i wasn’t aware of this since i’m not a follower of energy drinks. not that this is new information, but anyways, from wikipedia:
Mate products are sometimes marketed as “caffeine-free” alternatives to coffee and tea, and said to have fewer negative effects. This is often based on a claim that the primary active xanthine in mate is “mateine”, erroneously said to be a stereoisomer of caffeine. As it is not chemically possible for caffeine to have a stereoisomer, this claim is false. “Mateine” is an official synonym of caffeine in the chemical databases.
According to the Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank, when guaranine is defined as only the caffeine chemical in guarana, it is identical to the caffeine chemical derived from other sources, for example coffee, tea, and mate. Guaranine, theine, and mateine are all synonyms for caffeine when the definitions of those words include none of the properties and chemicals of their host plants except the chemical caffeine. Natural sources of caffeine contain widely varying mixtures of xanthine alkaloids other than caffeine, including the cardiac stimulants theophylline and theobromine and other substances such as polyphenols which can form insoluble complexes with caffeine.
