Yerba mate is a plant species of the holly genus Ilex native to South America. It was named by the French botanist Augustin Saint-Hilaire. The leaves of the plant can be steeped in hot water to make a beverage known as mate. Brewed cold, it is used to make tereré. Both the plant and the beverage contain caffeine.

The indigenous Guaraní and some Tupí communities (whose territory covered present-day Paraguay) first cultivated and consumed yerba mate prior to European colonization of the Americas. Mate is traditionally consumed in central and southern regions of South America, primarily in Paraguay, as well as in Argentina, Uruguay, southern and central-western Brazil, the Gran Chaco of Bolivia, and southern Chile. It has also become popular in the Druze and Alawite community in the Levant, especially in Syria and Lebanon, where it is imported from Paraguay and Argentina, thanks to 19th-century Syrian immigrants from Argentina.

The infusion, called mate in Spanish-speaking countries or chimarrão in Brazil, is prepared by filling a container, traditionally a small, hollowed-out gourd.Drinking mate is a common social practice in Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, southern and central-western Brazil among people of all ages, and is often a communal ritual following customary rules. Friends and family members share from the same container, traditionally a hollow gourd (also called a guampa, porongo, or simply mate in Spanish, a cabaça or cuia in Portuguese, or a zucca in Italian), and drink through the same wooden or metal straw (a bombilla in Spanish or bomba in Portuguese). The gourd is given by the brewer to each person, often in a circle, in turns. The recipient drinks the few mouthfuls in the container, and then returns the mate to the brewer, who refills it and passes it to the next person in clockwise order. The recipient is not supposed to give thanks until they are done drinking the beverage, and if they do, they will not be served any more mates.

Every other picture of :caught-in-4che: drinking this is somehow more :volcel-judge: don't not not look it up

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