Throw away your energy drinks! Matteh is much better!
In winter, our house was like a walk-in industrial freezer. So we had to keep ourselves warm with a heater, and surely with food and drink.
Cocoa milk, hot custard, rice and milk ( riz bi haleeb) were always there to keep us warm and give us energy. Not to mention the whole set of hot drinks, green tea, black tea, zhourat ( i.e flower mix ), rosemary tea, ..and finally Yerba Mate.
Yerba mate was our afternoon tradition, sipping it while eating a chocolate bar aside!
Even during Ramadan, mom made it custom for us after we break our fast to drink matteh ( the lebanese pronunciation). Drinking quinched our thirst, rehydrated our bodies, gave us energy and eased digestion!
Below will be the scientific proofs for all what we felt after drinking it.
History:
Yerba mate has indeed an exquisite history. It is not Lebanese. It is originally a South American drink:
- The Guarani peoples of South America were the earliest to harvest and drink yerba mate.
- They considered the yerba tree a gift of the gods and they called it the "drink of the gods".
- Yerba Mates was part of their rituals and as used as a currency of exchange with the Incas and the Charruas.
- Every part of the preparation and drinking of yerba mate is in fact a ceremony or ritual.
- When the Spanish conquistadors came to Argentina early in the 16 th century and found the indigenous people drinking yerba mate, they tried the tea, liked it, and learned how to brew the tea.
- This created a demand for the tea all over Europe and by the 1600s the Jesuits were harvesting and cultivating it on yerba mate plantations. It was called the "Tea of Jesuits".
Today it is being cultivated on plantations in parts of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Many attempts have been made to cultivate the herb in similar areas on other continents, but outstandingly they have all failed.
The custom of yerba mate from processing to consumption has basically remained unchanged from early times.
The huge Lebanese diaspora that reside all over the world and mostly in South America, brought this drink and habit to Lebanon when they came back.
Drinking matteh or yerba mate in Lebanon is mostly common among those who reside in the mountains.
Nutritional Content:
