Yerba MateIlex paraguariensis

Did you know?

• The name joins two languages: Spanish yerba, "herb", and mate, from the Quechua mati, the gourd it is drunk from. Together they mean "the herb of the gourd"^[3].

• Yerba mate is a true holly: it belongs to Ilex, the holly genus^{[1, 4]}.

• Its old nickname, "Jesuits' tea", recalls the Jesuit missions of the 1600s, the first to grow the tree on plantations^{[3, 5, 9]}.

• Uruguayans drink more mate per person than any other people^[3].

• In Paraguay, mate is often drunk ice-cold as tereré: cold water, mixed with native herbs called pohã ñana crushed in a mortar, is poured over the yerba. In 2020 UNESCO added tereré to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity^{[3, 8]}.

• The naturalist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire gave the tree its scientific name in 1822. Paraguariensis means "of Paraguay"^{[1, 2]}.

Origins and history

Yerba mate is an evergreen shrub or tree native to the region where Paraguay, northeastern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil meet^{[1, 3]}. It is a member of the holly family, and its leaves are the part that is harvested, usually together with some of the young stems^[3]. Saint-Hilaire described it for science in 1822 and named it for Paraguay^{[1, 2]}.

The Guaraní were the first people to drink mate^[3]. They used the leaves as a drink, in worship and even as a currency, and on long journeys through the forest Spanish conquistadors noticed that the Guaraní had more stamina after drinking it^[9]. When Jesuit missionaries came to the region, they took up the habit themselves, and in the 1600s they began to cultivate the tree and trade its leaves from their mission settlements^[3]. That is why mate is still sometimes called Jesuits' tea^{[5, 7, 9]}. After the Jesuits were expelled from the region in the late 1700s, their plantations fell into ruin^[3].

Before it reaches the gourd, the freshly cut leaf is flashed over intense heat for a few seconds to a few minutes, dried, crushed and then aged in cedar or cement chambers for a year or more to develop its flavor^[3]. Mate is traditionally made in a hollowed gourd, though cups of wood and other materials are used too. The gourd is filled with the dried, cut leaf, wetted with hot water and sipped through a bombilla, a drinking straw that sits in the leaves^{[3, 6]}. When Argentina made mate its national infusion in 2013, the law defined it in exactly these terms: yerba mate in a vessel, wetted with hot water and drunk through a bombilla^[6]. A second law, passed in December 2014, made every 30 November National Mate Day, the birthday of Andrés Guacurarí y Artigas^{[9, 10]}. Mate is a social drink: Argentina's government describes it as "companionship made into a moment" and "a whole practice of friendship"^[9], and UNESCO notes that Paraguay's tereré ritual builds friendship, dialogue and solidarity^[8].

Traditional uses

Yerba mate is first of all an everyday drink, taken hot or cold across southern South America^[3], and its traditional use follows from that.

• Energy and alertness

  Mate contains natural caffeine, together with smaller amounts of the related compounds theobromine and theophylline^{[3, 5]}. Yerba mate supports energy and mental alertness, and helps with occasional tiredness.*^{[5, 7]}

• Hot or iced

  In Brazil, mate is drunk hot from the gourd as chimarrão; in Paraguay it is often made with ice-cold water as tereré^{[3, 5]}.

• Antioxidant compounds

  Mate leaf provides naturally occurring antioxidant compounds, above all chlorogenic acids.*^{[3, 5]}

Plant compounds

Yerba mate leaf contains caffeine, about 1 to 2 percent of the dried leaf, together with the related compounds theobromine and theophylline^{[3, 5]}. It is rich in phenolic compounds, above all chlorogenic acids, and also contains saponins^{[3, 5]}.