Maté (mate) — a drink of the Maya Indians, a tea made from a particular tree with a high content of caffeine (also called mateine; mateine is a substance completely identical to caffeine, named this way because it is found in the "maté herb").
It is prepared from the dried, crushed leaves and young shoots of the Paraguayan holly (Ilex paraguariensis). The best varieties of maté are grown and processed in Argentina.
The name
The word "maté" comes from the Quechua language, in which the word "mati" means "a jug (vessel, or dish) made from a gourd for drinks or food"; as a dictionary entry it is first mentioned by Diego González Holguín in his "Dictionary of the Quechua Language" (1608).
In Quechua it originally denoted neither the drink, nor the plant itself, nor the plant's dried leaves, but only the vessel from which the drink is drunk.
Background
Different peoples of the Americas have different versions of the origin of maté. But they differ only in the details, and agree on the main point: it was given to people by the heavenly ones or by their earthly viceroys. According to one legend, the benefactresses were two goddesses who came down from the heavens. A jaguar frightened them, and an Indian passing by drove the beast away. In gratitude they revealed to him the secret of the magical drink that quenches thirst and multiplies strength. The Guaraní Indians, however, maintain that the secret was revealed to them by a male god. There is also a story about a decrepit, ailing old man and his beautiful daughter, who had to eke out her days together with her infirm father far from her kin.
A certain shaman was moved by her wretched plight and taught her to make a healing infusion, thanks to which the old man was instantly back on his feet, and the two were able to return to their native parts. And according to a fourth "version", the encounter with the sorcerer cost the girl her life: he was so struck by her beauty that he decided to turn her, of all people, into a magnificent plant, an infusion of whose leaves the Indians began to drink in order to relieve fatigue, restore health and generally attain happiness.
Taboo
When Columbus discovered America, hard times set in for lovers of maté. In their pursuit of riches the Spaniards utterly destroyed the customary way of life of the Indians. And Queen Isabella considered it her duty to care not only for the prosperity of the colonies, but also for the salvation of the souls that inhabited them. And the galleons that sailed to America for precious things began to deliver whole armies of monks there — Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits. The missionaries' policy was simple: while implanting Christianity, to root out everything connected with the old traditions and beliefs. The turn came for maté as well. At the beginning of the 17th century the prominent Jesuit Diego de Torres publicly proclaimed it "the devil's drink" in Paraguay and demanded that drinking maté be punished in the same way as heresy.
This order, however, was carried out precisely in reverse: the holy fathers themselves grew fond of the drink. What is more, it was they who initiated its export to Europe. Economic advantage triumphed over fear. And that is understandable. Far from their homeland, deprived of help from any quarter whatsoever, the missionary settlements had to provide themselves with everything necessary, right down to glass and paper, which required money to buy. It turned out that maté was perfectly suited for export: production was uncomplicated and cheap, while the exotic "remedy" could be sold at three times the price.
But its popularity in the Old World did not last long: in the 19th century Latin America turned into a hotbed of permanent war and revolution. Trade effectively ceased. And interest in maté faded too: some European countries made a decisive choice in favour of tea, others in favour of coffee, and it proved impossible to compete alongside such fashionable "rivals".
Tree or herb?
The notion that maté is a herb was likewise begotten by the Jesuits. Without going into the subtleties of its preparation, they drank it ready-made and traded only in the raw material that the Indians brought them. Dried maté really does look like finely chopped grass, although in fact it is the crushed leaves of the evergreen subtropical plant Ilex paraguayensis. Incidentally, its closest relative, the common holly, grows in Europe and has even become a kind of Christian symbol there. It is precisely with wreaths of dark green holly leaves with bright red berries that houses are decorated at Christmas, in England and Germany for example. Does not this fact in itself clear its Paraguayan "brother" of the charge of heresy?..
In the wild this tree lives up to 50 years and can reach a height of 15—20 metres. The bark is white and smooth, like that of an ash, and the leaves are about 10 centimetres long and 5 wide. This species ranks fourth among the world's caffeine-containing plants, after tea, coffee and cocoa. The production of maté in the countries of South America, chiefly in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, now reaches 170 million kilograms a year.
But despite its natural hardiness, the tree has not taken root in other parts of the world — it requires a special warm, humid climate and soil rich in iron. Therefore it can be stated with confidence that wherever in the world you may come across maté, it has been made from Latin American leaves.
Simple and tasteful
At the peak of interest in the drink, attempts were made to present it as expensive and refined. In reality, the most expensive thing about mate is transportation, while the production technology is very simple, so the cost of this product is far lower than that of tea or coffee.
First the leaves are stripped from the tree by hand or with special machines. Both young and old branches are used. The main thing is not to overdo it: if the holly is "shaved bald", it will not be able to recover and will quickly die.
The next stage is drying. In the past the harvested green mass was kept in the sun, but on an industrial scale this is unproductive, so today wood-fired or electric drying houses are used, where the raw material is shaken up from time to time. That last point is very important — no moisture must remain in the leaves. If even one is left underdried, after a while the whole sack will have to be thrown out — the mate will rot or grow mouldy. At the final stage the dried mate-rial is ground up and packed. That, essentially, is all — nothing complicated.
But such simplicity is more than made up for by the elaborate rituals that accompany the brewing and drinking of mate.
On restaurant menus it is often placed in the same section as tea, yet the two substances have practically nothing in common except water. To begin with, the vessels Europeans use for drinks — teapots, carafes, cups, glasses — are no good for mate. Best suited to it is a special vessel made from a bottle gourd (the species Lagenaria vulgaris) — the so-called calabash, or porongo. It must again be dry, but with porous walls that swell slightly when filled with hot water and lend the aroma of the drink a faintly earthy note. A new calabash cannot be used straight away. First it has to be prepared: pack it with mate almost up to the neck, pour in hot water and leave it for a couple of days.
Then clean it out, pack it "to the brim" again with hot water and this time a small amount of strong alcohol (the traditional Latin American spirit made from cane sugar is ideal, but vodka will do as well). After a few hours this mixture is thrown out too, the calabash is rinsed and dried — and only now is it fully ready for "adult life".
Matero, do not spare the leaf
This phrase suits mate better than tea. The calabash should be filled with the dry raw material at least halfway. Then the neck is closed tightly with the hand, the gourd is turned upside down and shaken vigorously several times. That way the fine "powder" of the brew ends up closer to the top, while the coarse particles, on the contrary, settle at the bottom. Then the vessel is carefully returned to its normal position. All that remains is to insert the bombilla — an object that looks like a spoon but is in fact a "cross" between a straw and a sieve. Bombillas are usually made of metal. The upper part has a slightly flattened mouthpiece, and at the bottom there is a removable piece with small holes: the idea is that only strained liquid will pass through this filter.
Among mate lovers there are endless arguments about how to insert the bombilla: into the dry leaf, or whether the mate should first be lightly moistened with warm water and left for two or three minutes until it is absorbed. In either case, though, the main thing is to push the instrument in as deep as possible. That is precisely why the calabash is shaken: after all, only the coarse particles, which will not pass through the filter, are now left at the bottom.
Less "obligatory", unlike the calabash and the bombilla, is a special kettle of hot water resembling a bird with an enormous curved beak. It is called a pava (from the Spanish for "turkey hen"). Admittedly, nothing terrible will happen if you heat the liquid in an ordinary kettle. Such a departure from the rules is looked upon indulgently.
At last everything is ready for brewing. But at this stage too mate differs radically from tea: under no circumstances may boiling water be poured over it, only water heated to 70—80 degrees. How do you determine the right temperature? If there is no thermometer, the water is boiled and then left to cool for 15—20 minutes. And the most "canonical" method is to splash a little hot liquid on the floor and tell by the sound whether it has cooled enough. Naturally, parquet, linoleum and laminate will not do for this — the floor must be stone. The question of temperature is a matter of principle, there can be no compromises: mate that is too cold threatens an upset stomach, mate that is too hot turns strongly bitter and causes nausea.
So, having brewed the mixture by all the rules, start sipping through the bombilla straight away, topping up the calabash with hot water from time to time. If everything has been done properly, the drink will not be bitter but will rather seem slightly sweet.
There is nowhere to hurry
Mate is not drunk in five minutes. The Czechoslovak travellers Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund write in their book "There, Beyond the River, Argentina": "If a resident of Argentina or Paraguay has to be at work at 6 in the morning, he gets up at 4 so as to have at least an hour and a half for drinking mate. This solemn rite permits anything at all except haste".
And although Julio Cortázar called it a drink "for those who are lonely and sad", it is also perfectly good to drink in company. At large receptions with people who barely know one another, each guest is served a separate little gourd with a bombilla. But among family and close friends it is customary to brew a shared calabash. Someone takes on the duties of the mate brewer — the cebador; he is also the first to taste it and, if satisfied with the quality, passes the gourd round the circle. The cebador must top up the calabash with water in good time. He also decides when the leaf needs changing.
Foreigners often find the manner of sipping through a shared bombilla unhygienic, and try to come visiting with their own straw. But for Argentines, Uruguayans and Paraguayans this custom symbolises friendship, warmth and trust like no other. So an individual "initiative" may be taken by the host as an insult.
Besides this, it is good to know certain nuances: the pava must not be taken with the left hand; the calabash is handed to a guest with the bombilla facing him; the bombilla must not be moved, let alone used to stir the leaf; and even thanking the host should be done only at the end of the ceremony, and not every time the calabash is handed to you (once you have said thank you, you can forget about a refill).
Earlier, in the 19th century, there were even more such unwritten rules, so that young men and women from conservative Catholic families even used mate to send each other coded love messages (something like the Victorian language of flowers). Very sweet mate meant "it is time for you to speak to my parents", with cinnamon — "my thoughts are of you", with the bombilla turned the other way — "I despise you"…
Additions to mate
But there are no rules without exceptions. And the stricter they are, the more ways round them are found. Champions of ritual purity try not to notice how those rituals are broken again and again. In recent years sales of mate in tea bags, drunk from ordinary cups, have been growing all over Latin America, along with disposable plastic calabashes and bombillas. The opposite trend is the production of collectors' calabashes made of porcelain, elephant ivory, precious metals and even painted wood...
And many people now also prefer this drink with additions: that way it comes out less bitter and more nourishing. The most common additions are lemon, sugar, honey. Less often it is drunk with treacle, candied orange peel, milk or cream, burnt sugar, beaten egg. In Paraguay herbs are sometimes added, prescribed by a herbalist-healer (you will find one in every village) to treat or prevent illnesses.
Another option for hot weather is cold mate, poured over with iced water and fruit juice (this gives the so-called tereré).
Finally, let us note that far beyond the borders of Latin America there are nevertheless two countries where mate has successfully taken root and is drunk every day. These are Syria (the world's largest importer of holly leaves) and Lebanon. There the drink spread in the 19th century thanks to immigrants from across the Atlantic. Nowadays the mate culture here is maintained by the Druze — an ethnic group professing a particular branch of Islam. Their leader Walid Jumblatt often appears in public sipping a bombilla.
To drink or not to drink
To this question about mate doctors give no unambiguous answer. On the one hand, it is common knowledge that it contains a multitude of useful substances — vitamins A, B, C, E, as well as alkaloids and trace elements (in particular phosphorus, so necessary for mental activity). It is not for nothing that Argentine gaucho herdsmen live for months on beef alone, washing it down with mate, and feel perfectly well, suffering no lack of nutrients. However, the drink contains a great deal of caffeine, which stimulates the nervous system and raises blood pressure (manufacturers sometimes play tricks and call the caffeine contained in mate "mateine", but that does not change the essence).
Something else is more important: the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has placed hot mate on the so-called black list, which includes substances that may potentially prove carcinogenic. In this sense the Latin American brew has been put on a par with creosote and insecticides. The grounds for this were studies carried out in Montevideo. According to them, there may be a link between drinking hot mate and cancer of the oesophagus. It is particularly stressed, however, that this concerns only a very hot drink, which there is no point in drinking anyway, because if it is brewed with boiling water it turns out bitter and unpleasant.
Features of use
The dried leaves of the holly are called "mate herb", the drink itself has the same name, and the vessel for preparing it is called a calabas or calabash; it is made from a bottle gourd.
Benefits
— This drink is interesting above all because with it you can forget about such a problem as vitamin deficiency. In spring this is especially relevant, since after a long, cold winter the body simply craves vitamins, and in last year's vegetables and fruit they are practically absent. You can, of course, buy multivitamins at the chemist's, but drinking mate is far more beneficial, more pleasant and more prestigious. Incidentally, this drink was loved by Hemingway and Che Guevara, and it is adored by Madonna and Enrique Iglesias.
Mate contains a lot of vitamins C, A and E, has practically all the B-group vitamins, and also vitamin P.
And what does a shortage of these vitamins threaten us with? Judge for yourself!
If you have rapid fatigue, lowered immunity, bleeding gums, frequent bruises on the skin, worsening appetite, a feeling of exhaustion and poor healing of cuts and wounds, then all this may be a sign of vitamin C deficiency.
Dryness and flaking of the skin, impaired twilight vision, acne, furunculosis, deterioration of the hair, reduced immunity and disruption of the reproductive function of the ovaries are consequences of vitamin A deficiency.
With vitamin E deficiency people may have anaemia, muscular weakness, impaired coordination and infertility.
Vitamin P deficiency leads to increased permeability of the capillaries, as a result of which haemorrhages appear on the skin, the mucous membranes and in the subcutaneous tissue; pain in the legs when walking, pain in the shoulders, rapid fatigue, a bluish tinge to the skin and hair loss are also signs of such a deficiency.
If the body lacks vitamin B1, your appetite and sleep worsen, you become more irritable, tire quickly, experience muscular weakness, and the work of the heart may also be disrupted with subsequent oedema.
Cracks on the lips and in the corners of the mouth, dermatitis, anaemia, photophobia and impaired colour perception — these are signs of vitamin B2 deficiency.
A shortage of vitamin B3 (pantothenic acid) in the body will inevitably lead to flaking of the skin, burning in the feet, fatigue, greying and loss of hair and gastrointestinal disorders.
If you experience frequent nervous breakdowns, depression, dermatitis, an increased tendency to tooth decay, anaemia, loss of appetite and sclerotic changes in the blood vessels, then this indicates vitamin B6 deficiency.
With vitamin B12 deficiency there appear weakness, rapid fatigue, dizziness, tachycardia, anaemia and degenerative changes of the nervous system.
Can you imagine what the consequences may be when several vitamins are lacking at once.
You will be able to forget about a shortage of vitamins in the body if you drink mate regularly.
The magazine "Бухгалтер-ДОКА", 2011/14. AN ELIXIR FOR THE ACCOUNTANT — MATE! the interview was conducted by editor-in-chief Andrey Zharynsky