How to prepare mate

There is a lot of very poor information on the internet on how to properly prepare mate.  Maybe it’s because mate preparation is so ingrained in Argentine culture, it simply needs no explanation.  Who here over the age of 4 doesn’t know how to prepare mate?

We screwed it up a bunch of times, until we finally were taught the right way by our Spanish teacher Edgardo.  When done poorly, mate tastes like bitter dead grass, but is pleasant when done correctly.  So in the spirit of sharing the wealth, below I’d like to lay out a beginner’s (or gringo’s) guide to preparing mate:

Step 1: get your supplies.  The word mate refers to two things – the herb itself, used to make the tea, and the receptacle (gourd/cup) in which the tea is made.  Mate preparation involves three pieces of equipment – the mate (drinking gourd/bowl, traditionally made of a hollowed-out calabash gourd, but can also be made of wood or plastic, as ornate or simple as you like), the bombilla (a stainless steel straw with a filter at the bottom), and a hot water source, like a thermos or water boiler (I’m using an electric hot water boiler here, though Argentines will use a thermos both indoors and out).  Brand new mate gourds need to be cured, a process which involves filling the thing up with hot water and some mate herbs, letting it steep for a while, then letting it dry out in the sun for a day or so.  You may need to repeat a few times.  It should be green on the inside and well coated with mate residue when dry.

Step 2: fill the mate up with the tea herbs, about 2/3 of the way or so.  Here I’m using a commercial mate that’s infused with peppermint-like herbs (more typical of say the Córdoba region).  Our favorite types are CBSé for infused mate, and Rosa Monte Seleccion Especial for straight mate.

Step 3: clear the herbs of powder.  The herbs always have some powder in them, which will go through the filter and taste gritty in your mouth.  In order to clear as much out as possible, wet your hand with water (you can lick it if you’re not near a sink), put it over the top of the mate gourd, and shake vigorously up and down.  Wash off the powder that sticks to your hand and repeat a few times until there does not appear to be too much powder left.

Step 4: turn the gourd on its side and shake the herbs to the bottom side of the gourd.  Insert the bombilla on the top side of the herbs, with the filter touching the lowest point of the gourd, then turn the whole assembly back to right-side-up.  The key here is to have the herb pile at a nice angle, with the high side of the pile near the drinker, and the low side away from the drinker.  If you do not insert the bombilla, the herbs will all slide back down to the bottom and the pile of herbs will be flat – the bombilla keeps the herb pile at an angle.  You will pour the water into the low side of the pile, where the bombilla filter is located.  This is so only the bottom part of the heap of herbs gets wet, while the high side stays dry.  Then, as you drink, you can constantly wet new, fresh herbs near the top of the heap.

It should also be noted that after this step, the bombilla never moves.  You don’t swish it around in the gourd, you don’t raise or lower it, you don’t twist it.  The bombilla and mate gourd are now one unit until the drinking is done.

Step 5: add water and drink.  Water temperature is very important – 140-160 degrees fahrenheit or so is optimal.  If the water is too hot, the herbs will taste extremely bitter and unpleasant.  Pour the water slowly into the back, low part of the herb heap, where the bottom of the bombilla is sitting.  You don’t want to fill it up all that much – the top 1/3 of the herb heap should be dry.  You should get maybe 2-3 sips of tea before more water needs to be added.  Once the flavor starts to wane, you can shake down some of the dry herbs at the top, or just wet the upper part of the heap.

A last note on the mate ritual – if there are multiple people sharing mate (which is common, though the last two times we did this at least one person got sick due to sharing of germs), the ritual goes as follows:

- One person is the primary mate preparer, usually the owner of the gourd.  He is responsible for preparing the tea, and refilling it with water when it goes dry.

- The primary person prepares a gourd, then passes it to around to each person in a circle, one at a time.  Each person individually drinks until the mate is out of water, at which time they pass the gourd back to the primary server.

- After he has refilled the gourd with more hot water, the primary server will hand it to the next person with the bombilla facing them.  This can continue for hours.

- Don’t say ‘thank you’ (‘gracias’) unless you’re done.  When the server passes you the gourd, you don’t say anything, just drink.