Meet my gourd and bombilla
I’ve always wanted to try yerba mate. And Uncle B was like, why? And I’m like, shut up.
It’s not a tea, exactly. It’s a South American shrub that is a social drink, like coffee for Americans or tea for Brits. Except they pass it around, so gross.
It was first made popular in Paraguay before the white man come. It’s high in caffeine, but not otherwise psychoactive.
The truth of the matter is, I just like paraphernalia. My new gourd is purty. I’m pretty sure I’m too lazy to make some tonight, though.
Posted: May 12th, 2025 under food.
Comments: 8
Comments
Comment from MrKnowitall
Time: May 12, 2025, 7:28 pm
At this rate, you’ll be smoking kinnikinnick soon, or making batches of hickory milk! Where will it all end?
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: May 12, 2025, 8:07 pm
I feel the same way about Absinthe. I don’t get a distinguishable buzz but I love the special glasses, pouring through the sugar cube, and watching the flame.
Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: May 12, 2025, 8:46 pm
I remember Celestial Seasonings had a tea called “Morning Thunder” which was Nearly all yerba Mate
Its claim to fame was it had as much caffeine as coffee without the coffee.
I don’t think anybody was impressed.
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: May 12, 2025, 9:38 pm
¿Padilla? I think you mean Bombilla.
I lived in Buenos Aires for some years when I was a lad. Yerba mate was ubiquitous among working class Argentines; not so much middle class/professional people. And I never saw any kind of mate gourd other than an actual, literal gourd, usually with a metal lip, like this one. Looking around now I see all kinds of fancy wooden and ceramic “gourds” that I’m sure my Argentine friends would have laughed at (but then they weren’t known for a keen aesthetic sense, sad to say, except when it came to music and meat).
I hope you use and enjoy your mate, Stoaty. If your first experience isn’t satisfactory, try some other brands/blends. There’s as much variety in mate as there is in coffee and tea.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: May 12, 2025, 11:40 pm
It’s probably okay to drink.
the Daily Mail will get round to telling us it causes cancer, or dementia, or Alzheimers, but till then you’re fine because Russia will probably drop a space satellite on your house before the diseases get you, or Trump annexes England.
Yes, someone took a gloomy Gus pill this morning.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 13, 2025, 5:38 pm
Oh my god, Uncle Al, I DID mean bombilla!! What’s a padilla and why did that pop out?
I will fix it, if you don’t mind.
Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: May 13, 2025, 8:44 pm
Maybe you were thinking of the “dirty bomber”? (The one-time Chicago gangbanger who made the cover of TIME in 2002 as a would-be terrorist.)
“bombilla” == “Padilla” and “bomb”?
(Note: the comment function preprocesses the text as HTML, eliminating the plus sign and anything framed by angle brackets)
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: May 13, 2025, 10:15 pm
Rich, you gotta use the ‘escape sequence’ instead of the initial ‘less than’ sign a/k/a angle bracket.
Let’s see if I can get this right. This should be what you have to type to show as a literal ‘end bold’ tag:
</b>
</code-geek>
Write a comment
Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.<< carry me back to ol' virginny