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There’s nothing Yerba Mate can’t solve

There is nothing that yerba mate can’t solve, especially if accompanied by an excellent book and good rock. I drink it during my working hours in the library, with my future colleagues in the career of librarianship, in the recording studio or at home appreciating nature. I remember the main reason why I started drinking mate was my weight, reaching almost 100 kilos (220 pounds). From looking at myself, I saw the need to change bad eating habits, so I opted for a 100% vegan diet, integrating the divine mate into it. From that moment, it was love at first sight, and I noticed a change in my weight in a matter of months. I dropped kilos and felt good about myself both inside and outside. As you can imagine, from that moment I regarded this drink as the true drink of the gods.

In life, there are small details that make a difference, details that can help us transform into something tangible and amazing that can be enjoyed every day and every hour, stimulating our senses to create and compose new songs.

The true magic of Yerba Mate

The pleasure generated by a good conversation with yerba mate is difficult to explain, but it does not often grow or expand within our own social circles naturally. No matter how old or where you once came from, it tells us that we are all mirrors in some way, and sharing while mateando (drinking mate), as we say colloquially, has given me proof of that statement.

In my case, this truth was realized on my mother’s last birthday. She received a gift of a mate and a bombilla, which helped to forge bonds in the period after dinner. In spite of our previous history, sharing mate with my mother allowed me to get to know her in other ways as a person, ways I wasn’t aware of being. My grandfather echoed this same sentiment, when he told me that his mother took mate with a silver bombilla that had a heart on the tip with his name engraved by convicts in the Santiago penitentiary. He enjoys giving anecdotes and passing down the oral tradition of simple, but beautiful and funny, stories that emerged in the daily life of construction and hard work in the field; life stories of relatives and loved ones who are no longer in the world of living, thanks to these conversations, come back into existence during a breakfast, lunch or dinner due to the power of mate. This convinces me more and more that it is, and always will be, the best social network.

Another example of what I’ve mentioned are the conversations I have with my future colleagues. We’re all of different ages, places where we grew up, ways of seeing life, believes, tastes, etc., but Yerba Mate unites us every time we share knowledge, experiences or put out on the table our views of politics, literature, film or what we do during the cold nights of Santiago de Chile after a day of study.

A father’s duty

For some people, it can be cigarettes, for others alcohol, but for me, a young man of 22 years, rather shy and withdrawn, Yerba Mate has become an entrance to be able to social and let go of being a little misanthropic. This applies to friends and people I don’t know, who I see in the street or on public transportation on the way home, allowing me to open doors in order to see and learn new ways of life in an increasingly cosmopolitan country. Thanks to the warming sip of Yerba Mate, we realize that, despite the distance created by our differences, we can still share and learn from others.

A year ago, I became a father to a beautiful and very intelligent girl named Agustina Tiamat, and every time I am with her, she also accompanies in the moment of mateando. We consulted with doctors to see at what age it’s feasible for a child to begin drinking mate with their father, and they said that 8 years old is a good age to begin fully drinking mate, but that at 3 years old a child can begin to taste it, little by little, in addition to other mixed herbs. So, in the meantime, I will do all I can to teach her the multiple ways of drinking it, as well as the benefits, so that she will grow to love it in the same way her father has. All of this leads me to reflect on the importance of Yerba Mate in my life. Is it more than a food? I must respond with a resounding and a categorical yes. There is love, a connection that goes beyond the sensible, a point that maintains a predominant romanticism. I admit that it was one of the first things I ever loved, unlike other beverages, because once I included it in my diet, it guided me towards considerable improvement in both my physical and emotional health as well as a deeper relation with my environment, which I deeply appreciate.

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