The question should not be "when?" It should be "WHY!!!!!?" If I wanted
a more relaxing tea, I would drink one of their other fine herbs tea
blends. Morning Thunder used to make me jittery, but I expected that; I
need to wake UP in the morning!

Sorry to disappoint all you aging hippies but in reality maté has very
little caffeine compared with even a half decent black tea.

Pomilio et al (in Phytochem 13(4):235-41. 2002) tested 14 brands and
bulk maté and found caffeine levels of 0.78 to 1.35%% on a dm basis
(steeped for 5 minutes). Equivalent for a typical UK black tea blend
is 3%%. Maté theobromine was a tad higher than tea at 0.31 to 0.66%%
but even combined (their physiological effect is similar) maté could
only boast 2.01%% of "thunder" - more a "morning zephyr" compared with
a Kenyan clonal at 5-6%% caffeine.

True that, like coffee the caffeine in maté is "raw" and its effect is
not softened by the counterbalance of polyphenols and theanine as it
is in tea. But as for its thunderous performance I suspect the power
of Celestial's advertising rather than the much hyped but totally
incorrect myth about the caffeine content of maté.

Incidentally the work of Pomilio is not alone in showing a low
caffeine content for maté. Filip et al (1998) showed 1.9%% (boiled in
water for 20 minutes) and Saldana et al (2002) showed just 0.3-0.6%%

Nigel at Teacraft