Street Corner · Cold Yerba Mate

Tereré

Photo: Yerba Mate Taragüi / Unsplash · Unsplash License

UNESCO added tereré to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2020 — one of the few drinks with that honor.

A hollowed gourd or horn (guampa) is packed with yerba mate and sipped through a metal bombilla straw, refilled again and again from a thermos of ice-cold water infused with crushed medicinal herbs (pohã ñana). Herb vendors pound fresh herbs in wooden mortars and sell them from stalls and street corners across Asunción.

Why it's made this way: Unlike the hot mate drunk elsewhere in South America, tereré is served ice-cold specifically to survive Paraguay's brutal summer heat, and sharing one guampa among a circle of friends is considered as much a social ritual as a drink.