Xref: utzoo rec.food.cooking:25184 alt.drugs:9891 sci.bio:4584 sci.med:23553 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!noao!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!jack From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking,alt.drugs,sci.bio,sci.med Subject: Re: Yerba Luisa Message-ID: <1991Mar11.144758.21481@cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Date: 11 Mar 91 14:47:58 GMT References: <1991Mar10.024715.9026@sarah.albany.edu> Reply-To: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie, Unthank Lines: 24 gav044@sarah.albany.edu (VLACHOS GEORGIOS) wrote: > eesnyder@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Eric E. Snyder) writes: >> A friend of mine from Peru sent me a bag of something call "Yerba Luisa". >> The stuff is very strange. It looks like straw or possibly shaved >> bark, yellow to light green in color and a faint, pleasant aromatic >> (minty?) odor. It makes a yellow tea which has a peculiar taste, hard >> to describe. > So Yerba is a very popular 'tea' in Argentina. Yerba is actually > the name of the leaves while the tea itself is called mate. It seems pretty clear from Eric's description that what he's got ISN'T mate. Mate makes a pale green tea that turns dark greenish-brown in a few minutes. The leaves used to make it are small, greyish-green, hard scales somewhat larger than Indian tea leaves; they don't break up when infused. (Incidentally, they make a wonderful mulch for houseplants). It smells a bit like China tea, and tastes rather like it too. "Yerba" just means "herb", so lots of plants will have that in their name. -- -- Jack Campin Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland 041 339 8855 x6854 work 041 556 1878 home JANET: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk BANG!net: via mcsun and ukc FAX: 041 330 4913 INTERNET: via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp