How a German Soda Became Hackers' Fuel of Choice (2014)

It's not about coolness/hipster, really. Though the recent surge in popularity certainly could be explained that way.

I agree that the taste takes some getting used to. There's a reason the unofficial slogan is "Man gewöhnt sich d'ran" ("One gets used to it"). For me it's mostly the high caffeine content alongside a comparatively low sugar content (lower than any other energy drinks or other caffeinated soft drinks I've come across -- except for the "sugar free" ones).

I tried sugar-free energy drinks for a while but I find the taste too jarring to get used to. I still drink sugar-free Red Bull on occasion (and actually prefer it to regular Red Bull) but I couldn't stand relying on it as my primary source of caffeine.

Basically, Club Mate is my coffee. Red Bull is my espresso. I don't drink coffee (I can't stand the small) but I think that comparison probably works best.

EDIT: Just noticed the article says the slogan "Man gewöhnt sich d'ran" is on the bottle. That seems wrong. I've never seen the slogan used officially. I always thought it was coined by its users, not the company itself.

I'm from Argentina. In my opinion Club Mate taste pretty good: it feels like a "more natural" soda and it's softer than any other soda I know. I think it taste more like mate cocido, which is an alternative preparation of the mate tea. I remember that back in 2003 the Coca-Cola Company made a similar drink called Nativa: it was ok but too sweet for me. On the other hand, Club Mate is perfectly balanced in sweetness.

It is a hipster thing, but it's also genuinely enjoyable. Although recently I've come to prefer the even-more-hipster Club Mate alternatives, like Buenos Mate or Mio Mio.

I don't quite understand why people always bring up genuine mate tea in these discussions on HN. As you say, it's a completely different thing. Club Mate is what you drink instead of cola for an alternative flavor and more caffeine.

I love it, but I can see why it doesn't appeal to some (most?) people.

It's definitely an acquired taste and I don't think it would be as popular if it weren't for the high caffeine content and its popularity with the Chaos Computer Club in Germany.

At this point in Germany it is actually mostly associated with university students rather than hackers in particular. It's certainly no longer as "underground" as it was a few years ago, even if it's still more popular with hackers than with any other subculture.

Maybe I should point out that I don't like coffee and don't smoke. Even though I like Club Mate myself I generally don't expect people who've never drank it before to find it even remotely pleasant.

I also didn't like it the first time but it was an interesting taste. So I tried it later again and got hooked.

I think it's pretty comparable to coffee and beer which are also tastes you first have to learn.

Looking around here at the office I'm currently working in (in Berlin).

I see 3 guys (including me) and 2 club mate bottles. Quite a ratio :-)

When asked what it tastes like I generally say "like drinking Bionade[0] from an ashtray". I can't justify why I like it, really.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionade

Yeah. In our hackerspace about half of the people love it (myself included), and the other half hates it. The most common description of the taste? Water filtered through cigarette butts.

Same in Hackerspace Kraków. We stockpile crates of this stuff whenever our food budget allows. About half of the space hates it, but the other half can go through two crates in a single week.

The Fizzery on Mission St stocks it last time I checked.

Interesting. I just ordered a crate for my company.

The only alternative I was aware of so far was Oettinger Mate, which I personally found absolutely disgusting (in a bad way).

Interesting. On the site note, how do you pronounce the name?

Club Mate has 20mg/100ml.

Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster and similar energy drinks have ~32mg/100ml (I've seen anything from 28 to 32, but 32 seems to be a legal limit and the most popular).

A 500ml can of Rockstar or Monster has 160mg of caffeine.

The caffeine content of regular caffeine pills I can buy at the pharmacy (plain packaging, just branded as "caffeine") is 0.2g per pill, i.e. 200mg (or 100mg per half).

A cup of regular coffee typically contains about 95mg of caffeine.

If a handful of servings of 100mg of caffeine per day would pose a major health risk, the majority of the population in developed nations would already be affected, whether they drink Club Mate or not.

For reference: I would say that in a given day I don't think I've ever drunk more than two liters of Club Mate. Normally I drink about two bottles over the period of a work day. I barely ever drink it outside of work.

I would say that on a typical day (including holidays and weekends) I consume between 100mg and 250mg of caffeine. That's the equivalent of one to two-and-a-half cups of coffee.

EDIT: Google seems to agree that up to 400mg of caffeine a day is safe for most healthy adults. I should probably also point out that some people are just naturally very sensitive to caffeine, so that may explain why you reacted so strongly to Jolt Cola -- especially if you do not normally consume any other sources of caffeine like coffee, tea or dark chocolate.

Depending on your diet, it isn't so much caffeine. A cup of coffee can have 150mg:

http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=8+fl+oz+coffee&x=0&y=0

I don't want to be too down on peoples' beverage or anything. I enjoy a decent cup of coffee myself now and then. But... yeah, I'm also a little distressed at the culture of heavy drug use to get through the working day.

"In crunch time I've had like 10 bottles in a day", says the Wikimedia engineer. Ugh. What other unhealthy habits should we start to be more productive at our jobs? Most of us probably have plenty of free sugary snacks in the office already, so perhaps we can start smoking or become alcoholics to relieve stress on the job?

That's why I get diet Mt. Dew in their handy single-serving 2 liter bottles.

Party smart, not hard? :P

It's totally fine to post older articles to HN. Those are some of the best things that appear here!

If, however, an article has had significant attention in about the last year, we bury it as a duplicate. That applies here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7725078.