Yerba mate, from Paraguay to Syria
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globalvoices.org
A nitpick on Tereré. Tereré is usually the ice-cold version of mate. You drink mate with hot water, tereré with ice-cold water as a refreshment.
The practice of drinking it with fruit juice or some sweet beverage is mostly prevalent on northern Argentina. Here it is mostly viewed as a sacrilege. You drink your yerba mate, whether hot or cold, unsweetened (unless brewed as in cocido; in that case, sweetening it is accepted).
Tereré is something almost essential here in our scorching hot days. What a blessing!
In case you wonder, if you want to get an idea of yerba mate's taste, think green tea. They're not equal, of course, but there's some similarity.
In those same regions a sort of sweetened hot mate drink is typically made for children. Do you have that in Paraguay? It's called "Mate-doce", and I'm pretty sure it's not related to what you described as "cocido", which I've never heard of and sounds like it prepares the leaves in a different way
Does anyone have a 'recipe' for this cocido? I'm curious to check it out
We also have "mate dulce" but it's mate usually only in name. It's made with coconut and other stuff, but drank in a mate gourd. As far as I can tell (I'm no expert, never made or drank the stuff) it does not carry yerba mate at all.
It's basically milk tea but with yerba mate instead of tea.
I know a few retired Argentine Navy guys who make their mate cocido in a coffee percolator. The horrors of war change a man in ways difficult for us civilians to understand.
What about adding additional herbs (yuyos) for flavoring? Not fully sure, but I have the impression that it is mostly a Paraguayan thing.
Its Latin name is unfortunate, though.
* Historically the ceremonial consumption often included vomiting, and Europeans deduced that yaupon caused it (hence the Latin name - Ilex vomitoria).[11] The active ingredients, like those of the related yerba mate and guayusa plants, are caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline;[12][13] the vomiting may have resulted from the great quantities in which they drank the beverage, coupled with fasting.[6][14]*
FWIW, as a long-time resident in the north-east USA, I've seen mate increasingly available in large grocery stores (super markets); though not consistently. And often it's the pre-mixed 'canned mate' form -- whatever that stuff is; I've never tried it. But Mate is typically also available in ground leaf/powder form, in tea bags. And sometimes in bulk form. That's what I purchase.
Sadly, I've rarely encountered Mate in restaurants in the USA, even in ones which advertise a selection of high-quality teas. At best, I've seen it in independent tea rooms and coffee bars. No, NOT in StarPhucks--yucks: coffee so bitter--at least not any of the ones near me.
After trying several of the brands of Mate that my local grocery store carried, I (happily) settled on the products from the Mate Factor company, from Asheville, NC. (I have no connection with them, other than as a very satisfied customer.) I particularly like their 'Mocha Mint' flavor, hot, either by itself, or slighly sweetened. (Though I can taste the mint note, most definitely; the mocha part is: ehh?) I think the Chai flavor is also good, but may be more of an acquired taste. The Hibiscus Lime is also yummy (IMO); but may not be a good choice for those who gave up coffee or tea for mate on acidity grounds (that's not medical advice, and I'm not your doctor).
https://matefactor.com/collections/yerba-mate
EDIT: typo fixes
(I know that is supposed to hit slowly due to whatever other compounds, but its not my experience)
1. Coffee doesn't have a net negative hydration effect.
2. Both coffee and yerba mate appear to contain "mineral salts". And you certainly piss drinking the latter just like you do drinking any liquid.
"how did it captivate so many millions of daily drinkers around the world?"
Unlike coffee beans it's trivial to produce, you basically just chop leaves and dry them, possibly with smoke.
Unlike coffee there are no adrenergic heebie-jeebies, only a rather strong and 'pure' caffeine high. Supposedly there's a mineral content that'll be nice to the nervous system too.
There are rumours about it causing stomach and mouth cancer, with some studies seemingly supporting this and some countering that it might just be the practice of drinking a very hot infusion. Making a cold infusion works fine, at least with regards to the drug effects.
I'm not too worried about the cancer stuff and usually keep a kilogram or so in the cupboard in case I run out of more expensive caffeine sources.
If so they just decided that alcohol and tobacco don't have any effect on prostate cancer prevalence and then went on and crunched some numbers on threehundred or so cases, out of which a third said they'd been smokers for more than fifty years.
I think it's very hard to generalise from that study alone.
Yeah and from what I remember, frequently cited studies were looking at the combination of maté with tobacco and alcohol, others didn't control for the delivery style. Maté, especially when consumed in a tiny gourd that's constantly refreshed with boiling water, can make the tissues in your mouth and neck more vulnerable to subsequent cigarettes.
On top of that, maté leaves are often smoke dried, which carries some self-evident risks. My conclusion was to get air dried leaves and be mindful of how hot the water is.
Meta Mate (https://metamate.cc/) makes a total bomb of a mate product, can highly recommend if you are in Europe and want to try out their refreshing Meta Mate 23.
Have to order another batch from them now, I've tested many mates but theirs just tastes and works the best for me.
Was introduced to mate by a fellow software developer back in the day, happy that he did, would not have figure out it otherwise.
Source: an Argentinian who drinks more coffee than mate
Not sure if the other xanthines make up for that.
It’s still a stimulant but in a more relaxing way
Someone might correct me, but I believe it is only in Brazil south that “chimarrão” (how they call this drink) is drank like this, hot and shared.
In Argentina and Uruguay you drink it individually. You can share the recipient with the mate in it, but once you added a refill of hot water and took the first sip, you have to drink it until the end before returning.
And in Paraguay they drink the “tereré” with cold water.
Plus there is always San Pedro’s or San Jaun’s cup. I forget the guys name it’s the guy who saved the Indios, when you first make terere you leave it sit and this is for that guy and also to let the horrible first taste soak into the first sip.
Also as I found out it’s really bad manners to stir the spoon / straw thing.
It is as it ruins the experience. The "bomba" (Portuguese), or "bombilla" (Spanish) (the straw) is generally placed in a way that tries to ensure a smooth flow. Moving it means the leaves near the bottom of the "cuia" (Portuguese), or "mate" (Spanish) (the gourd, or cup), potentially blocking the flow of water. That ruins the experience for everybody in the circle.
Source: born and raised there :)
Everywhere in the Pampas region - Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Rio Grande do Sul -, the "roda de chimarrão" is pretty much the same. (Apparently in some part of Uruguay it's a bit less shared, more personal).
One person holds the thermos and generally owns the mate. They usually have the first drink as both a way of validating the drink and as a niceness to the rest of the group, since it's the coldest. Gourd is refilled and passed on to the next person, who drinks all of it and passes it back to the "cevador", who again refills it and passes on to the next person. So on and so forth.
I grew up in a border town bordering Uruguay and over there I’d definitely see folks carrying their personal thermos and cuia. But I would see groups on the Brazilian side of the border.
Uruguayans tend to be more likely to have one thermo and mate per person, similar to the tradition in Corrientes (which makes sense if you look at who their immediate neighbors on their western border are).
People from the north of Argentina also drink tereré, with cold water or juice.
What's different from Brasil is the yerba they use, here is dried, there is not.
Seems like an easy vector to spread sickness or disease. Or am I misunderstanding things? Is it like bums sharing a nighttrain [though alcohol helps here] or is there some hygiene involved?
With hot water = mate.
Brewed as tea or coffee and drank with a teacup = cocido.
With ice-cold water = tereré.
Both mate and tereré are shared if appropriate, but after COVID this is seriously restricted.
People who drink their mate only to themselves are usually the Uruguayans.
That social circle was fun. I do miss it.
The idea of sitting in a circle today for four hours between meals seems unattainable today.
In meetings, you share the mate across, I’ve only seen 1:1 people:mate relations in American shows (grace and Frankie for example) and we consider that very weird.
The social point of mate is to meet and chat with other people, and spend some time together, sharing mate and food
EDIT: Also, the first steeping and drink is the most bitter. After that it's much, much less bitter. Comparable to other teas and black coffee.
I do something similar to what you do with mint tea instead of oolong for the summertime. A kind of terere cocido I guess lol.