Mate Tea

Product Details

Mate Tea from Brazil / Yerba Mate, is a traditional drink widely consumed in Southern Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It's a natural product without chemicals or other addictives.

Mate (Spanish: [ˈmate], Portuguese: [ˈmatʃi]; sometimes spelled maté in English though not in Spanish or Portuguese),[1] also known as chimarrão (Portuguese: [ʃimɐˈʁɐ̃w̃]) or cimarrón (Spanish: [simaˈron]), is a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused drink, that was first consumed by the Guaraní and also spread by the Tupí people. It is the National Beverage in Argentina,[2] Uruguay and Paraguay. It is also consumed in the Bolivian Chaco, Southern Chile, Southern Brazil, Syria—the largest importer in the world—and Lebanon, where it was brought from Argentina by immigrants.[3][4]

It is prepared by steeping dried leaves of yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis, known in Portuguese as erva-mate) in hot water and is served with a metal straw from a shared hollow calabash gourd. The straw is called a bombilla in Spanish, a bomba in Portuguese, and a bombija or, more generally, a masassa (straw) in Arabic. The straw is traditionally made of silver. Modern, commercially available straws are typically made of nickel silver (called alpaca), stainless steel, or hollow-stemmed cane. The gourd is known as a mate or a guampa; while in Brazil, it has the specific name of cuia, or also cabaça (the name for Indigenous-influenced calabash gourds in other regions of Brazil, still used for general food and drink in remote regions). Even if the water is supplied from a modern thermos, the infusion is traditionally drunk from mates or cuias.

The mate leaves are dried, chopped, and ground into a powdery mixture called yerba, "erva" in Portuguese, which means "herb". The bombilla functions as both a straw and a sieve. The submerged end is flared, with small holes or slots that allow the brewed liquid in, but block the chunky matter that makes up much of the mixture. A modern bombilla design uses a straight tube with holes, or a spring sleeve to act as a sieve.[5]