Buenos Aires Deli

I was at Buenos Aires Deli ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chicago-I ... 784?ref=ts ) getting some of the excellent empanadas, and I was looking at the Yerba Mate selection. They had the tea bag version, but they also had a large selection of the loose stuff and even single-estate stuff. Does anyone out there regularly drink Mate in the little gourd with the filter straw (bombilla)?

Buenos Aires Deli
3100 N. Cicero Avenue
Chicago, IL, 60641
773-685-4241

A friedn brought one back from a trip along with a bag of the yerba mate (very peat-mossy in appearance). Went through the bag - it wasn't bad, but haven't gone looking for any more since. Still mostly a coffee drinker.

My mother would occasionally whip out the bombilla when she felt the need to assert her Argentine-ness (or to detract from our American-ness) but not very often. I think my grandfather was pretty hard-core, I remember on his one visit my mother fixing them for him (though the passing it around like a joint thing seems to be mythology) but he lived all his life in BA.

It still tastes like stewed grass to me, but it does have a real caffein kick.

I'm a fan. Was very happy to see Argo's roasted mate, which I started drinking daily several months ago. Alas, they are discontinuing it as a ready brew for lack of interest. Apparently, at the Loop store I frequent, I was the only person who ever ordered it. They will make it to order now. It's an acquired taste, though the dark roasting at Argo does much to address the grassy profile. (I acquired the taste drinking the Cuban pop Materva.) Also has a good kick without much of the downside of caffeine. While there's something cooly ritualistic about the bombilla, it adds nothing to the drink for me. Hot liquid through a straw is a bad idea, generally.

JeffB wrote:Hot liquid through a straw is a bad idea, generally.

A metal straw. Hot liquid through a metal straw.

I am such a disappointment to my mother...

I love Materva, they even have a diet version