Yerba Mate substitute

Best substitute

Green Tea (Gunpowder or Sencha)

Use the same amount by weight, brewed slightly stronger as the yerba mate you are replacing

Best for drinking

Close match

Green tea is the best everyday substitute for yerba mate, at 1:1 by weight, with gunpowder or sencha closest because they share the grassy vegetal note. Green tea has roughly a third less caffeine, so brew it stronger or use an extra spoonful. Strong black tea is the closest match on caffeine but tastes tannic and malty rather than grassy. Guayusa or yaupon, both in the same holly family, are the truest match if you can find them.

Other yerba mate substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Guayusa or Yaupon
Close match
Use the same amount
Botanically the nearest relatives, since all three are hollies rather than tea plants.
What changes
Guayusa gives almost the same rounded bitterness with noticeably less astringency, and yaupon is milder and smoother again. Both taste far more like mate than any actual tea does.
Best for
drinking, gourd brewing, cooking, caffeine replacement
The hardest option to find, generally online or in specialty shops. If you are hunting for one of these anyway, you are probably close to finding yerba mate too.
3Roasted Mate (Mate Cocido or Tostado)
Close match
Use the same amount
The same plant, roasted rather than air-dried, and sold in teabags as mate cocido.
What changes
It is toastier, darker and smoother, with much less of the raw green bitterness. If a recipe wants the grassy character of green mate, this reads more like roasted barley tea.
Best for
drinking, iced tea, desserts, beginners
Much easier to like if you have found green mate harsh, and forgiving of hotter water. Comes in convenient bags, which makes it the easy choice for cooking infusions.
4Strong Black Tea
Different taste
Use the same amount
The best caffeine match among common options and universally available.
What changes
Black tea is tannic, malty and drying, with none of mate's green vegetal quality, so a mate-flavoured dessert made with it tastes like a tea dessert instead. Works fine in a savoury marinade.
Best for
marinades, braises, iced drinks, caffeine replacement
Assam or a strong breakfast blend gets closest on strength. Steep no longer than four minutes or the tannins turn the brew astringent in a way mate is not.
5Roasted Barley Tea or Roasted Dandelion Root
Different taste
Use the same amount
The caffeine-free option, and a good one for cooking.
What changes
Both give the roasted, faintly bitter, earthy backbone that makes mate work in ice creams, syrups and meat marinades. Neither gives any of the lift, and neither has the green grassy note at all.
Best for
desserts, syrups, marinades, evening drinking, caffeine-free cooking
Best where mate is a flavour rather than a stimulant. If the point of the mate was the caffeine, this is not a substitute for that job at all.
6Coffee
Different taste
Use the same amount by brewed volume
Right caffeine, completely different flavour.
What changes
It only makes sense in desserts where coffee is a welcome flavour in its own right, such as an ice cream or a caramel. In a savoury marinade it is more aggressive and more roasted than mate, and in a glass it is simply a different drink.
Best for
desserts, ice cream, caramel, caffeine replacement
Use brewed coffee, not espresso, unless the recipe is tiny. Coffee is far more assertive than mate, so start with two thirds the volume and taste.

What is Yerba Mate?

Yerba Mate is Yerba mate is the dried, chopped leaf and stem of a South American holly, brewed as a strongly caffeinated tea-like drink known as mate in Argentina and Uruguay and chimarrao in southern Brazil.

Cooking tips

Never brew yerba mate with boiling water. The correct temperature is around 150 to 175F or 70 to 80C. Boiling water scalds the leaf and extracts a harsh, sharply bitter brew, and it is the single most common reason people conclude they dislike mate. The same rule applies to green tea if you are substituting.
Traditional mate is refilled many times from the same leaf, with the first infusion the strongest and each one after progressively milder. When a recipe says brewed mate, it means an infusion in that first-pour range, so steep fresh leaf rather than using leaf you have already drunk from.
For cooking, a reliable ratio is 2 tablespoons of loose yerba mate steeped in 1 cup of hot water for 5 minutes, then strained. That gives a concentrated infusion strong enough to survive being mixed into ice cream base, syrup or a marinade without disappearing.
Yerba mate is much dustier than tea leaves, with a lot of fine powder and stem fragments, so a standard tea infuser will let sediment straight through. Use a fine mesh strainer, a coffee filter or a French press.
Argentine yerba mate is often dried over wood smoke and tastes noticeably campfire-like, while Brazilian erva mate for chimarrao is usually greener and more grassy. If your recipe or your last cup tasted very different from expected, this is usually why, and it changes which substitute is closest.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave yerba mate out?

In a marinade or a rub, yes, and you lose a bitter, vegetal note that most people would not miss. In an ice cream, a syrup or a dessert built around mate, it is the whole flavour and needs replacing with something in the same territory, such as strong green tea or roasted barley tea. As a drink there is nothing to omit from, you are just choosing a different beverage.

Is yerba mate the same as green tea?

No. Green tea comes from the tea plant Camellia sinensis, while yerba mate comes from a South American holly, Ilex paraguariensis, which is a completely unrelated species. They taste similar enough to substitute for each other because both are minimally oxidised leaves with a grassy, vegetal, mildly astringent character, but mate is noticeably more bitter, more earthy and more caffeinated.

How much caffeine is in yerba mate?

Roughly 70 to 85 milligrams per 8 ounce cup, though it varies a lot with how strongly you brew and how many refills you take from the same gourd. That puts it above most green tea, which is around 25 to 45 milligrams, similar to strong black tea, and below drip coffee at around 95 to 165 milligrams. It is the main reason people reach for mate and the main thing green tea undershoots on.

Is chimarrao the same as yerba mate?

Chimarrao is the southern Brazilian way of preparing yerba mate, using a very finely ground, unsmoked green leaf called erva mate drunk from a gourd with a bomba. So the plant is the same and the names refer to the preparation and the grind. If a recipe calls for yerba mate, Brazilian erva mate works directly, and it will taste greener and less smoky than an Argentine one.

Is there a caffeine-free alternative to yerba mate?

Not from the same plant, since decaffeinated mate is rare and hard to find. If you want the flavour without the stimulant, roasted barley tea and roasted dandelion root both give the roasted, earthy bitterness that works well in cooking and in an evening cup. Neither has the grassy green note, and neither has the lift, so treat them as flavour substitutes rather than replacements for the caffeine.

Related substitutes

More beverages substitutes

Yerba Mate substitute

Other yerba mate substitutes

2Guayusa or Yaupon

3Roasted Mate (Mate Cocido or Tostado)

4Strong Black Tea

5Roasted Barley Tea or Roasted Dandelion Root

6Coffee