Yerba Yerba review: Singapore’s first and only Yerba Mate cafe

Finally, a new cafe in Singapore that deviates from the standard iced lattes and strawberry matchas.

Yerba Yerba is a new weekend-only bar tucked along Bali Lane that serves only Yerba Mate, a traditional herbal drink from South America. On their menu, you’ll find different origins, and a traditional mate service poured from a hand-thrown ceramic vessel the owner made himself.

How does it taste?

I’ve never had authentic Yerba Mate before, so I can’t comment on how authentic it is. But according to Ben, the founder of Yerba Mate, he said that most Yerba Mates he’s had in Singapore tend to be sweetened and thicker — more of an energy drink than a traditional wellness tea.

We started with a their Traditional Mate Service, featuring the Canarias Edición Especial ($15), a premium, full-bodied Uruguayan cut served the way it’s meant to be: a shared mate vessel and a kettle kept at 70°C so you can keep refilling as the leaves mellow out. It’s the only variety on the menu you can’t take away, and I was surprised that it tasted like spiced mango.

The cold brew menu ($5–$9) features four varieties. El Clasico ($5) is pure, cold-steeped yerba mate that tastes close to a dry, smoky herbal tea.

The Oat Yerba Latte ($7) softens that into something creamier with mellow cereal notes, while Triple Black ($7) is steeped with cinnamon and liquorice root for a bolder, spiced cup. The Yuzu & Herbs ($9) goes furthest from the original leaf — infused with chamomile, mint, lemon verbena and linden flower, then finished with yuzu juice for something bright and floral.

I was surprised by how good oat paired with the herbal drink — highly recommend this if you’re getting this on the go.

If mate isn’t your thing yet, the Yerba Mate Cookies (from $2.5 for 1) are the safer bet — soft, buttery, loaded with semi-sweet chocolate chunks. Ben keeps the yerba mate flavour deliberately mild here — it really just tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. Singaporeans, he says, are already adjusting to an unfamiliar drink, so he’d rather the cookie taste familiar than double down on the herbal notes.

What Is Yerba Mate, Anyway?

Despite the name, yerba mate isn’t technically a tea — Ben points out it doesn’t come from the same plant family, which makes it more of a herb than anything else. “Yerba” refers to the leaves themselves, imported from countries across South America including Argentina and Uruguay.

Yerba Brewing Set in Singapore — the mate is handmade by Ben himself

“Mate” is the name of the vessel it’s traditionally drunk from.

Traditional prep is its own small ritual: cover the mate and give it a shake to knock the dust off the leaves, leaving the leaf itself behind. Steep first in room-temperature water for two to three minutes, then top up with water at around 75°C. It’s slower than a regular cuppa, but that’s part of the appeal — the ritual is as much the point as the drink.

Why it’s worth going?

The clearest reason to visit Yerba Yerba is the Traditional Mate Service. It’s the one thing on the menu you genuinely can’t get anywhere else in Singapore, poured from a mate that Ben hand-threw himself. If you want to take the ritual home, he sells a full Yerba Mate Brewing Set for $68.

Ben doubles as a teacher at Laselle, and a potter himself. You’ll find his own ceramics displayed on the shelves in the cafe.

Location: Yerba Yerba, 31A Bali Lane, Singapore 189867
Opening hours:
Mon-Thu: Closed
Fri–Sun, 12pm–8pm

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Colman Cheung

There are pros and cons when being friends with Colman. You get good food recommendations and the occasional candid shots between taking snaps of the food. But there’s also the mandatory 15-minutes waiting time and the constant whining of how your noodle pull sucks. He’s also a sucker for coffee.