Yerba Mate

It's hot as hell this time of year here in the southern hemisphere, but I'm still enjoying mate. :-)

If you enjoy your coffee though, you shouldn't feel tempted to switch to yerba mate for any health benefits -- though the herb is often marketed as a healthier alternative, and even sometimes deceptively marketed as a 'naturally caffeine-free' beverage, it actually has a chemical profile quite similar to coffee or tea and a caffeine content that generally fits on a scale somewhere between beverages prepared with either of those other plants. However, yerba mate CAN actually contain MORE caffeine than many varieties of coffee (along with numerous other bioactive phytochemicals)... and because of the way it is traditionally consumed, the drinker will often extract more phytochemicals from the yerba mate than they would from an equivalent amount of coffee beans -- e.g., ground coffee beans are generally discarded after just one hot-water infusion, but hot water is repeatedly added to yerba mate until the herb is considered to be 'lavado' (that is, cleaned of all the desired phytochemicals -- including caffeine).

For your own health, and the health of all the world, just try to make sure that your coffee is organically cultivated, shade-grown, sustainably-harvested, and certified 'fair trade'... so that you can rest assured that you're not poisoning yourself with agro-toxins, decimating climax forests, or further exploiting people who are already terribly exploited & impoverished. And if you still decide to switch to yerba mate as your beverage of choice, hopefully you can be guided by similar principles.

yes, BsAs is filled with beautiful women. No, not all of them are walking around drinking mate, but a lot of them drink it at home and in public places, especially parks and beaches. These two girls happen to be mate adicts and drink it all day long. In Uruguay people do walk around drinking it.

Yeah, while the two girls in the video were quite 'typically Argentinean', one thing that did seem a bit out of place were the scenes where one is shown walking & drinking. Honestly, the scenes even seemed awkward for the girl[s] (and not just because they were being filmed, because their demeanor in those shots is juxtaposed against their much more relaxed mannerisms when being interviewed at home)... In my experience, walking and drinking (or walking and eating) is sort of a faux pas in the city of Buenos Aires and it's not very common to see anyone walking and eating or drinking *anything*, including mate... as 'gingerandgerardo' mentioned. Not only is mate typically consumed as a hot beverage (which people wouldn't want to risk spilling on themselves), but the sidewalks in most barrios are in typically in horrible condition, often covered in dog shit, and filled with many of the city's 13million+ people who are generally walking very intently because they have somewhere that they need to go (and walking fast, because they're late.. haha). So, when walking, the focus is on walking. It's much more common to see people drinking mate in more relaxed social settings -- perhaps in the park, among a meeting of friends, or during a long night of studying. And there's something of a ritual to it... you don't want the bombilla to move around within the mate (probably because it tends to pick up more leaves if it is moved), and the mate needs to be frequently refilled with hot water, especially for the first few times, since the dry yerba absorbs the liquid quickly. So, I'd assume that the scenes where the girl is walking with a mate in one hand and a thermos in the other were included for demonstrative or dramatic effect, and not even a typical activity for her -- in any case, that's certainly what it looked like. Even the folks I know who are 'mate addicts' would carry their 'mate kit' in a bag or backpack, and stop somewhere to prepare the drink and enjoy it casually -- much like heroin junkies don't walk around while they cook up their junk and filter it into a syringe and hunt for a vein.