Most conversations about caffeine in maté start with a comparison to coffee. How much does it have? Is it more or less? Which one is better?
Those are reasonable questions. But they miss the more interesting one.
The Numbers First
A standard cup of coffee contains roughly 95mg of caffeine. Yerba maté brewed in the traditional way, loose leaf, steeped in a gourd, contains somewhere between 80mg and 120mg depending on the leaf, the steep time and the water temperature.
They are, for practical purposes, in the same territory.
If caffeine content were the whole story, drinking maté and drinking coffee would feel identical. They do not. The reason why tells you something worth knowing.
The Compound You Have Not Heard Of
Yerba maté contains theobromine. It is a natural compound found in cacao, the same plant chocolate comes from, and it works differently to caffeine in ways that matter.
Where caffeine is fast and direct, blocking adenosine receptors and producing a sharp alertness response, theobromine is slower and gentler. It dilates blood vessels, relaxes smooth muscle tissue and softens the adrenal response that caffeine triggers on its own.
The two compounds do not cancel each other out. They work together. The caffeine provides the alertness. The theobromine moderates the edges of it.
The result is what maté drinkers across Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil have described for centuries, and what the science is now beginning to document. A sustained, calm alertness rather than a sharp spike followed by a hard landing.
Why the Afternoon Changes Everything
Coffee works brilliantly in the morning. The sharp, fast caffeine response is exactly what the first hour of the day requires.
By the afternoon, the same response can work against you. A second or third coffee in the 1pm to 4pm window tends to produce restlessness rather than focus. The adrenal response compounds over the course of the day rather than delivering what you actually need.
Maté's caffeine profile, a comparable amount delivered differently, is better suited to that window. Not because it is weaker. Because the theobromine shifts how the caffeine lands.
When we were in Buenos Aires, maté was simply always there. Morning, afternoon, evening. People carried their gourds the way others carry a coffee cup, without thinking about it, because it was just part of the day. There was no wrong time.
But somewhere in the early afternoon, something shifted. The pace changed. The gourds came out more deliberately. The sharing slowed down. The afternoon, roughly 1pm to 4pm, seemed to be when maté and the day were most naturally aligned. Not because the morning was wrong for it, but because the afternoon was especially right.
That has stayed with us. And it turns out the chemistry has something to say about why.
What This Looks Like in a Can
Brewing maté traditionally takes time, equipment and a certain patience. The gourd, the bombilla, the water kept just below boiling. Worth doing. Not always practical.
A 330ml can of Matelo contains 96mg of caffeine, within the natural range of traditionally brewed maté. The theobromine is there because it is in the leaves, the way it has always been. The sparkling water and a small amount of unrefined cane sugar and lemon do the rest.
The same drink. A different afternoon.
Know Your Maté is Matelo's series on the science, culture and history of yerba maté. Matelo. Steeped in Culture.
Photo by Domie Sharpin on Unsplash