How to Drink Mate Like Your Favorite Footballers | OneFootball

The ubiquitous drink is a favorite of footballers including Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Antoine Griezmann, in addition to hipsters in trendy cafes. But what is the proper way to drink mate?

Argentina and Uruguay are home to some of the greatest soccer players to ever lace them up. These often-mercurial playmakers bring a mix of technical ability and the spirit of the potrero (the Argentine street mentality) that wins the hearts and minds of supporters the world over. This includes in MLS, which has become a popular destination for up-and-coming players from both nations. But these players also bring along something that might be slightly unfamiliar to casual, North American audiences: mate.

What the heck is mate?

If you’re the type of hipster fan that lives in a gentrified neighborhood and takes public transit to games located in the very heart of downtown, you’ll probably recognize the drink that Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez carry around everywhere they go.

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Mate (pronounced MAH-tay) is a hot tea drink made from pouring hot water over a gourd of loose tea, called yerba. It’s instantly recognizable: its drinkers sport a leather or ceramic-coated cup called, you guessed it, the mate, accompanied by an ornate metal straw called the bombilla, and complete with a thermos full of hot water under the arm. Mate has long been a signifier of culture and worldliness in the United States. In bohemian city centers, cafes have sprung up touting the health benefits of the drink and its seemingly medicinal properties. Fun fact: a cult called “The Twelve Tribes” spent years opening mate-themed cafes around the country as a way of attracting members.

But far from being a cultured drink of the petty bourgeoisie, mate has its roots in the working-class gaucho culture of old, and persists as the social drink of the common people throughout the southern cone of South America. Regular people of almost all socioeconomic classes consume it for breakfast, as an after-work pick-me-up, and while hanging around with friends. Containing just enough caffeine to get you going, it won’t give you the intense jitters of espresso. It also doesn’t contain any harmful sugars (unless you add it, which plenty of people do).

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Perhaps this is why it’s such a popular drink for professional soccer players, given that they are constantly hanging around their buddies simply waiting for training or a match or their mode of transportation to kick off. Mate can certainly remind our South American friends of home, given that there aren’t really any North American cultural parallels.

So do you want to performatively drink mate in the hopes that one of your South American soccer idols will happen to join you? If so, follow these helpful steps:

Don’t: Order Mate in a Cafe or Teahouse

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Real mate drinkers will look at you like you’ve got three heads. These places are interested in capitalizing on the image of the mate rather than the spirit of it. Mate is meant to be prepared at home, and brought around with you to every place you can think of.

Buy yourself a nice thermos, perhaps a Stanley, and cover it with ironic stickers. The more esoteric, the better! This is a great chance to show your soccer fandom as well. I’ve received more “Que mira, bobo?” stickers as gifts than I can even count. A well-placed crest of your favorite club will look great on your termo.

Fill that bad boy up with water heated to 75 degrees Celsius (167 Fahrenheit). Carry that thermos to the beach, to the park, on the subway, to your friend’s house… even to the soccer stadium (if they’ll allow you to bring it in).

Don’t: Buy Yerba From Any Specialty Tea Shops or American Brands

They’ll sell you yerba at an insane markup in tiny little baby packages, which won’t allow you to drink mate all damn day, a la your favorite South American MLS star. Remember: drinking mate like your favorite footballer is meant to develop into an all-consuming, impossible-to-break habit.

Instead, treat yourself to one of the myriad Argentinean brands available online, or even in Latin grocery stores. You can buy yerba by the kilo or 500 grams for a fraction of what you’d pay your local tea-and-honey dealer.

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In my house we use Playadito, but Cruz de Malta is readily available in major cities. However, if you want to really drink mate like the GOAT, opt for Argentinean brand Rosamonte. Messi swears by it.

Don’t: Clean the Bombilla After Sharing It With Your Friends

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I’ve come the conclusion that many Argentineans simply don’t believe in germ theory. Mate is a drink that is meant to be shared, and one ought to refrain from touching, cleaning, or otherwise messing with the metal straw through which the liquid is consumed. So if Messi himself offers you a mate, hands off the straw!

You could trick yourself into believe that the bombilla is sanitary because the water is hot, but you know as well as I do that that water ain’t boiling. All that’s left is to accept that this is another culture’s way of doing things. That said, it is also considered a massive faux pas to leave crumbs of the snack you’re eating on the bombilla as you hand it back. So wipe the Cheeto dust off your fingers before you go in for a sip.

You also should tell whoever is pouring the mate, el cebador, that the mate is “muy rico,” but only if you want the mate to keep coming. If you’re finished drinking, hand the mate back to your host with a hearty “gracias!” This is the universally-accepted signal that you’re bowing out.

Other mate-related gaffes include holding onto the mate for too long (translated as holding on the microphone), blowing into the bombilla, making mate with cold water, or reusing yerba.

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Now you know how to drink mate with the easy style of Lucho Acosta, Martin Ojeda, and Cristian Espinoza. So the next time you’re sipping a few mates outside of your favorite MLS stadium, your South American friends will be sure to spot you and greet you with a “Que hacés, campeón?”