One of the perks of having an Argentine wife for five years was that I was able to learn the sometimes intimidating methodology of yerba maté, which I will put down here on paper, lest I forget now that the divorce is going through (shed no tears!)  

In the health food stores one can find yerba maté sold either as teabags or in loose tea form. This is all fine and dandy and some brands, like Guyaki, support the communities and growers who make it. The mate is first rate, but these bags are usually very steeply priced at around $5-10 for half a pound. In Argentina and Uruguay where maté is from, one buys the stuff by the kilogram (2.2. pounds, for around $4.50 via e-mail, $1.50 in the Buenos Aires mercado). If you are going to drink it like a real South American you will have to buy this kind and leave the little pouches of deluxe over-priced stuff (meant to be used more as a conventional tea) to the Yankees.

I order mine from Yerba Mate Cafe. They have good prices and dependable service, but there's a score of others which a Google will call up. I used to make the trek to a coffee shop on 9th Ave, behind the Port Authority, but one day the whole block was gone, replaced by some new condo. And anyway, now I don’t have relatives-in-law to mail it, or an excuse to fly down to Santelmo to buy gourds and bombillas from the attractive hipster craftsmen there. But, shed no tears, mi amor!

I go for the traditional, Cruz de Malta, which comes in a white and red package and includes broken up stems. This is the basic mate, unprocessed and unflavored. Note that just because it's allegedly caffeine-free, and laden with anti-oxidants and vitamins and minerals (Argentines consider drinking it the equivalent of "eating your vegetables" so they can concentrate on asado and empanadas), doesn't mean it wont knock you on your ass and send you into a shaky, cold-sweat nausea if you drink too much of it on an empty stomach. At least that's what it does for me, a Yankee with a penchant for overdoing everything (But shed no tears, mi amor!)

The traditional and most effective way to drink mate is via the bombilla and gourd. The bombilla (pronounced "bomb-beesha") is basically a metal straw that opens out into a strainer at the other end, sort of like a reverse-tea ball. The gourd is more of a tea bowl in which one sticks one's bag of hot water.

First: Fill the gourd half full of the yerba/herb. Now this would be painful to do with your $10 bag, but with your $4 sack it will not be that traumatic. (When we were dating and I combed the health food stores for mate to impress her, only to have her pour out half my little $8 bag into her gourd, I cried, but of you I ask that you shed not a tear.) Now take the filter end of the bombilla and work it through the herb (yerba) until it's resting at the bottom.

 
Do not use boiling water in the gourd because a) you'll burn your lips, tongue and throat, and b) you'll "kill" the yerba. Ideally you use water that's not quite boiling. But the problem with that is you have to stand around the stove waiting for just the right time to take it off the fire. One way to get around this is by soaking the herb in cold water prior to adding the hot. Just pour enough cold water to cover the herb, don't fill the gourd, and let the herb soak it up, like a protective sheath.

If you use the basic "Cruz de Malta" or other unsweetened herb, you may want to add sugar, or assuming you are healthy, honey, or if you are somewhere in between, lots and lots of honey. Many caballeros use stevia (and there are brands of maté that come pre-sweetened with stevia) an all natural sugar substitute, but I don't particularly like it. To each his own! 

Once the water has boiled and is allowed to cool a minute or so, fill the rest of the gourd with the boiled water to the top and wait. In Argentina, this first "round" of mate is known as "The maté of the fools," which means it's not supposed to taste very good, as usually it's too cold or too hot because you pre-soaked the herb in too much cold water, or not enough. Whatever – if you are drinking the maté by yourself you can let the hot water soak in for a couple of minutes and really reap the full flavor so that the first sip is the best.

Traditionally, the maté is passed around a group of friends or family during intense political or philosophical discussion.  The long haired youth shout excitedly and refer to each other as "Che" while passing the gourd around, refilling it with hot water from a tea pot. When in Argentina (or with the wife's friends here in NYC) I would pass the time eyeing the gourd angrily as they took forever to drink and finish it, completely deaf to their mirthful Argentine Spanish, but shed no tears in thinking of this, dear reader.

 
When the mate comes to you, there are a few observances:

1. Do not "stir" the herb with the bombilla. It is not a swizzle stick, and you can "clog" the end, making suction impossible.
2. Do not just have a sip and pass it on. You are expected to "clear the chamber." And don't take forever to drink it. Try and do it all in one big sip. Be careful though, that you don't burn your lip, as the bombilla can get hot.
3. Depending upon the attentiveness of your host, you may want to re-fill the mate yourself and pass it to the next person. It is very bad form to pass the empty mate to the next person and expect them to fill it up for themselves.

 
The large group way of drinking maté works because the yerba is strong and has the effect of sneaking up on you. Imagine if you were doing this method with coffee. Pouring hot water into a bowl full of coffee grounds, for example, would have you tweaking in just a few turns. Thus if you are drinking it by yourself, make sure and take your time. Have a maté, then re-fill it with the hot water and then let it stand for another few minutes before going at it again.

 
Other tips:

• Until the mate's been sitting around for a long time, or gone completely flavorless from over-use it's considered "good." Sometimes hardcore South Americans continue to use the same worn out gourd full of mate until long into the night.
• If you are the host, don’t feel bad about changing the herb regularly, especially if you are turning on your Yankee friends to this new communal beverage. You should feel obligated to keep refilling until everyone has been sated, and then keep the water hot.
• If it gets clogged, think of it as quicksand, to suck hard and fast to try and clear it will result in making matters worse; the trick is to pour in more water and suck very slow and gentle until love triumphs and the clog clears.
  

So there you go, you are now part of the hip new maté society. Of course that's just one way. In Uruguay they are so into the mate they tend to carry thermoses with them wherever they go and there's hot water stands just to fill them up. Other people use cold water in their maté, which makes no sense to me, but I'm just a yankee whose experience of mate is all via an espousa, but the wonder of it is, the espousa is gone, but the maté remains. Shed no tears, mi amour, y viva la maté!