Walk down any street in any town in Argentina at about 3:00 in the afternoon and you’ll see someone pouring hot water from a thermos into a gourd, drinking it through a straw, then passing it to a friend who repeats the process.
They’re drinking yerba mate (pronounced mah-tay), a bitter herb that’s high and caffeine and is brewed like tea. It’s usually consumed from a hollowed-out gourd, though some people drink it from tiny metal mugs. You drink it through a metal straw-like utensil (called a bombillo) that has a filter on the end so the mate leaves can’t get through. It’s almost always shared with someone else. Drinking mate is a social activity and offering mate to a stranger isn’t uncommon.
Everyone drinks it. Teenagers sit in parks passing around a gourd, just as old ladies share it on porches. It’s the perfect way to pass siesta, the break everyone goes on from 12-5 pm.
After two weeks in Argentina, we couldn’t resist the urge to try mate for ourselves. We bought a gourd and bombillo from a store in Rosario, then headed to the market for mate and a thermos. We googled “how to drink mate” and read that you have to cure a mate gourd before you use it, so we waited impatiently for two days while our gourd cured.
When it was finally ready, we were nervous. We’d read all about how mate has an incredibly strong flavor and is an acquired taste. We brewed our mate and I went first. Here are our unexaggerated, gut reactions to our first tastes of mate:
But we didn’t give up. We found that adding sugar, as some Argentines do, helped with the bitterness. And of course the more water you add, the weaker it gets, so we started watering down our mate a bit more. We shared mate with others on a few occasions, with people who worked at hostels and a tour guide. Elizabeth predicts that mate, with its high caffeine content and herbal benefits, will become a trend in the US. I like to think that I eventually acquired a taste for it, even though that first sip always has more bite than I expect.
Even so, I’m glad we gave yerba mate a try. It really is the ultimate Argentine experience.
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I think I shall add a Bombillo to my amazon wish list.
Yerba Mate is definitely on the bitter side but the health benefits are great. I suggest adding some agave nectar which looks like honey with a more mild taste and is all natural and has a low glycemic index and can be kept on the shelf without the crystalization of honey. Enjoy
You can open up a Yerba Mate store in Minnesota!!!!!!!!
Some types of Yerba Mate aren’t as bitter as others. I suggest Kurupi or Pajarito. They both have some mint in them so it doesn’t taste bitter.
Hi there. I’m Argentine, and live in El Bolsón, where you’ve been. Your story about your first mate is at once charming and hilarious. Even though I’m rather the coffee type — I rarely make mate for myself when alone — it’s also rare the day when I don’t drink at least a few sips with a friend. However, I do like mate, the bitter the better! — and I’m fond of it as it is so strongly a social enhancer. Also I like very much that it is a surviving custom from South American original people Guaraníes. I like to think of it as a national symbol, stronger and more real than the flag or the anthem, although the Uruguayans drink it much more than us (you can see them while shopping alone with their thermos under the arm, and the mate in one hand). While sharing a mate, you can’t avoid being a little more friendly — it’s difficult to argue while doing it. Normally, there is one person who “ceba” it (specific verb for preparing mate), and gives it in turn to each one in the “rueda” (“wheel” of people drinking it). They don’t need to be sitting still in a circle, they can be working, walking around, but the the “cebador” will keep in mind and respect everyone’s turn in the “rueda”. Sometimes, when there are too many people in the “rueda”, you can do a “toma-ceba” (meaning that who drinks pours the water for the next person), but some people don’t like it because they say that the mate “se lava” (“gets washed”, meaning that it loses flavour) faster. It is also very, very important to “cebar” el mate, not to let the water boil, because it gets “lavado” from the beginning (let alone that it’ll burn your tongue) — when that happens, we just put new water to heat. A couple of remarks: it is “bombilla” (not “bombillo”), meaning literally “tiny pump” (from “bomba”, which means bomb but also pump; “bombillo” would mean “tiny bass drum”, from “bombo”). And when you go to buy the herb, you don’t go buy mate but “yerba” (djayr-bah); if you to go buy the mate, you’re buying the gourd or the mug. Finally, I find funny that being in Argentina you googled “how to drink mate”– why didn’t you just ask anyone?
Now I have to go, I feel an incredible urge to “cebarme unos amargos” (bitter ones) 
Drinking Mate: The ultimate URUGUAYAN experience
I started drinking yerba mate when my sister introduced it to me. She married a man from Argentina, and he always has loads of energy. She told me about the energy boosting properties of yerba, and since there is no caffine, it wouldn’t raise my insulin levels. I boil the mate with the water, unstrained on the stove. I strain it with a mesh coffee filter into a coffee cup, and add one tablespoon of natural, unsulphered blackstrap molasses (very healthy, packed with minterals and vitamins). It tastes surprisingly like coffee! Add a little soy milk, and it’s so delicious. No bitter taste. I have read that coffee is a pro-inflamatory, which ages people rapidly. I have also read that coffee hardens arteries over time as well. So, needless to say, I am very glad to have found out about yerba mate.
i liked this thread and i really liked guillermo’s comments on this neat cultural phenomenon
for my part, i just got back from a 1 month motorcycle trip in argentina; the 2 cultural phenomena that i liked best about argentina was sharing mate among friends (and sometimes strangers, as was my case in a youth hostel) and the kissing on the cheek between friends and relatives; i find these traditions to be really powerful bonding rituals; i wish we had something like this in north america
now if the argentines can only learn to drive!!! lol
hi, great post! , this is the first reaction that everyone has when they take their first mate, especially if they expect something “delicious”.
I’m uruguayan, and I’m right now drinking my morning mate and reading you. Guillermo made a great descripcion of “the culture of mate”.
I’ll just add that in Uruguay the “yerba” has less “sticks”. That allow us to make a “small mountain” on the opposite side of the “bombilla” that keeps the “yerba” dry, you can pour the water and it don’t “get washed” (lose the bitter taste). That also allow you “dar vuelta el mate” when it loses the bitter taste. “Dar vuelta el mate” : you turn the “bombilla” like a clock, 12, 3, 6, 9.
When you are drinking on a round of people, you have to respect your turn, you should never move the “bombilla”, you have to drink it till it makes the tipical sound (shhh) and you have to give it back to the “cebador”, if you get confused and you give it to other person, you have to kiss it (the “mate”, not the person)
And, of course, the mate must be bitter! (sugar is a sin), have a nice day and keep on trying!