Let’s Have a Chimarrão

Carolina and the chimarrão

Gaucho* carry on an old tradition of sharing chimarrão, a tea made from yerba-mate drunk from a hollowed gourd-like bowl through a metal straw, with friends.  Here in southern Brazil, this is done with hot water, so people carry a thermos with them along with all the other equipment.  (I’m told that it is traditionally done with cold water in Argentina and Uruguay.) I think it tastes similar to green tea – but perhaps a bit more grassy and bitter.  They bring this stuff everywhere…. which I learned firsthand shortly.

Me and chimarrão

I drank my first chimarrao at the beach in Jurere with Carolina and Tiane.  As Florianopolis is in Santa Caterina state, people there do not drink the tea… it’s very regional.  As we headed to the beach, it struck me as odd to me to travel with all this equipment just for tea, but I came to realized it just as much a social activity as it is a drink.

Tiane and the chimarrão

Then, once I arrived in Canela, Carolina’s town, chimarroa was everywhere!  We went to the local waterfalls, and people were drinking it there.  Behind their desks, in toll booths, on park benches, in the car ~ chimarroa, chimarroa, chimarroa.  Here in Canela, I shared it with with Carolina and her family before dinner… with her brother Tiago and his girlfriend Ilana after a hike … their way of bringing me into their circle of friends and family.

Take note, chimarroa tea will not be coming back to New York… as perhaps you can tell from the picture, narcotics would be all over me.  Given that I’m already flying home from Colombia, we don’t need to add more fuel to that fire….

* like our cowboy, the term used to describe the people from Carolina’s state of Rio Grande do Sud