[hackerspaces] moar mate

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 6:36 PM, webmind <webmind at puscii.nl> wrote:
>
> On 2010-09-12 18:21, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
>
>> Regarding Club-Mate, there is a kind of paradox in all the hackerspaces.
>> Club-Mate is the default drink available at any hackerspace around the
>> world but I haven't seen too much hacking around it (except an article in
>> Makezine/2010).
>
> Well, there has been some creativity with recipes and club-mate. Besides
> the usual cocktails there are also club-mate pancakes. I'm sure there
> are more recipes possible. food-hacking ftw :)
>
>> The main plant extract in Club-Mate is the "Ilex paraguariensis" (common name:
>> Yerba mate) and the main active components are : theobromine
>> (well-known to the chocolate fan), caffeine (everyone knows) and
>> dimethylxanthine (the increase of heart pulsation is mainly due to
>> that component).
>
> do you have source of what these xantheines do to you? I haven't been
> able to find any reliable information besides that they have an impact
> on the regulation of hormones (such as adrenaline).

The methylxanthines-derivative were well-known components used for
asthma treatment
(now replaced with other drugs) and you can find a lot of publication
on the side-effects.

I think the main publication in the area is :

http://circres.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/30/4/367.pdf

"Influence of Caffeine and Other Methylxanthines on Mechanical
Properties of Isolated Mammalian Heart Muscle"

and all the publications mentioning the side-effects of asthma
treatment using methylxanthine. I assume that Club-Mate/Ilex extract
includes multiple
derivative of methylxanthines as the xanthine is a very general
group... and usually
some plants could do the synthesis of multiple variations (as the
theomobromine or the caffeine are already variation of the xanthine
group).

It seems only a specific sub-species of the Ilex contains multiple
methyxanthines:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0103-50531999000600004&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

>> The plant cultivation needs specific condition to grow properly but
>> maybe there are some opportunities of gardening hacking? Can
>> we grow easily "Yerba Mate" in pot inside? or even outside in
>> continental weather condition? What are the ways of extraction/brewing
>> and how can we properly measure the active components inside?
>
> Good questions! The loscher people keep their methods secret, but I do
> recall hearing about open-source recipes.

I would be very interested to hear about free-production method for the
Yerba Mate and how the extraction is efficiently performed.

This sounds to be a nice hacking project.

adulau

-- 
--                   Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) -- http://www.foo.be/
--                             http://www.foo.be/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Diary
--         "Knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance
--                                that we can solve them" Isaac Asimov