December 2007 - Buenos Aires, Argentina/010450-MateCups-06308

December 2007 - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Several of the shops sold these little pots. On looking at them more closely, we noticed the interior was something similar the meerschaum pipes that Tom used to smoke, the exteriors being sometimes quite elaborate coverings. In each was a silver straw like thing with a silver filter at the bottom. We wondered if these were perhaps the Argentine version of some drug sipping device. We learned later in our trip that they are called "mates" from which mate is sipped through the silver "straw". Mate is crushed leaves of the yerba mate over which they pour almost very hot water to make the "mate tea". Later on in our trip, we would see locals carrying their thermos of hot water, the bag of "tea" and the mate cup. No, we never sampled it!

010450-MateCups-06308.jpg - Several of the shops sold these little pots. On looking at them more closely, we noticed the interior was something similar the meerschaum pipes that Tom used to smoke, the exteriors being sometimes quite elaborate coverings. In each was a silver straw like thing with a silver filter at the bottom. We wondered if these were perhaps the Argentine version of some drug sipping device. We learned later in our trip that they are called "mates" from which mate is sipped through the silver "straw". Mate is crushed leaves of the yerba mate over which they pour almost very hot water to make the "mate tea". Later on in our trip, we would see locals carrying their thermos of hot water, the bag of "tea" and the mate cup. No, we never sampled it!