A Classic Bulb offered from €100 purchase 🎁 !
Mate is often known as the drink of Argentina or Uruguay. But, to be precise, mate is the drink of the Guaranis.
Yes, the indigenous Guaranis are at the origin of mate. They notably used these leaves as currency, objects of worship, and consumed them as an infusion.
The mate tree was indeed considered the quintessential tree, a gift from the gods.
The first traces of mate consumption date back to the ancestral use of the leaves of this plant by the Guarani people.
They chewed them directly or placed them in a small gourd (the ancestor of the gourd) with water to make a drink.
The word “mate” comes from the Guarani “Caa-mate,” “Caa” meaning “plant” and “mate” referring to the container in which mate was drunk.
Other peoples like the Incas, the Charruas, and even the Araucanos also adopted mate through trade with the Guaranis. Beyond its nutritional aspect (see the composition of mate), mate had a real spiritual value for them.
The Guaranis (also known as “avá”) are a group of indigenous peoples of South America living in Paraguay, northern Argentina, southern Brazil, and southeastern Bolivia.
The first traces of this ethnic group date back to the 5th century.
Nearly 270,000 Guaranis currently live in the same region.
The Guaranis speak a language, which is simply called... Guarani.
It is, along with Spanish, the official language of the Republic of Paraguay as well as the province of Corrientes, in northern Argentina.
Currently, the Guaranis are at the heart of many struggles to protect their lands – particularly in Brazil, where deforestation is occurring at the expense of the 305 indigenous tribes living there.
A survey conducted in 2005 was carried out to count the populations of indigenous peoples in Argentina. Nearly 22,000 Guaranis were counted there, mainly in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta (near the Bolivian border).
The last census conducted in Bolivia reported a population of 59,000 Guaranis within Bolivian borders.
The Guaranis living in Brazil primarily reside in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (on the border with Paraguay and Bolivia).
The latest information from 2002 indicates 496 villages inhabited by 84,000 Guaranis throughout Paraguay.
Nearly 500 years ago, during the colonization of South America, the Spaniards became acquainted with mate by observing its consumption by certain indigenous tribes.
They initially banned its consumption, labeling it as "the devil's drink," before adopting it to benefit from its energizing effect.
Mate quickly became popular among the Spaniards, who spread it throughout all the territories they occupied at the time – mainly in Uruguay and Argentina.
Plantations were established by the Jesuits (this is why mate is also known as “Jesuit tea”), to supply the yerba mate trade that extended over a large part of the continent.
Gone are the days when mate leaves were a currency used between the Guaranis and the Incas.
Today, mate is a drink symbolizing sharing and friendship, widespread in much of South America. It is also a drink whose benefits attract the whole world, as mate can now be found in almost every country in the world.
