of all coffee countries are grea
coffee drinkers, and where mate i
used it takes the place in the home 0
the social aspects of our own after