Yerba Mate

One of the things I've been trepidatious to try is the yerba mate. It's a type of tea indigenous to the area, similar to green tea in flavour, but the main difference being that it's steeped in hot water instead of boiling water. It's drunk out of a gourd, which is the source of all my aversion, not because I've got anything against gourds in general, but during our first days here we walked through a market and found mate gourds which were made from hollowed-out animal hoofs. Hair still clung to them! Ever since mate has been associated with animal feet; however I made myself get over it today. Every where you look down here people are walking around with big thermoses hanging from their shoulders or necks, drinking out of the caps. At first we thought it was alcohol, because why else would you go to the trouble to drink out of a thermos? It turns out it's mate, people love it so much they need a constant supply of it on-the-go. Even the bum on our street was obsessed with it. Every time we saw him, sitting or lying down, he was sipping out of a new container of unstrained-mate, which looks totally gnarly:
Except his was in a Dixie cup.

Anyway, it's good. It tastes like grassy green tea. And as I'm writing this I can vouch for its caffeine content. I'm feeling more jittery than I do after an espresso, but there are no heart palpitations so I think it's safe to say I'll drink it again, just not out of a hoof.