My first day in the Chile Osorno mis­sion I was vis­it­ing the mis­sion offices and one of the mis­sion­ar­ies was drink­ing a nasty look­ing green con­coc­tion through a metal straw. They called it Yerba Maté and he said it was his favorite drink. I was offered a sip and thought it was the most dis­cust­ing thing I had ever had. I soon found that in south­ern Chile Yerba Maté is a very com­mon social drink con­sumed, at the time, by both mem­bers and mis­sion­ar­ies alike.  Over time Yerba Maté grew on me and like many other mis­sion­ar­ies I became a big Yerba Maté drinker, often sip­ping the tea while study­ing or while vis­it­ing peo­ple. Yerba Maté is not only socially rel­e­vant in south­ern Chile, but in fact it is con­sumed all across cen­tral and south Amer­ica. Most mis­sion­ar­ies who have served in those regions have either con­sumed or been intro­duced to Yerba Maté.

Yerba Maté is an herbal tea with lots of vit­a­mins, and some web­sites I have vis­ited indi­cate it has stim­u­lat­ing qual­i­ties sim­i­lar to a nat­ural caf­feine (except that there’s no caf­feine in it). Yerba Maté looks and smells sim­i­lar to dried grass with twigs in it. To drink it you add boiled water and sugar, then you sip it through a fil­tered metal straw called a bom­billa (pro­nounced bombiya). Yerba Maté is often held in a gourd or spe­cial cup called a Maté.  Although I think sweet­ened is the only way to drink Yerba Maté, my mis­sion pres­i­dent once told me that you weren’t really a Yerba Maté drinker unless you drink it amargo (sour — no sugar). He was from Uraguay.

When I left my mis­sion I bought 2 kilos of Yerba Maté on the way to the air­port, wrapped them in plas­tic and duct-tape, and then stuffed them into my suit­case. I was sure some­body would think they were drugs, but for­tu­nately I made it all the way to Seat­tle with no prob­lems. Since then, I have intro­duced Yerba Maté to my kids and most of them enjoy it. It can be pur­chased online and is not very expen­sive. The video I have attached is of my daugh­ter teach­ing view­ers how to drink Yerba Maté. It was done for a school project I had a while back and I thought I would attach it.

Kelsey demon­strat­ing how to drink Yerba Mate