While the shared mate gourd is a social ritual, mate cocido is its homely, practical cousin—poured into individual cups, easy to sweeten and serve to children. Since the early twentieth century it has been the everyday brew of Argentine schools, hospitals and farmhouse breakfast tables across the Litoral and beyond.
Earthy and grassy like green tea but rounder and gentler, with a mild herbal bitterness that softens completely when milk and sugar go in. Warming and faintly toasty, it is the quiet, comforting wake-up of countless Argentine mornings.
Boiling and straining extracts the yerba's stimulating compounds while leaving the leaves behind, giving a smoother, less astringent infusion than the concentrated, continuously-refilled gourd.
Variations
With milk (mate cocido con leche), iced with lemon, flavoured with citrus or vanilla, brewed from tea bags, served at breakfast with toast
On the Palate
Where Mate Cocido sits in the Argentinian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
8 steps · 5 min
- 14 min
Bring water to a gentle boil in a pot.
- 21 min
Add loose yerba mate to the water (or use mate cocido tea bags).
- 32 min
Let it boil briefly, then turn off the heat.
Watch outBoil only briefly, then kill the heat — a short boil pulls the flavor out cleanly; prolonged boiling stews the leaves and turns it harsh and bitter.
- 43 min
Steep for a few minutes until deep amber and aromatic.
- 51 min
Strain the liquid to remove all the leaves.
Watch outStrain out every leaf before pouring — leaving them in keeps extracting and the cup grows bitter as it sits.
- 61 min
Pour into cups.
- 71 min
Sweeten with sugar to taste if desired.
- 81 min
Add warm milk for a softer version and serve hot.