Outside Buenos Aires, Argentina

Flag of Argentina

Sipping Maté Tea

We had travelled to Argentina especially to see the world's largest waterfalls, amazing Iguazú Falls, which is situated on the borders of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. We were very pleased that we had elected to travel by Aerolinéas Argentinas to get the full benefit of international travel. We found the country's airline to be an excellent and comfortable choice with good meals and service. We were also delighted that, without much knowledge of the hotels there, we had fortuitously made by far the best choice: We chose the Sheraton Iguazú, an ultra-modern hotel with all the best amenities and beautifully appointed rooms. The Sheraton has wonderful facilities to meet any desires: large swimming pool, excellent tennis courts, superb dining facilities, a unique discoteque, beautifully kept grounds, and perfectly groomed pathways through the jungle for easy walks to the Falls which you can see in the distance from your balcony room. Just five minutes' walk away you can get a little tram, or boat rides to the Falls or find handicap access. Additionally, on the property there is a good car and guide service, with guides who speak several languages.

After spending several days at the spectacular Falls, we decided to take a side trip by car to see the countryside. We were fortunate to find an excellent guide at Sheraton Iguazú, Omar Fernandez, who is a guide and driver for Empresa Ecologia S.R.L., (remisecologia@arnet.com.ar or omarfz771@yahoo.com.ar) (tel/Fx 03757-421952. He speaks good English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Guarani and is a careful driver. Having lived always in Ciudade de Iguazú, he knew so much about his country, its resources, and history. Omar drove us on Highway 12 going Southwest from Ciudade de Iguazú and following the Paraña River along the border of Paraguay, which is the route (240 km) to the Mission de Ignacio, (famous subject of the movie The Mission.)

Along the way we had the opportunity to learn all about Argentina's most popular drink, maté tea, made from leaves of yerba trees. These large groves of small trees are mainly in this province of Mission and in part of the next province, Corrientes.

In this rich, red lava soil these often grow alongside groves of green or black tea. Yerba tea trees are native in Argentina. The marvelous nutritional value of their leaves was discovered centuries ago by the local Guarani Indians. The tea does not contain caffeine, narcotics, nor hallucinogens but is full of vitamins and minerals, has mild laxative properties, aids digestion, and gives energy. Often when a child in the countryside is weaned and the family has no source of milk, the baby is given maté (yerba) tea instead and continues to grow strong and healthy.

Yerba tea is harvested annually by completely cutting all the leaves and small branches from the trees, a process which was formerly done entirely by hand with machetes. But those sharp knives often damaged the trees, leaving cuts that were open to insect infestation. Since yerba is grown organically without insecticides this was a big problem. Now modern machinery makes clean cuts which heal and prevent insects. Since the trees live for many years, this is an important improvement in harvest methods.

For curing the yerba leaves many plantations still use the old way with a brick drying furnace. Although there are more modern methods in some places now, this time-honored way was the most intriguing for us to see. In the small town of Capiovi we were priviledged to tour a very old processing plant where trucks bring the harvested yerba to dump on the floor near the furnace. Big augers lift the pre-cut small branches and leaves into a huge, metal, open-ended barrel. A series of belts turns the barrel constantly, tossing the leaves several times through the hot draft of air created by the nearby hard wood log fire in an ancient brick oven, burning over 100 degrees Centigrade.

Next the yerba is moved to a smaller barrel beside a firepit with a temperature of about 80 degrees Centigrade, where they spend about an hour in the hot draft rotation. Next the leaves and small branches are cooled and placed into large sacks for a year of dry storage in a special barn. Near the yerba plantations are many small curing establishments.

After one year the dried yerba leaves and twigs are taken to a factory where they are pounded into a pulverized dry state for commercial packaging to sell in stores. We found it interesting that the small branches are also dried and ground and included as a necessary part of the tea. Without these small branches the leaves themselves would make the tea too strong for human consumption.

Other, more modern and quicker, drying methods have been tried, but that maté tea is vastly inferior to this tea prepared by ancient, organic processes.

We found beautifully decorated gourd cups in all the tourist shops and did not know, at first, what they were. We learned from Omar that these cups fashioned from gourds are part of the ancient tradition originated by the Guarani Indians. Maté must always be drunk from a gourd cup, which enhances the taste. When I expressed that the new gourd cups don't look fit to drink from because of the gourd fibers within, he explained that one must fill the gourd with hot water several times first to season the cup and make it ready for tea. The elaborately decorated gourd cups have many different designs and many use the native silver for trim.

The little silver straws, which are sold with the cups, are also an important instrument and come in many different, carefully-crafted styles.

Yerba tea leaves are placed loosely to fill the special gourd cup to about 2/3's full for the maté drink. Many people place sugar or honey into the cup with the tea leaves. Water just under boiling temperature is poured down the tube of a small silver straw, which has a tiny strainer at one end of it.

When the leaves at the bottom of the maté cup are wet, friends and family begin to share the tea for several sips. Then more water is added. This is repeated until the leaves are exhausted and friends are revived, sharing comaraderie and a rest before resuming the day's work, or while awaiting a very late dinner. In summer the mate can be made using cold water for a refreshing, although bitter, drink similar to iced tea.

Maté is a strong tea which most Argentinians sip throughout the day, taking to work with them a thermos of hot water to add to their leaves from a pouch. Afternoon maté is a ceremony shared by good friends for a pick-me-up. To be invited to enjoy maté tea in Argentina is a great honor. Although it is more informal, it is a ceremony of friendship equal to the tea ceremony in Japan or afternoon tea ritual in Britain. Among friends who live here it is as convivial as the coffee or beer drinking in the United States.

From Pablo Pascale,our very helpful tour guide for our Gaucho tour from Buenos Aires, here are the technical discussions of the entire Mate history.

THE MATE

The word Mate

The word maté derives from the quichua word "mati", which means glass or recipient for drinking, but it has been generalized as the common name of the fruit of the gourd plant -Lagenaria vulgaris- especially the varieties used to prepare and serve the infusion of yerba maté ("poro" and "galleta"). So, with the later proliferation of gourds made of the most varied materials, destined to prepare this infusion the word maté began to be used to refer also to any kind of container.

Then, the word "maté" began to name the infusion itself.

According to the way this beverage is prepared, it is known as:

"Amargo" (bitter), "verde" (green) or "cimarrón": it is the maté without sugar

"Dulce" (Sweet): prepared with sugar.

"Tereré": bitter maté brewed with cold water.

"Cocido" (cooked) or "Yerbeao": prepared like tea.

In this section we will refer mainly to the brewed maté (sweet or bitter), inseparable companion of our people.

Colloquially people also use the word maté to refer to the head.

History of Yerba

Since Ayolas' s colonization failed, Domingo Martínez de Irala got in charge of it and in 1554 he started an expedition to the Guairá lands (now a Brazilian state). Here something called the Spaniard's attention; itwas the aborigines's good health, height and physical strength. The secret for this was that the aborigines drank an infusion made from the leaves of the caá tree. They sucked the infusion from a natural calabash with the help of “tubes” made from different kinds of canes. According to the guaraní history, their god “tupá” had given the caá tree as a gift for the health and strength of their payés ancestors (kind of quacks).

When this expedition was coming back to Asunción the new habit was expanded and it turned into a vice for everybody. The soldiers spent all their money on the yerba maté. The Spanish Church described the yerba as an evil because of its bewitching origins so it was forbidden.

During the campaign against the maté a friar gave it an aphrodisiac characteristic, in this way he obtained opposite results and made the infusion to become a boom.

Soon they exported yerba maté to benefit the economy as a consequence they created the aborigine slavery. The native's condition got better in the XVII century under king PhilipIII's orders when the missions were created. Their main financial source was the exploitation of the Yerba maté plantations. As time passes by this infusion consolidates all over the population.

The yerba-mate plant

The yerba-maté plant (Ilex-Paranguariensis) belongs to the acquifoliaceas family, of the always-green type, i.e. that has perennial leaves. The tree is similar to the laurel, of a gray whitish trunk, 2 to 6 meters tall and about 30 or 40 centimeters in diameter. Its leaves are alternate, of a narrow basis and dented edge, they can be 8 to 10 centimeters wide.

The yerba-maté plant grows in wooded, subtropical and warm regions, in red and high lands, up to 400 meters above sea level. Among these regions we can name Chaco (Bolivian, Paraguayan and Argentine), the whole Paruguay Republic, Misiones, Brazil and some departments of Uruguay. In these places the roots of the plant develop greatly in depth and volume. This explains its production period, which is near to 150 years.

Growing

At the beginning, the Indians as well as the colonists believed that the yerba-maté could only be produced after a complex process which involved the passage through the stomach of a bird which would eat the flowers of the plant. The Jesuit Fathers were the ones who investigated the nature of the plant, and after several tries they got seedbeds and plantations.

Today, the yerba-maté plants are grown in nurseries and they are taken to the country six months later. The experts strictly follow a process of control which involves an integral dealing with plagues, improvement of the plants development and checking of everything that makes the production possible and preserves the environment.

Harvest and elaboration

Harvest

The harvesting begins when the plant is four or five years old and almost two meters tall. The harvest consists in taking the branches off the trees to get profit from the leaves and the ranunculus.

Once the leaf has been harvested, it is taken to the drying place where it is subjected to two preparation cycles:

The Toasting (crushing), consists of the following operations

- Cutting: It consists of the separation of the tender branches from the others.

- "Chamuscado" (Scorching): It consists of putting the branches with their leaves under direct heat during a few seconds, so that the enzymatic processes are stopped, the dehydration of the leaves and the fixing of the chlorophyll are forced. From this process a pleasant scent and a plain green-yellowish color are achieved.

- Drying: The leaves pass through a tube where hot air circulates with the purpose of taking off all the possible humidity without toasting them. Then they are taken to the drying place itself where by means of the treatment with hot air the humidity is reduced to a 3%. This procedure lasts between 3 and 4 hours.

- Crushing: Mechanical treatment of branches and leaves. Big crushing.

- Stationing: It is put in storehouses made of wood or other material where humidity must be avoided, and there it finishes its drying and ripening.

Elaboration

The Elaboration is made in modern "yerbateros" mills with a great process of industrialization.

The portions of stationed yerba-maté are mixed in different proportions to determine the characteristics of the finished products. Then they are separated in leaves and stalks to follow different processes of grinding and classification. This way different parts of leaves are obtained: thick flower, thin flower and impalpable flower which, mixed in proportion with the broken and classified stalks, make the ground yerba-maté.

Types of beverages made with yerba

According to the technical or scientific procedure employed for the dissolution of the components of the yerba in water, different types of beverages are obtained:

Maceration: It is called to the extraction of the soluble parts of a substance submerging it in a liquid at a normal or atmospheric temperature. It is the case of the "tereré" or maté brewed with cold water.

Infusion: It is the extraction of any organic substance, of its parts soluble in water, at greater temperature than the atmospheric but below boiling point. It is the case of the common maté, bitter or sweet, brewed with not boiling water.

Decoction: It is the extraction of the same parts soluble in water at boiling point. It is the case of the cooked maté.

Psycological effects

The beneficent and therapeutic effects of the yerba-maté have been presently confirmed by numerous scientific studies.

Its chemical properties are similar to the tea, although more nutritive.

They have significant quantities of potassium, sodium, magnesium, and manganese in the leaves and in the infusion. They also have vitamins B-1, B-2, C, A, riboflavine, carotene, coline, pantotechnical acid, inossitol and 15 types of amino acids. The existence of twelve polyphenols makes the yerba-maté highly healthy. Studies recently made in the United States indicate that the polyphenols are powerful antioxidants that increase the natural body defenses and protect the bodies against the cellular destruction that causes the body to deteriorate and develop illness symptoms.

The mateina is a chemical substance of the xanteins family, proper of the yerba-maté.. Although it is like the caffein in the sense of being a stimulant of the nervous system and promoter of the mental activity, it is different because it does not intervene in the dream patterns. The matein is also a soft diuretic.

According to the effects of the yerba, we can notice changes in the behavior such as:

- An increase of energy and vitality

- A greater capacity of concentration

- Less nervousness and a greater resistance to the physical and mental fatigue

- A better mood

- It holds up the accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles, (excellent natural energizing for people who do physical activities).

Types of mates

There is a great variety of containers used for preparing this infusion, the most usual are the following ones: poro, porongo, pico porongo, lorry driver's maté, galleta, metal matés,moulded matés, retobado matés (matés covered with leather), maté of loza,maté of horn, wooden matés and the list can go on…But if you want to enjoy the taste of a good mate don't doubt to adopt a galleta if you like the bitter one or a poro if you prefer the sweet one.

The Bombilla

The dictionary of the Spanish Academy defines the word bombilla as: "thin tube that is used to suck the maté in America, it has about twenty centimeters long and half a centimeter of diameter and the end of the tube where the liquid is introduced is almond-like full of little holes, so that the infusion passes but not the dried leaves (yerba) of the maté. There are also bombillas made of silver or gold. The Paraguayan Indian called it at the beginning, in his language (Guaraní) "tacuapí".

The first bombilla was born in America, in the River Plate Region. Originally, this tool was a simple tube of cane. Then it was added a filter adapted to its inferior end to keep little particles of "yerba" from entering into the tube when the liquid is sucked.

In our country, this early and vegetal bombilla, was used until the late XIX century, as it is the travelers and scientists testimony when the word "cañita" (little cane) is used as well as the word bombilla

Then, together with the use of metal for its making, this tool suffers a new transformation in its appearance: the differentiation of its top end or peak. In the cane bombilla this end did not have any particularity, it was cylindrical and of the same diameter as the neck. This bombilla had the best temperature gradation of the liquid that was sucked: the liquid was loosing heat while passing through the little cane until it arrived to the drinker's mouth. It did not happen the same with the bombillas made of metal, which, just because they were inserted into the hot infusion, acquired a great temperature, with the risk of burnings for the maté drinker.

The metal bombilla has three different parts:

Tip or mouthpiece: Superior end where the lips are put to lick the infusión

Neck: Cylindrical tube that joins the mouthpiece and the strainer.

The neck of the metal bombilla was at the beginning a simple cylindrical tube, plain on the outside, with no more ornaments than those at the ends because of the fitting or fixing of the mouthpiece and the strainer. Then these metal ornaments were applied on the whole neck. It is believed that such outer pieces only had a decorative purpose. However, its application to the bombilla is due to two main objectives: to protect the brewer's hand from burning, and, at the same time, to make the neck of the tool stronger. The neck can be straight or curve, depending on the drinker's preference.

Strainer: It is a fitting of different shapes with little holes that is fixed at the bottom end of the neck to prevent little particles of "yerba" from passing when the infusion is sucked. When this strainer is round, in the metal bombilla, it is still called coconut.

The Kettle

The Guaraníes put the water to be heated in an earthen vessel. But, together with the conquerors' arrival, the copper boilers came to replace the aboriginal vessels. They were jar-like and they did not have a lid. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the kettle, which was used in the cities, "traveled" to the country and our "gauchos" got used to it.

Why it is said cebar?

Why is it said "cebar maté" (to brew a maté) and not "servir maté" (to serve maté)?

Brewing maté well requires a great knowledge and a number of special cares. In some old families only the servants specially dedicated to this matter did it. They were called "cebadoras de mate" (maté brewers). The word "cebar" gives the idea of maintaining, feeding, keeping something in a flourishing state. When we say "cebar mate" (brew a maté) we do not want to mean the act of filling the maté with hot water, but to keep that maté in always-tasteful conditions.

The Cimarron

It is the bitter, unsweetened maté, the original combination of yerba and hot water, the maté that lets the "yerbeador" communicate intimately with its taste without additives that may alter that contact.

It is prepared with the "galleta" gourd ("cimarronera" or of two leaves) that is the most appropriate one for this job since it let us make the "ajuste de cebadura" (brewing adjustment), distinctive operation of the bitter maté.

Brewing adjustment

Once the yerba has been poured into the "galleta" and the thickest particles have been placed at the bottom of the gourd, the whole mass of yerba is taken towards one of the "pencas" (leaves, faces) pressing it with the fingers or bombilla.

Then the yerba is wetted. The most common thing is to leave the bombilla inside the gourd, pouring the water softly close to it and letting it rest so that the yerba inflates and it does not block the filter.

This way the brewing begins, pouring hot water where there is less yerba, taking out, maté by maté, the taste of this minor portion of the brewing and of the top part of the adjusted portion. The major part of the brewing remains held by the bombilla against one of the faces of the galleta, waiting for its turn to go into action.

When the portion of yerba used since the beginning of the brewing is exhausted, the brewer will make the other half of the brewing, which is in adjustment, go into action. To do this, he takes the bombilla out and with the strainer he adjusts the yerba towards the opposite side. This operation is called "dar vuelta la yerba" (turn the yerba round) or "dar vuelta el maté" (turn the maté round) which is what really happens, since the bombilla will be on the other side. (This movement of the bombilla explains the reason why the mouth of this kind of matés, after a long use, suffers a strange deformation). This way it is possible to continue brewing in a second act, for the maté is new again.

The sweet mate

The maté without sugar or "cimarrón" represents the choice in the circle of the fogón (campfire), while the sweet maté is typical of the kitchen in the ranch. There was always a housemaid who was in charge of pleasing the landlord and landlady and, of course, the guests with a delicious sweet maté. This way of brewing is more demanding for the sweetening of the maté and for keeping the temperature of the water, which must be a few degrees hotter than the one the non-sweetened maté.

The more suitable maté for brewing sweet is the one called "poro", but this depends on the brewer's taste and availability.

A popular way of starting the sweet maté is adding sugar to the brew, mixing it with the dried yerba. In this way you will obtain two or three sweet matés. Then you will have to add sugar according to the taste of the members of the circle. Usually the brewer asks each maté users or materos about their tastes.

A way of administrating the dose of sugar that must go with each brewing of the sweet maté is to sweeten the water of the recipient used for brewing. With this method the brewer's job is simplified, since he can omit using the tools destined to sweeten the maté (sugar pot, spoon).

Other usual ways of sweetening the maté is by adding candy sugar or honey to it; the last one is called the "misqui maté ".

Real Travel Adventures Web Magazine

Thanks for visiting us!

Add to Bookmarks

______________________

Home Previous Page Next Page

______________________