Carlos Thays, the director of the Jardín Botanico of Buenos Aires, was one of the first to figure out how to germinate yerba mate seeds. He then planted yerba mate in the Jardín Botanico in the first years of the 20th century. In 2010 yerba mate was again planted in the same place in the Jardín Botanico of Buenos Aires.
There are many Ilex but only Ilex Paraguarensis can be called yerba mate. Ilex Dumosa is very similar to Ilex Paraguarensis but it has much less caffeine. Las Marías sells Unión Relax with Yerba Mate as a way to drink mate but with much less caffeine.
I got to see the mechanized harvest of yerba. These machines are gigantic and fast. They harvest a tremendous amount of yerba very quickly. Logistics (having enough trucks to transport the yerba to the secadero, planning the route of each harvester so they don't collide, etc.) become important. At this time, I believe that only 3 companies have fully mechanized harvesters. By far, most yerba is harvested manually. Semi-mechanized harvesting is another option (mechanized scissors and a machine for chopping the branches) that is accessible for small producers but I didn't have the opportunity to see it in action. This yerba producer specially selects seeds and plants cloned yerba. The plantation on the left side of the road has plants that are all "brothers and sisters" - they are from the same parent plants. The plantation on the right side of the road has all cloned plants.
These are old yerba mate trees. There are some indications that they might have been planted by the Jesuits during the Spanish colonial era.
A yerba producer generously allowed me to see some of the yerba harvest. Here are photos of the manual labor of harvesting yerba. Much of the process is the same as the harvest that I saw in January and wrote about on a January 27, 2016 entry. Most of my photos here only document the differences that I saw at this harvest. This cart is a simple and relatively inexpensive innovation that is very helpful for the tareferos' backs. The bundles of yerba are very heavy! For the other harvest that I saw, each tarefero carried his bundles of yerba on his back. At the previous harvest, the bundles frequently weighed around 80 kilos (over 160 pounds). At this harvest, I was told that the company only paid the tareferos for bundles that weighed no more than 55 kilos. They refused to pay for more than 55 kilos as a method for limiting the weight that the tareferos transported. The man on the left records the weight of each bundle. At the other harvest, all of the workers immediately started smoking when it was time to weigh the bundles and put the yerba in the truck. The man recording the weight did so with a cigarette in his mouth. Here, the company forbids smoking in the yerbales; people have to smoke at the camp spot where they eat. A yerba mate company generously invited me to see their secadero. This is the first step in processing the yerba mate. Within 24 hours of harvest, the leaves need to be toasted to remove most of the moisture. I saw the exhibit "Mate de la Independencia" at the Museo de Arte Popular José Hernández. The artist exhibited 4 ornate silver mates with a woman holding the mate. I didn't understand the importance of the woman until the following day when F and I were in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada where there is a statue in honor of the May Revolution. The same woman as in the mates is displayed prominently in the statue. This made me remember that the woman represents the nation of Argentina and I remembered seeing her in many places.
After returning from Misiones/Corrientes, I decided that I needed to do a yerba mate tasting. I wanted to figure out if I can distinguish different types of yerba mate and if there was a brand that I liked the best. I also wanted to see if the same was true for other yerba mate drinkers, and if our opinions were the same. Furthermore, I wanted to see if the more expensive premium brands are worth the money. I bought a ton of yerba mate for the tasting - almost all of the top Argentine yerba mate brands and a couple more. Also, almost each yerba mate company makes both a regular brand of mate and a premium brand, and I bought both in most cases. When I bought the 20 bombillas, the cashier was intrigued. We had a long conversation about mate. Before I left, he printed for me this popular story about the meaning of yerba mate. Capítulo 122: La existencia del alma en el Caio (del libro "Más respeto que soy tu madre") 08 de Enero de 2004 El Zacarías y yo tomamos mate. Siempre. A cualquier hora. Las veces que estuvimos a punto de separarnos, las veces que llegó un hijo nuevo a casa, cuando lo echaron del trabajo, cuando Argentina salió campeón del mundo, cuando se cayeron las torres gemelas. Cuando murió mamá... Entre el Zacarías y yo hubo días sin besos a la mañana, semanas sin dirigirnos la palabra, meses enteros sin juntar los pelos, años larguísimos sin un peso en el bolsillo. Pero no hubo nunca en nuestro matrimonio un solo día sin que él o yo nos sentáramos en silencio a tomar mate. El mate no es una bebida, corazones de otro barrio. Bueno, sí. Es un líquido y entra por la boca. Pero no es una bebida. En este país nadie toma mate porque tenga sed. Es más bien una costumbre, como rascarse. El mate es exactamente lo contrario que la televisión. Te hace conversar si estás con alguien, y te hace pensar cuando estás sola. Cuando llega alguien a tu casa la primera frase es “hola” y la segunda “¿unos mates?”. Esto pasa en todas las casas. En la de los ricos y en la de los pobres. Pasa entre mujeres charlatanas y chismosas, y pasa entre hombres serios o inmaduros. Pasa entre los viejos de un geriátrico y entre los adolescentes mientras estudian o se drogan. Es lo único que comparten los padres y los hijos sin discutir ni echarse en cara. Peronistas y radicales ceban mate sin preguntar. En verano y en invierno. Es lo único en lo que nos parecemos las víctimas y los verdugos. Los buenos y los hijos de puta. Cuando tenés un hijo, le empezás a dar mate cuando te pide. El Caio empezó a pedir a los cinco. La Sofi a los nueve. El Nacho a los tres. Se lo das tibiecito, con mucha azúcar, y se sienten grandes. Sentís un orgullo enorme cuando un esquenuncito de tu sangre empieza a chupar mate. Se te sale el corazón del cuerpo. Después ellos, con los años, elegirán si tomarlo amargo, dulce, muy caliente, tereré, con cáscara de naranja, con yuyos, con un chorrito de limón. Cuando conocés a alguien por primera vez, te tomás unos mates. La gente pregunta, cuando no hay confianza: —¿Dulce o amargo? El otro responde: —Como tomes vos. Yo les escribo siempre a ustedes con el mate al lado del teclado. Los teclados de Argentina y Uruguay tienen las letras llenas de yerba. La yerba es lo único que hay siempre, en todas las casas. Siempre. Con inflación, con hambre, con militares, con democracia, con cualquiera de nuestras pestes y maldiciones eternas. Y si un día no hay yerba, un vecino tiene y te da. La yerba no se le niega a nadie. Ni a la vieja Manforte. Escribo esto por algo. Hoy llegamos todos de la calle y el Caio estaba tomando mate solo. Nunca antes había tomado mate solo. Siempre con el Chileno Calesita, o con la hermana, o con nosotros. Solo jamás. Éste es el único país del mundo en donde la decisión de dejar de ser un chico y empezar a ser un hombre ocurre un día en particular. Nada de pantalones largos, circuncisión, universidad o vivir lejos de los padres. Acá empezamos a ser grandes el día que tenemos la necesidad de tomar por primera vez unos mates, solos. No es casualidad. No es porque sí. El día que un chico pone la pava al fuego y toma su primer mate sin que haya nadie en casa, en ese minuto, es porque ha descubierto que tiene alma. O está muerto de miedo, o está muerto de amor, o algo: pero no es un día cualquiera. El Caio no sabe qué carajo le pasa. No va a recordar este día. Ninguno de nosotros nos acordamos del día en que tomamos por primera vez un mate solos. Pero debe haber sido un día importante para cada uno. Por adentro hay revoluciones. Yo no me acuerdo de mi día. Zacarías tampoco. Nadie se acuerda. Pero hoy el Caio empezó a tomar mate solo. Hoy, 8 de enero del 2004, a la madrugada. Su padre y yo, escondidos en el pasillo, empezamos a mirarlo con respeto. HERNÁN CASCIARI (Mercedes, prov. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1971) We're all smiles...and a bit overwhelmed with all of the mate. I drank so much caffeine that I couldn't sleep until late and then I couldn't go back to sleep after waking at 5:00AM. The next day (thankfully Saturday) was rough. I was grumpy and tired. It was a bit like recuperating from a bad hangover. Any future mate tastings will have to be in the morning, not the afternoon. While in Posadas, the journalist Eliana Benay interviewed me about my yerba mate research. Her article, "De Arizona a la Argentina para escribir la historia yerbatera" ("From Arizona to Argentina to write the yerba history") which she published in fronterajesuita.
One afternoon, after working at an archive in the morning, I took the boys to the museum of the Cooperativa Santo Pipó in Santo Pipó, Misiones. The museum has a nice video that talks about the meaning of yerba mate and a little about the production of yerba mate and the cooperative. One of the highlights of my trip to Misiones/Corrientes in January 2016 was seeing the yerba mate harvest. I am incredibly grateful that a yerba mate producer gave me a tour of some of his land planted with yerba mate. I not only got to see the yerba trees, I got to see the application of pesticides, cutting of weeds, and the harvest and I spoke with the tariferos (harvesters), quadrillero (the boss of the tariferos), and the peons (the yerba mate producer's year-round workers). What a great experience! I am incredibly grateful to the yerba mate producer and his workers for giving me this wonderful opportunity! It's one thing to read about the yerba mate harvest and it is another thing to actually see it.
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