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We have known about and sold this beverage for many years. Yerba Mate has had
a loyal following amongst many of our customers already familiar with its
benefits. Now we feel it is time to let the rest of you in on it! It is used
to boost immunity, cleanse and detoxify the blood, tone the nervous system,
restore youthful hair colour, retard aging, combat fatigue, stimulate the mind,
control the appetite, reduce the effects of debilitating diseases and eliminate
insomnia. Come in and give it a try!
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Mad For Mate |
An evening commuter bus rumbles over the red hills of
Argentina’s northeastern Misiones Province, a thumb of land
poking into Brazil and bordering on Paraguay. One of the
passengers takes a thermos from its holder on the bus’s
dashboard, fills a palm-size gourd with hot water, and offers it
to one of his friends. She nods and sips from the metal straw,
then returns the gourd to the man, who fills it and passes it to
another friend.
This intimate scene is as ingrained in Argentine culture as
tango and soccer. Mate (pronounced MAH-tay), a slightly bitter,
tea like drink made from yerba mate, the dried leaves of the
evergreen shrub Ilex paraguensis, is consumed by all generations,
seemingly everywhere-in parks, filling stations, offices, on front
stoops, and, especially, at home. All day, wherever you look,
someone seems to be sipping mate from its traditional gourd,
through a silvery, strainer-tipped bombilla-usually with friends
or family but sometimes alone, too.
Misiones, with its iron-rich red earth and subtropical
climate, is the epicenter of the world’s only mate-growing
region, which extends into Paraguay and Brazil. (Mate is a daily
drink in those countries, too, as well as in Uruguay and Chile-and
also in Syria, many of whose citizens have long worked in
Argentina and have exported a taste fro mate to their home
country.) The mate tradition is venerable. Well before the Spanish
arrived in the 16th century, the Guarani Indians were
steeping yerbe mate to make a potion they dubbed “the drink of the gods”
for it’s medicinal and
energizing properties. Mate does indeed seem beneficial. According
to my package of Amanda-brand mate, it contains vitamins B1, B6,
and C, as well as iron, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous,
calcium, and a small amount of protein. It may contain
antioxidants, too- more than green tea, some tests indicate-and
its thought to stimulate the cardiovascular and nervous systems.
One Argentine I know describes mate simply as a tonico cerebral
that gives you a lift in a gentle way, without the addictive or
jarring effects of coffee.
In the United States, mate isn’t likely to overshadow
Lipton. But you never know. Celestial Seasonings, which has
quietly used yerba mate in its Morning Thunder tea since the
1970’s, has just released three new mate teas- Tropical Mate
Zinger, Verde Mate Mist, and Island Mate Spice. And recently I
bought a bottle of the newest from the beverage giant Snapple, a
ginseng black tea called lightning. While sipping, I scanned the
label: 250 mg. Each of berry and ginseng extracts and 125 mg.
Yerbe mate! It almost made me want a bombilla.
Taken from Saveur Magazine by Todd Shapera
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