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Comment by soneca | Hacker News Reader

> ”sipping a hot, slightly bitter infusion of caffeinated leaves from a dried gourd through a filtered metal straw, before passing the gourd to their friends to share”

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.

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It really depends, if you are with people for sure, but I see Ubers and concierge drinking it solo all the time.

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.

> 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.

No, that’s not correct at all.

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

Argentinian here. Yes, you drink all the mate (preferably in three sips) before returning it to the "cebador" (the one who is in charge of refilling it).

In Argentina the mate (the gourd) was usually shared (when I was there a decade ago). In Uruguay usually only the thermo was passed around.

The Brazilian tradition is to drink the whole mate before passing to your friend. They will then refill it with hot water and so on.

In Paraguay it is indeed cold terere but it is absolutely shared, rarely drank solo

in the middle east it is generally not shared, everyone has their own and the host will refill your gourd with water.

In Brazil, each person drinks a whole cup before returning it to the cevador (the owner of the circle, normally the person who made the drink and holds the thermos). It's bad form to send it back partially drank.

Paraguayan here.

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.

Does it contain antibacterials?

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?

The pipe used to drink it is made of silver and the thing is really hot. Drinkers believe it sterilizes the liquid, unfortunately, the Hep-B virus is tolerant to both. Brazil's Minister of Health records frequent outbreaks of the disease in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, where this habit is more common.

Do you mean hep a?

As a kid I tried hanging with adults doing this.

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.

Correct, that’s a thing only in Rio Grande do Sul.

Source: born and raised there :)

Incorrect. Gaúcho here, born and raised - but with many many friends and relatives in the other mate-drinking countries and across our (unfortunately currently under a lot of distress) state.

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 see, I didn’t know about Argentina.

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.

Yeah, this is how I have drank mate my entire life and everyone I know (apart from my wife and her Uruguayan family) drinks mate in this way. I'm originally from Bs As, but I've confirmed this with folks from Salta (NW), Santa Cruz (S), Corrientes (NE, althought not as much as Formosa!) and the odd Cordobes and Mendocino as well.

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).

Argentinian here, if you are alone, you drink alone, if you are with other people, you share. Sometimes there are more than one mate in the round.

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.

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