How to Make a Proper Mate

I knew there was a reason I stopped over in Salta for a night on the way from Cafayate to Purmamarca. While eating a delicious meal of humitas (like a tamal, but with only cheese and mashed corn wrapped in the corn husk) on a bench in the main plaza, I decided to ask an Argentine couple seated nearby where a good place to buy a mate would be. Instead of answering my question (they were from out of town and didn´t know the answer), the man proceeded to give me an incredibly useful lecture on how to select a proper mate (recipient for preparing the tea), bombilla (straw to drink it through), and the yerba mate (plant from which the tea is made) itself.

First of all, mate is pronounced ¨mah-tay¨, and refers not to the drink but to its container. Mates can be made of glass, metal, wood, or gourds. In the opinion of my teacher on the subject, those made of palo santo (wood) or calabaza (gourd) are the best types because they don´t interfere with the taste of the yerba mate. To prevent ruining the flavor, you should have a specific mate for preparing the drink bitter (as is), and a separate mate for the times when you want to add sugar.

Whatever type of mate you choose, it is important that it have a fluted shape at the top. This is because when you pour the yerba mate in, you then cover the mate with your hand, tilt it slightly, and shake. The dustiest bits of the yerba mate mix rise to the top, and catch on the lip of the fluted top, thus preventing them from settling to the bottom where they might be sipped up into your straw. You also want your mate to be thick-walled, so that when you pour the hot water in doesn´t burn your hand to hold it.

The bombilla is the biggest investment. The finest are made of silver (and can cost well over 100 US Dollars), but my teacher felt that alpaca (which will set you back around 30 US Dollars) is just as good. Either way, you want to choose a thick straw, so that you don´t burn your lips with it. He also advised finding a bombilla with a round bulb in the middle--when the hot water passes through it, the air in it serves to cool it down.

As for the yerba mate, he advised me to always choose a mix that has larger slivers of the plant itself in it. When you get a mix that is all dust, it is harder to keep some of it from passing through the bombilla and into your mouth.

Once you have all the right accessories, you´re ready to make your beverage. You pour the yerba mate into your mate according to how much flavor you want, and then add water until it´s just below the lip of the fluted top. You then carefully put your bombilla in so as not to disturb the yerba mate, and resist the temptation to mix the beverage with your bombilla, which would make some of the dust fall to the bottom and come up through the bombilla and into your mouth.

All over Argentina, you see people carrying thermoses of hot water around with them, which they periodically pour into their mate to refresh their beverage. If you stop to talk to someone who is drinking yerba mate, they are very likely to offer you a sip. It took me awhile to get used to so casually sharing straws with a complete stranger, but it´s an integral form of social bonding here.