Experiment
When my sister first visited and then lived in Buenos Aires in 2010 she spoke (and blogged) about yerba mate . This tea-style drink was an Argentine staple, and actually fairly common throughout South America. I had heard of "mate" from my visits to Argo Tea when I enjoyed the Roasted Mate or Mate Latte. The flavor, I recalled, was slightly bitter, but very robust and "chewy" and Argo did a great job of making this drink accessible to the masses. When I walked out of Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires in August 2010, my sister greeted me with an enormous hug and thrust a wooden cup/chalice with a metal spoon/straw in my face. This was mate. Well, actually the cup was the mate and the green stuff inside was the yerba . The metal straw was a bombilla and I was not allowed to touch it. The tea was delicious and when I handed the "empty" (water-less) mate back to my sister and said "Gracias, Julia" she quickly noted that saying "Grac...