Visit any village in the South American countries of Paraguay, Uruguay, southern Brazil, or northern Argentina and you’ll be greeted with a warm or cold cup (depending on the time of the day you visit) of herbal Mate tea. Yerba Mate is traditional, centuries old refreshment used by the Gaurani Indians to cool them of sweltering heat. In fact, it isn’t odd to find everyone from elders to youngsters sipping the brew from sunup to sundown. The tea is either brewed with sugar or taken cold without sugar. The cold version of the tea is popularly called Terere.

The tea is known for its medicinal value. The leaves are said to be rich in vitamins E, A and C, pantothenic acid, chlorophyll, and choline. Besides this the tea is said to contain other powerful antioxidants that are very beneficial to the body. No wonder, the Guarani Indians referred Yerba Mate as the ‘drink of the lords’.

They drank the tea to boost immunity, cleanse the blood, tone the nervous system, reduce stress and fatigue, and also to stimulate the mind. Recent studies have proved that the tea is helpful to cure migraine, neuralgia, insomnia and headache. Regularly drinking of Yerba Mate is known to aid digestion among people suffering from gastro intestinal problems. The tea also inhibits the growth of bacteria responsible for bad breath. A number of dieticians refer the tea for its weight reducing qualities. The tea is known to speed metabolism and suppress appetite.

To make this tea, dried Yerba Mate leaves are put in a vessel that’s made from cow’s horn. To these leaves is added hot water. A metal straw with a strainer on its bottom is placed on the tea. The host then passes on the vessel to his guests who drinks it and then passes it over to the next guest, who will have to add hot water to drink from the tea.

The leaves were introduced to the west by Jesuit missionaries, who found that the locals never got tired after chewing the leaves of the plant. Today, there are many takers for the tea, who like it for its health benefits. While it’s common knowledge that drinking the tea gives people a ‘kick’, the levels of Caffeine in the tea are less than they are in green tea.

The leaves are traditionally obtained by cutting branches of a tall and bulky tree. The cut leaves are then placed on brushwood and roasted slowly in holes sunk in the ground. However with an increase in demand, the tea is now cultivated as a crop and exported to countries across the world.