Our national symbol

Drinking mate with friends or family is Argentina's oldest and most famous social practice. You can drink it during breakfast, lunch, tea or dinner time, no matter how old you are. For me, chatting to someone while drinking some mates is a unique opportunity to share a special moment with that person. This is the symbolical aspect of mate, and I think this is the main reason why this custom has survived over and over the years in our society. But of course you can drink mate on your own! I got used to doing this while studying at Teacher Training. Mate has become a really pleasant company to me during these years.
As most of us as Argentinians should know, this infusion is prepared by steeping dry leaves (and twigs) of yerba mate in hot water, rather than in boiling water-the flavour becomes really bitter if it is prepared with boling water, the water temperature should be between 71–82 °C-.
Even though I knew that mate was also typical from Uruguay, I have to admit I didn't know people in Paraguay, Chile, eastern Bolivia and southern and western Brazil also drank mate. But now I realize that yerba mate is original from this area in South America-the North of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Southern Brazil-.
Also in Paraguay, Brazil and of course in Argentina, when the temperature is 30ºC or higher in summer, we drink tereré, a cold beverage that we usually prepare with cold fruit juice-because it's sweeter than just using cold water-and which I personally enjoy drinking near the swimming pool with friends while sunbathing.
As you can see, mate is with us everywhere at any time, no matter the season of the year or the moment of the day!
And you can accompany it with either sweet or savoury food-delicious facturas, cake or cookies or some salame, cheese and ham in a wonderful "picadita".