Mate and How to Share it
Almost everyone that met me in person has seen me with it. And I could write many thousands of words about the peace I get when drinking it enjoying a sunrise, the way it feels me up after a long day, the essential it becomes in a friend’s meeting or its capacity to make enjoyable the conversation with someone I’ve just met.
But let’s put feelings aside (for a moment) and let’s talk about data. Facts, not opinions (?).
I’ll make an introduction about the drink and its components for you, my dear foreigner1 reader. Take it as a cultural gift from me. And to all the compañeros peronistas, I’ll give some very important advices. They can be used when you introduce the drink to someone who has never seen it. Because this may seem a simple task, but it’s not.
What is it?
The mate’s decoration, the straw, the carefully placed herbs and the special care at serving water, creates an atmosphere of sophistication, magic and theatre… And although this is somehow true (?), it is not in the practical sense. Why? Because the mate is nothing that complex, really. It’s just a pot full of herbs called yerba, in which you add (serve) a little (around two spoons) of hot water (not boiling) and is ready to be drank. Easy! Its taste is bitter, like a sugar free tea (somehow). The serving and drinking pattern is repeated many times, giving people the chance of creating a shared activity out of it: in turns, each one drinks a serve.
A curiosity is how you consume it. Instead of tilting a cup to your mouth, like you would do with tea, the mate is drank sucking on a straw. And even though it sounds unhygienic, the straw is one and is shared among all the drinkers.
The most interesting thing (in my opinion) is the cup used: the mate (Yup, “mate” is both the drink and the mug). They come in different colours, shapes, materials and sizes. Wood, pumpkin, metal, glass, ceramic, covered with leather, painted, tall, short and wide, decorated with silver… People say that its appearance defines the owner personality, like if it were a pet. Impossible to prove (?).
If you want to know more, please take a look to Wikipedia. It has some good information in English :)
Sharing advices
After many times of introducing our beloved south-american drink to people from other countries, I learned that some things have to be said at the very first. Some others don’t. Here I go:
Before serving:
- Clarify that this is not a drug. Because we have to be honest: placing the herbs carefully in the pot before shaking it is, at least, suspicious. We need to kill that idea from the beginning.
- clean the straw. Whether you do it regularly or not, it’s good to do it explicitly. It can be done with a napkin, i.e. But it has to be done, since the average European dislikes the idea of sharing it.
While you serve:
- tell out loud, with a serious face: “do not move the straw, leave it there”. Because curiosity killed the cat (?). Almost everyone I met want to see how it is in the other side.
While you give it:
- say: “Be careful, it’s hot”. It should be obvious when looking at the vapor, but for some enigmatic reason it isn’t.
Right after they start drinking:
- explain: “drink it ALL, and then you return it back TO ME” (note the emphasis). This is needed specially if you talked about the social aspect before. That is usually misunderstood . If they are two of them, for example, the tendency is: one takes a sip and pass it on to his friend. Or even worse: they pass it on to you so you have to finish it!. The real drinking pattern “One serves - one drinks - one serves - other drinks - one serves - other (me) drinks” seems to be non-trivial; and we should define the steps clearly as soon as possible.
And that’s it! With all this information you should be able to get a fake “hmmm I like it” in return. Why? Because, sadly, nobody likes it at first.◆
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By foreigner I mean people from other places than Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay or south Brazil. ↩