The History of Mate

The Guaraní people and their Caá-ete (true yerba mate)

Enjoyment of mate (pronounced MAH-teh) dates back to the beginnings of the culture of the Guaraní people of Paraguay, northeastern Argentina and southern Brazil. It was a staple of this people, who consumed it as a drink, sipping it from a hollowed gourd through a reed straw. They also chewed the plant (called yerba mate) during long treks. In the Guaraní culture, mate played a social role beyond that of a mere beverage; it was present in cults and rituals, and yerba mate served as currency when trading with other Pre-Columbian peoples. The Inca, the Charrúa and the Araucano of the pampas all received yerba mate in trade from the Guaraní. In the Guaraní language (also called Guaraní) caá means “herb,” but also “plant” and “forest”. For the Guaraní, the yerba mate tree is the greatest of trees, a gift of the gods. To drink the sap of its leaves was to imbibe the very essence of the forest.

The Conquistadors learned about yerba mate and its virtues from the Guaraní, and they spread the practice of its consumption enormously, developing an intense trade in yerba mate beyond the area from which it came, throughout the entire Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata.
Later, the Jesuits introduced the tree’s cultivation in some settlements. Jesuit missions were distributed throughout the present-day Argentine provinces of Misiones and northern Corrientes, as well as in southern Paraguay and southwestern Brazil, in order to shorten distances between places where yerba was grown and where it was processed. The Jesuits had discovered the mysterious secret to growing yerba mate, learning that the plant’s seeds only germinated after having passed through the digestive systems of toucans. This secret was lost when they were expelled in 1769, however, which meant the end of the tradition of yerba mate cultivation and the abandonment of plantations. The Jesuits preferred taking mate as a tea rather than from a hollowed gourd with a reed straw. They were so instrumental in making mate cocido (tea made from yerba mate) known throughout the civilized world that it came to be known as “Jesuit’s Tea".

Bonpland and Ilex Paraguarensis

More than half a century later, the famous French naturalist Aimé Bonpland began the first scientific studies of yerba mate, its cultivation and its uses. In 1819 in Paris, the botanist Saint-Hilaire classified the plant as Ilex Paraguarenis.
Bonpland rediscovered the secret of germinating the seeds, but this disappeared again upon his death. Not until 1903 in Santa Ana in the province of Misiones, was it learned again that yerba mate seeds only germinated when they had passed through the digestive systems of certain birds. It was then that the first modern yerba mate plantation was established.
Until then and for many years afterwards, yerba mate came only from wild trees in the forest. These grow in very dense thickets, called islands. Crude exploitation of the trees—felled trees were a commodity for centuries—caused the decimation of a resource once thought to be infinite. Only through controlled plantations was yerba mate cultivation to reclaim its place in history.

Yerba in the twentieth century

During the early years of the twentieth century, the major yerba mate processing centers of Argentina were born. They were established in ports to the south: Rosario and Buenos Aires. Wild yerba mate continued to be harvested mainly in the natural woodlands of Brazil and Paraguay and was transported on the Paraná River.
In the 1920s, when the settling of the province of Misiones began, the Argentine government granted land parcels to European colonists under the condition that they be partially planted with yerba mate. When these plantations began to produce, processing centers in Rosario and Buenos Aires refused to buy yerba mate from them, since they could continue to obtain it from the wilds in Paraguay and Brazil. So yerba mate producers could not sell their harvests, a situation which quickly caused a crisis and resulted in the first instance of state intervention. In 1936, Argentine law created the “Yerba Mate Regulating Commission” and the “National Roasted Yerba Mate Consigning Market,” prohibiting any new yerba mate plantations and establishing production quotas. This undermined incentive for expanding yerba mate plantations, and until 1966 the yerba mate centers of Buenos Aires and Rosario continued importing from Paraguay and Brazil.
The Yerba Mate Regulating Commission was discontinued in 1989, but no mechanism was created to help growers continue working without state assistance, thus suddenly exposing them to the forces of the open market. This caused a later crisis of overproduction, beginning in 1995. Due to an excess of raw material, a gradual but significant drop in the price occurred, a situation which lasts to the present day.

Yerba Mate cultivation today

Despite innumerable attempts throughout the centuries, yerba mate has stubbornly refused to grow beyond the perimeters once inhabited by the Guaraní. Yerba mate comes from South America and continues to be a very American plant, but it doesn’t grow in just any part of the continent. Growing areas continue to be restricted to the northeast of Corrientes, to Misiones and to Paraguay and southern Brazil. There, factors of temperature, humidity and soil composition converge, creating optimal conditions for yerba mate cultivation. All attempts to grow the plant in similar areas in North America, Asia and Africa have failed, and so yerba mate cultivation remains an exclusive and invaluable treasure for its native regions.

Mate: A good habit

Exactly when the Guaraní people discovered the virtues of yerba mate and how they learned to enjoy mate are mysteries consigned to the mists of prehistory. We do know, however, that the Spanish instantly adopted this habit of the indigenous people and that for the Creoles—Americans born of European parents—drinking mate became a passion and a mark of cultural identity. From the way it is processed to the way it is consumed, the habit of drinking mate has remained  unchanged since remote times and throughout five centuries of history, rooting itself ever more deeply in the customs of South America and continuing to spread far and wide. In Argentina, mate is the most consumed drink, second only to tap water, without any distinctions of class or age.