Yerba Mate aka the Diuretic Nectar of the Gods

So, I’ve been meaning to write a little something about Yerba Mate since arriving in Paraguay. For those of you who have heard of Yerba Mate before, I’m sorry that this may be a bit a repetitive, but then again, in Paraguay, where you can have three different variations of Yerba Mate before lunchtime, Yerba Mate is intrinsically a bit repetitive. Yerba Mate is a type of tea leaves (made from a Yerba Tree) that is very common in Paraguay as well as other places in South America (so folks from/who have been to Argentina have heard about it). In Paraguay, especially since coffee isn’t really a thing, Yerba Mate is kind of a staple/how you drink water. So far I have had four different preparations of Mate.

1. Mate—a hot drink. All you need is a thermos of boiling water, a cup (guampa), about ½ a cup of Yerba Mate leaves in the bottom of the guampa, a metal straw (bombilla), and two or more people. To serve, one person pours the hot water into the guampa containing the Yerba Mate, then dealing to the right, passes the guampa. The receiving Mate drinker/participant, sips up the boiling serving, and then passes the guampa back to the server. Server drinks last. There is a special verb for this type of Mate in guarani: Akay’u= I drink mate. This type of Yerba Mate tea is had first thing in the morning (while still picking sleep out of your eyes) and is more of a cold weather tea.
2. Cocido—this is Paraguayan tea. Take a metal spatula/fire mini-shovel. Place a couple spoonfuls of Yerba Mate on the shovel and in some cases sugar. Place coal from the fire on top of this mix and burn the Yerba Mate/caramelize the sugar. Dump this mixture (including the coal!) into a pot of boiling water. Pour 1 part water through a strainer into one part milk (preferably the milk should be straight from the cow, that you milked after drinking Mate) and eat with cookies or some other breakfast bisquity things. This is a breakfast drink!
3. Terere—this is Paraguayan ice-tea. Extremely essential in this hot country (last week it was about 110 degrees out and nobody has AC). Pull out that guampa (cup) with ½ of Yerba Mate leaves, bombilla (straw), and thermos of icy water (preferably with some mashed up remedial herbs mixed in). Server deals to the right (in the same manner as Mate, except this time the gringos don’t burn their tongues). Terere also has its own verb in guarani: aterere= I want to drink terere. Around nine am, Paraguayan snack time, is the traditional terere drinking time, but any “coffee break,” hangout time with family, or boring class, also qualify as good times to start passing the guampa.  Terere is both meant to relax (essential to the Paraguayan slogan of “tranquiiiiiilo”=everything is chill man) and to perk you back up (with the help of some remedial herbs like mint, lemon grass, etc).
4. Mate Dulce--this is a winter drink/its been raining for for days and it could be winter I'm so cold drink. If you take the instructions for Mate (category 1) and replace the thermos of boiling water with a boiling milk+sugar combination, you've got Mate Dulce. The combination of the bitter/earthy flavor of yerba mate and the sweet/creamy flavor of some fresh frothy milk is definitely my favorite, however, drinking boiling sugar through a metal straw (if the hot sugar doesn't burn the top of your mouth off, the blazing hot metal straw will) is not my favorite. A bit of a give and take situation. Luckily there are only two months of winter in Paraguay!!

In addition to the four different preparations of Yerba Mate, there are about three bazillion and seven traditions related to drinking (some form of) Yerba Mate in Paraguay. For example, the youngest person in the family is technically the server in the case of Mate, Terere, and Mate Dulce (which all involve passing the cup) and the order of serving is always to the right with the dealer last.

Here are two of my favorite traditions/stories of Yerba Mate that I have encountered so far in Paraguay

1. Santa Tomas (Saint Thomas)--the first serving of Terere (that's the "ice-tea" one) is traditionally reserved for Saint Thomas (and nobody gets to drink it). Since this serving is the first time the yerba mate leaves have had any water in them (they've just been scooped out of the tea box and placed in the bottom of the cup), the liquid produced is pretty bitter. In that case "Saint Thomas' Serving" is sipped through the straw and then spat over the shoulder. Sometimes, the dry tea leaves absorb all of the first serving of water as they rehydrate. In which case, it almost looks as if someone (perhaps a Saint) has drank all the water. Why Saint Thomas (and not Elijah)? It's a pun. In Spanish, "toma" means "he drinks" therefore Santa Tomas (pronounced Santa Toma) can also mean "The Saint drinks."
2. Terere + Watermelon = death by stomach explosion. A large part of Paraguayan food traditions have to do with bad mixtures, aka don't drink cold water while eating hot soup, don't eat hot dogs and ice cream in fast succession. The idea being that certain extreme opposites of temperature or types of food will cause a stomach-ache or fever. In terms of Paraguayan food tradition, watermelon is a very volatile fruit and is best had alone. But no matter what, one MUST NOT mix watermelon with Terere. Of course, after 3 months of intensive training and attempting to learn guarani (a language where at least half of the letters are pronounced nasally, and if you switch two letters you end up cursing someone out) a Peace Corps volunteer may begin to rebel/crack and purposely eat Terere and Watermelon together to annoy the language teachers/ wait to see if an explosion will actually occur. The results where definitely disappointing because a. no one exploded b. this seems to be breaking point which occurs with every group of PC trainees, and therefore the language teachers had a very "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt" sort of reaction.

That's all for now...

--Emily