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There
is a lot of confusion surrounding the meaning of both terms, so let’s
clear it up for you one more time: yerba
mate is the plant used to make the herbal tea called mate. Before we show
you how you can brew your own mate, let’s have a look at what we need,
and what are the customary rituals when enjoying mate in a
group.
First
of all, you need some ground organic
yerba ,
which you can buy online. Mate is drunk from a gourd
which
traditionally, is the hollowed out and dried fruit of the Lagenaria
Vulgaris plant. However, you can purchase gourds in all sorts of
materials like steel, wood and leather. It’s important that you clean
your gourd properly before and after every use.
For
drinking the tea, a silver or wooden straw called a bombilla
(pronounced
bom-bee-jah)
is used, which acts as both a straw and a sieve that prevents the
drinker from taking in the ground yerba. The last ingredients are water
(both hot and cold, but we’ll get to that in a minute), and of course
some freshly ground stevia
herb to sweeten your beverage.
 In
South America, where yerba mate
benefits were first discovered, there are a few rituals involved
when drinking mate in a group setting.
One
person takes the role of cebador
or server. He prepares the mate, takes the first drink, then refills
the gourd and passes it on to the next drinker, who in his or her turn
drinks the second filling and then passes the gourd back to the
cebador.
This
process repeats itself for about ten fillings (depending on the quality
of the yerba), until all the taste has gone out of the yerba. When, as
a drinker, you’ve had enough, simply thank the cebador when passing him
the gourd. You will then not be offered any more mate.
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and ground 
