Mate, pronounced “MAH-tay” in Spanish, is a traditional Latin American tea-like beverage. In Argentina, it is even more popular than coffee and tea combined, and is consumed by everyone regardless of social background. It is in fact the Argentine national drink and every aspect of mate drinking is codified into an Argentine cultural institution.
Mate is a hot water infusion of the dried, ground up leaves of the Yerba mate plant, originally cultivated by the indigenous Guaraní people. Spanish colonizers adopted the drink and spread it throughout the colonies in South America, although they managed to insult the Guaraní first by referring to both them and their mate as “cimarrón,” which means feral in this context.
The the original mate called, “mate amargo,” was prepared without any sugar or flavoring. Nowadays, some Argentines drink their mate “dulce,” or sweetened with sugar.
Generally, mate is never sipped out of a cup or mug, but instead out of a special hollowed out calabasa gourd, also called a mate. This traditional vessel is still the only way you will see mate drunk, even in cosmopolitan cities like Buenos Aires. Since the mate is prepared from loose leaf tea, a special straw called a bombilla must be used to ensure that stems and plant matter are not consumed with the tea. The bombilla is a short, straight straw traditionally made out of silver with a flared round base punched with tiny holes to strain out the bits of yerba. The only time mate is not drunk from a mate gourd is if you’re drinking mate Cocido, which is prepared by boiling yerba mate and then straining it into a teacup. Mate Cocido is apparently also known as the original “Tea of the Jesuits.”
Mate is typically enjoyed in a social setting, but it is also common to see people carrying thermoses of hot water on the street. It’s somewhat akin to an Argentine version of Starbucks for caffeine on the go. When it is drunk in a communal setting, the same gourd and bombilla are passed around the group. The person who prepares the mate and passes it around is known as the cebador. The cebador will first make the mate and drink it all, to ensure it isn’t too bitter, before refilling and passing it along. After it has been passed around and refilled about ten times, the flavor goes away and it becomes “lavado,” or washed out. If you’re hogging the mate for too long, your Argentine friends might tell you, “¡No es un microfono!” Sharing mate is an important part of Argentine social life, and drinking mate together fulfills the same function as Americans meeting at a coffee shop. I’m pretty sure this entire nation is addicted to mate—even the immigration official who stamped my passport when I went to Uruguay was sipping away.
If you’re curious to try mate for yourself, there’s a highly sweetened, uncarbonated soft drink version available in Weshop. I bet you five bucks that it’s right next to the kombucha. Mate soda really tastes nothing like the real thing, and you miss out on the whole social aspect, but hey, if you can’t find the authentic yerba mate loose leaf at a grocery store, try Aviva brand at www.yerba-mate.com for an organic, environmentally sustainable supply.