what Argentinian people enjoy drinking in the matter of coffee?

I woke up this morning humming “Don’t cry for me, Argentina”, remembering the Eva Peron’s life, the first lady of this beautiful country. Evita was a powerful woman who broke the gender barrier in Argentina and helped Argentinian women win the right to vote and many other remarkable things.

While pouring a cup of coffee, a perfect composition of vanilla and chocolate with a hint of plums from GREENMAYA PALTO PERU AMAZONAS ASOCIATION, I’ve been wondering what Argentinian people enjoy drinking in the matter of coffee. Well, it’s not coffee, but it has caffeine ? – Yerba Mate – a traditional South American tea, similar with green tea.

Yerba Mate is a tree growing in the Paraná river basins from Paraguay and since the antiquity, the plant was used for its nutritional and healing properties. Made by shredding the leaves and stems of Yerba Mate plant, this traditional elixir is always consumed hot and for people from Argentina, it represents a way of life.

For them there is a very specific, ritualistic way of preparing and drinking mate:

• only one person serves and prepares the mate cup;
• the host drinks the first from the infusion and then will fill the cup again with water;
• then it passes to the person to their right;
• each participant drinks all of what is in the cup before passing it back to the host;
• the host will fill the cup for each person until the tea has lost all its flavor and color

YerbaMate preparation:

• place the dried and shredded leaves in a bowl made of a hollow pumpkin;
• then add cold water to moisten the leaves and to protect their nutrients and flavor;
• next, pour hot water until all the leaves are covered with water;

You will savor your YerbaMate from a straw made of metal or bamboo called “bombilla”, which has a filter or a sieve at its inserted end into the bowl. So after the infusion, you don’t need to remove the leaves because the metal straw will prevent leaf fragments from penetrating the inside of the straw.

So, I think I could get in love with this interesting and intriguing of Argentina cultural tradition! What about you?