HackMate

Recently, we’ve been trying to make our own club-mate at Hackalot. Club-mate is a kind of ice tea that is made using yerba mate from south-america.

The ingredients list is very sort, only three ingredients are required:

• Yerba mate
• Citric acid
• Sugar (Cane sugar is prefered)
• Water

The list of required equipment is also on the short side:

• A kettle
• Tea steeping bags
• Coffee filters (or similar fine, food-grade filters)
• A coffee filter holder
• A scale (some precision is required)
• A thermometer
• A CO2 tank
• Some empty soda bottles
• Some Soda CO2 bottle adapters
• Some small containers
• Some large containers

The actual quantities and procedure are still in the experimental phase, and we’ve tried 16+ different variations. Our current best recipe is:

1. Put 12 grams of Yerba mate (con palo) in a tea steeping bag
2. Put 1.2 grams of citric acid in a small container
3. Put 50 grams of sugar in a small container
4. Boil 440ml of water, let it cool down to 75C
5. Wash the tea for a few seconds using cold water
6. Let the tea steep for 5 minutes
7. Dissolve the sugar in 60ml hot water
8. Dissolve the citric acid in the sugar-water mixture
9. Add 500ml of (cold or hot) water
10. Filter the liquid through a coffee filter multiple times
11. Pour the tea in a soda bottle after it has cooled down a bit (a cold bath helps)
12. Pressurise the bottle to 3 bar of CO2
13. Let the tea rest for a few days

This will result in a very fresh tasting version of club-mate. Its different from the real deal, but it does taste great.

We are still actively working on improving the recipe. Our current attempts are focussing on improving the carbonation and fine-tuning the taste. An overview of (almost) all attempts and our findings can be found on the hackalot website