Yerba Mate Tea

According to legend, Yerba Mate was given to humankind as a "drink of friendship." The story belongs to the Guarani people, indigenous peoples of South America particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. The Yerba Mate legend tells of how goddesses came to the earth one day and were threatened by a jaguar. Risking his own life, an old man saved them from the attack. The goddesses gave him a special plant, Yerba Mate, from which he could always prepare the drink of friendship. Consequently, the tradition of drinking Yerba Mate involves passing a communal cup around so that all may share in this friendship drink together.

To prepare Yerba Mate tea you need the right equipment. Of course it's just a bunch of leaves and water, but the joy of this drink comes not just from the flavor but from the tradition of how it's made.

What you need, apart from the tea kettle to boil the water, is a special hollow calabash gourd, often decorated with silver and knows as a guampa, and a silver straw called a bombilla. The leaves of the Yerba Mate plant are dried and crushed, and placed in the gourd. It must be treated with cold water first, to protect the herb from scalding which ruins the flavor and changes the nutritional elements.

Photo of bombilla from Wikimedia Commons.

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The bombilla can be inserted before or after the water, depending on local custom. The basic idea, though, is that the gourd is tilted so that the Yerba Mate material is arranged in a lopsided pile to one side of the gourd, by a process of shaking and tilting. Hot water is carefully added to the mixture, and it is ready to drink through the bombilla, which is inserted at an angle. The bombilla acts both as a straw to suck up the liquid and as a filter to prevent solid particles of the herb from being drunk by mistake. The gourd can be refilled several times, as the herb is quite strong and its flavor continues through several fillings until it is "washed out."

I have to admit, the drink looks rather unappetizing, with all those bits of crushed leaves stuck there, and even mold grows in the gourds which is considered a good addition to the flavor! However, it actually is an enjoyable drink, with a flavor somewhere between coffee and green tea with some plant-like additional flavors. Unique and worth a try.

And, if you don't want to deal with all the shaking, tilting, and straining of the loose herbs, it's also available in tea bags!

Copyright © Jennifer P. Tanabe, 2009.
This page was created on May 17, 2009 and is the property of jptanabe (Jennifer P. Tanabe) and Squidoo, LLC. Please do not copy my material!