With Club-Mate being almost impossible to obtain in the US (or at least extremely expensive, upwards of $5 per bottle), the following recipe is a homemade approximation. Most people that haven't undergone "man gewöhnt sich dran" seem to find the result more palatable than the original.
Makes two servings of 32oz mason jars each.
Ingredients
- 20g of loose leaf yerba mate
- 2 tea-bags of Yogi Ginger Tea
- 20ml of lemon juice
- 40g of agave syrup
- 32oz of cold (refrigerated) filtered tap or bottled water.
- two cans of (unsweetened!) refrigerated lemon-lime seltzer.
Material
- Two 32oz wide mouth mason jars
- Filter or Infuser — You can probably use coffee/tea paper filters, but a fine mesh is essential
Preparation
- Put 20g of yerba mate into one 32oz mason jar
- Cut open two Yogi Ginger Tea bags and add content to mason jar
- Add cold filtered water to mason jar while stirring in tea. Fill to the very top, leaving no air in the mason jar.
- Close mason jar and keep in fridge for 12-36 hours. You may shake the jar periodically.
- Pour cold brew into second mason jar through filter to remove tea leaves.
- Add a few squirts (15-20g) of lemon juice, stir.
This can be stored for several days. When ready to drink, for each serving:
- Add 20g of agave syrup to an empty mason jar.
- Pour in half of the cold-brew Mate (16oz), stir vigorously
- Add one can of lemon-lime seltzer, stir lightly
- Enjoy while cold and before carbonation dissipates
Notes
- Guayaki is available in many supermarkets, but quite expensive. I've gotten cheaper yerba mate in bulk on Amazon, but some of them have a very smoky flavor.
- Cold water is essential. Room-temperature water will over-extract the mate.
- The cold brew is quite stable between 12 and 36 hours, so the exact brew time doesn't matter very much.
- Finely diced fresh ginger works too, but it's a bit much work, and the extra stuff like lemongrass in the Yogi Ginger Tea adds a little something.
- I've tried different brands of seltzer and cannot detect a difference between them. If you can find something that's very carbonated, that would be preferable.
- Using carbonated water during the cold brew is a bit messy and the carbonation doesn't persist to be noticeable.
- If you have a soda maker (I don't), it might be worth trying to carbonate the cold-brew with that.
- I've tried other seltzers. Orange seltzer is interesting, but a very different drink.
- The original Club Mate has a faint plum flavor that I haven't been able to replicate so far. Maybe a different syrup?