Drink Mate and you feel life running through your veins

What is that thing people carry the whole time in the streets of Buenos Aires? And not only there.  Also on the other side of the Rio de la Plata, in Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, almost every man and woman walk with the thermos and the Mate in hand. What is so special about this drink?

By Dominique Verschuren

Never say it's tea. It's Mate. Speaking as: 'ma-té'. What is that, Mate? Mate is the holder. The holder is made from pumpkin. It can be decorated in the most various ways.

The Mate you fill with Yerba Mate, herbs. Before preparing you have to heal the pumpkin inside in order to impregnate with Mate flavour. So you take away the favour of the pumpkin.

How to prepare Mate?

You fill three quarters of the Mate with Yerba. You put a bit of cold water first in order to protect the Yerba, otherwise you burn the Yerba. Then you put the hot water.

You drink the Mate by a bombilla. Bombilla is a sort of straw made of alpaca (a kind of metal). That's something else than a plastic straw in a milkshake! A foam on the top of the herbs tells you you're a good Meta-maker.

Before you pour some more water you have ending it till the bottom. A well equipped Mate-drinker always carries a thermos by hand.

A social drink

Leila Saba is a Peruvian who lives in Buenos Aires. She drinks Mate since she moved to the Argentine capital. Mate is not only healthy for the body, but also for the soul. Saba: "Mate is a social drink that you share. Like a reefer. There is no specific season to drink it, or a particular time of the day. Also the place is completely indifferent: in the office, at home, on the street, in the supermarket... In England they have four o'clock tea time or going to a pub for having a pint. Here you ask some people to join drinking Mate. In a social way Mate is a source of totally equality. The servant and the boss drinks from the same straw."

Mate as a meta-phor for life

Mate is more than just a drink. It's a symbol, for Latin-America and far beyond. Saba: "A good Mate is a metaphor for life. You have to take care of it before you use it. It doesn't come easy. It's like a relationship. It needs balance, don't drink it too hot or too cold. It's not love on first sight, it grows. And suddenly you realized you cannot life without it. Even in the bitterness of it you feel some comfort of drinking Mate."

(Thanks to Helen Williams)