Mate Drinking

In an attempt to immerse ourselves in the culture of South America we have purchased something called a "mate" gourd, and some "yerba" to go with it. Mate is a hot drink similar to tea, prepared by pouring hot water onto yerba leaves packed into a gourd like the one above. It is the national drink of Argentina and Uruguay, and is ubiquitous in the gaucho (cowboy) areas of those countries. In fact, no self respecting gaucho leaves the house without awkwardly clutching his/her entire mate set-up, including the yerba, a mate gourd, a "bombilla" (metal drinking straw), and an unnecessarily cumbersome hot water flask. We decided against purchasing the flask due to weight, space and practicality issues.

The correct manner and social context in which to drink mate is fiercely complicated. I discovered this when surfing the net to find out how to drink the stuff. Check out this extract from Wikipedia:

"After arranging the yerba along one side of the gourd, the mate is carefully tilted back onto its base, minimizing further disturbances of the yerba as it is re-oriented to allow consumption. The angled mound of yerba should remain, with its powdery peak still flat and mostly level with the top of the gourd. A layer of stems along its slope will slide downward and accumulate in the space opposite the yerba"

Riiiiiight. We went with the "dump leaves in, pour hot water on, drink with straw" approach. Below are the results. Enough said ...