People from the north of Argentina also drink tereré, with cold water or juice.
What's different from Brasil is the yerba they use, here is dried, there is not.
With hot water = mate.
Brewed as tea or coffe and drank with a teacup = cocido.
With ice-cold water = tereré.
Both mate and tereré are shared if appropriate, but after COVID this is seriously restricted.
People who drink their mate only to themselves are usually the Uruguayans.
Source: born and raised there :)
Everywhere in the Pampas region - Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Rio Grande do Sul -, the "roda de chimarrão" is pretty much the same. (Apparently in some part of Uruguay it's a bit less shared, more personal).
One person holds the thermos and generally owns the mate. They usually have the first drink as both a way of validating the drink and as a niceness to the rest of the group, since it's the coldest. Gourd is refilled and passed on to the next person, who drinks all of it and passes it back to the "cevador", who again refills it and passes on to the next person. So on and so forth.
I grew up in a border town bordering Uruguay and over there I’d definitely see folks carrying their personal thermos and cuia. But I would see groups on the Brazilian side of the border.
Uruguayans tend to be more likely to have one thermo and mate per person, similar to the tradition in Corrientes (which makes sense if you look at who their immediate neighbors on their western border are).
Seems like an easy vector to spread sickness or disease. Or am I misunderstanding things? Is it like bums sharing a nighttrain [though alcohol helps here] or is there some hygiene involved?
Plus there is always San Pedro’s or San Jaun’s cup. I forget the guys name it’s the guy who saved the Indios, when you first make terere you leave it sit and this is for that guy and also to let the horrible first taste soak into the first sip.
Also as I found out it’s really bad manners to stir the spoon / straw thing.
It is as it ruins the experience. The "bomba" (Portuguese), or "bombilla" (Spanish) (the straw) is generally placed in a way that tries to ensure a smooth flow. Moving it means the leaves near the bottom of the "cuia" (Portuguese), or "mate" (Spanish) (the gourd, or cup), potentially blocking the flow of water. That ruins the experience for everybody in the circle.
That social circle was fun. I do miss it.
The idea of sitting in a circle today for four hours between meals seems unattainable today.
In meetings, you share the mate across, I’ve only seen 1:1 people:mate relations in American shows (grace and Frankie for example) and we consider that very weird.
The social point of mate is to meet and chat with other people, and spend some time together, sharing mate and food
Someone might correct me, but I believe it is only in Brazil south that “chimarrão” (how they call this drink) is drank like this, hot and shared.
In Argentina and Uruguay you drink it individually. You can share the recipient with the mate in it, but once you added a refill of hot water and took the first sip, you have to drink it until the end before returning.
And in Paraguay they drink the “tereré” with cold water.