What are you drinking right now?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by elSicomoro

Guayaki Yerba Mate...Enlighten Mint flavor

I take my mate amargo, sucked from the gourd. More fuerza to the brew than what's in those cans. Not that flavored mate is unknown at all, even in the half kilo bag.

Half(ish) full of la yerba out of the bag (looks like chopped alfalfa), wet down with cool water, then infused using justlukewarm water. It is mate manners to drink the first, potentially bitter, gourdful yourself before infusing the next one for your guest. Very gradually, mixing cool water with hot, increase the infusing temperature with each succeeding gourdful. Your mate is giving its best flavor when a little greenish foam is visible on top; foamless is pretty much spent, recharge your gourd with fresh yerba.

Some brands/blends include stems and twiglets -- these add a bit of something. Kind of bori-cha.

You do need the bombilla to drink with; it has a bulbous strainer, whence its name.

The wife says when I'm wearing rumpled khaki shorts of a summer day and drinking a gourdful that it makes me look like a rather demented planter of some interesting South American crop.