Yerba mate

“ The favourite stimulant of the rancho is the yerba-maté which puts new life [Pg 45] into the exhausted horseman. Everywhere in town and country, the first rite in the morning is maté-drinking. Men and women carry the little gourd around, into which each in turn dips the tube of the bombilla, a perforated disc which travels from mouth to mouth, in the company of devotees.
In the old days, it was the tradition of maté-making to give the first infusion—poured off quickly, but invariably slightly bitter—to the servants. ”

“ M. Thays was not the man to let us leave without seeing his plantations of yerba-maté. Every one knows that maté, the Paraguay holly, is a native of Paraguay, whence it spread to Chili, Brazil, and the Argentine. Its leaves, dried and slightly roasted, yield a stimulating infusion that is as much enjoyed by the South American colonists as by the natives. Like kola, tea, and coffee, maté contains a large proportion of caffeine, which renders it a good nerve tonic and, at the same time, a digestive. ”

“ Yerba maté is raised more extensively in Paraguay and Brazil than in Argentina; but the value of the crop is well recognised, and recently the Government distributed fifty thousand plants among settlers. ”

“ The amount of yerba maté consumed annually is enormous. It is estimated that no less than ten millions of persons in South America indulge in the habit. In Chile the annual consumption per capita is about one hundred and twelve pounds; in Paraguay thirty-four pounds, and in the Argentine twenty pounds. ”

“ Yerba mate grows wild in Paraguay in great copses, like hazel or cranberries, but its quality improves under cultivation. Its uses were originally discovered by the Jesuits, those inquisitive fellows who were always prying into the secrets of nature as well as the secrets of State and the souls of men. They were the best mining prospectors in South America, and were constantly exercising their botanical and chemical knowledge for the advantage of the people. ”

“ Some plantations have been established on the Alto Paraná, but the greater part of the mate comes from the virgin forest. The natural trees in the forest grow better if that is cleared of underbrush and of the larger trees. When full grown they can endure 5-6 cuttings a year without permanent harm.
The Industrial Paraguay, with a capital of $5,000,000, is said to export about 75 per cent of the total. This Company holding a property of 8400 square miles, was the first to undertake on a considerable scale the cultivation of yerba mate in plantations. ”

“ The consumption of maté or yerba [1] throughout South America is very large, and is on the increase. It takes the place of China tea, and is supposed to have many virtues which neither tea nor coffee possesses. That it is sustaining there is every reason to believe; that it has a less injurious effect than tea or coffee on the system does not seem to be demonstrated; but the fact remains that the people believe in it, and have acquired a taste for it, which is largely contributed to by its cheapness. ”

“ It may be purchased also in Buenos Aires; perhaps sometimes in Montevideo, but none could be found there in 1912 in spite of a strenuous hunt, nor in Rio either. The prices are moderate, and no man need hesitate about purchasing a piece. No woman will.
Another specialty of Paraguay is the yerba mate, sometimes called Paraguay tea, which is raised also in neighboring parts of Argentina and Brazil. This herb, Ilex paraguayensis, or South American holly, grows as a bush or tree resembling the orange. ”

“ Yerba is the principal article exported, and as the use of maté is so general on the continent, this trade is a very important branch of industry. In addition to these leaves, a small quantity of tobacco, a few hides, hard woods and demijohns of a primitive kind of rum constitute the exportations of a country in which cotton and indigo grow wild, and where sugar and rice could be made to yield large revenues. ”

“ A kettle is always carried by one or other of the men to make the “maté” tea which washes down every meal. Yerba has a great reputation, and is largely consumed all over the southern parts of Brazil, Uruguay, and the Argentine, and even further south. To Europeans it is generally known by the name of Paraguayan tea, for, although it grows in Brazil, Corrientes, and the Chaco, its real home is in Paraguay, where it flourishes in great abundance, and its cultivation and collection form one of the principal industries. ”

“ The yerba blanca, a whitish-green herb which is used raw with olive-oil on sandwiches, and enters into the composition of various ragouts, is described as resembling the lapis infernalis in its effect on a normal tongue. A Mexican can chew up a handful of red pepper as we would so much dried fruit, and eats onions, garlic, and salted radishes as a relief from more pungent tastes. ”

“ It closely resembles A. racemosa of the Eastern States, but it is a larger, coarser plant in every way. It throws up its tall stems with a fine confidence that there will be ample space for its large leaves to spread themselves uncrowded. Its feathery panicles of white flowers are followed by clusters of small purple berries, and are rather more delicate than we should expect from so large a plant.
YERBA MANSA. Anemopsis Californica, Hook. Yerba Mansa Family. ”

“ Like their predecessors, the vaqueros of today are familiar with the tradition of a necromantic brew; but many of them—like Don Jesus Omada, of Bacuachito, and Don Ramon Noriega, of Pozo Noriega—display a much more lively interest in the local yerba mala, or yerba de flécha, of which they stand in such mortal dread that they can hardly be induced to approach a clump of it, and which they conceive must add the final crux to the brew. This plant was described in “Rudo Ensayo”: “Mago, in the Opata language, is a small tree, very green, luxuriant, and beautiful to the eye ”

“ There were twenty tatacuas, twenty barbacues, and twenty pies of the yerba cut and ready for manufacture. Two days after that the whole colony was in a blaze, tatacuas and barbacues were enveloped in smoke; on the third day all was stowed away in the shed; and on the fourth the peons again went out to procure more of the boughs and leaves."— (Letters on Paraguay, vol. ii. p. 142-147) .
Each peon or laborer, going into the woods for six months, can procure eight arrobas, or 200 lbs. of yerba a day. This, at the rate of two rials, or 1s. for each arroba, would make his wages per day 8s. ”

“ Should stray organisms find a home during fermentation, foul flavors and/or terrible hangovers may result. The wise homebrewer starts with the purest and best-suited strain of yeast a professional laboratory can supply. Making beer is a process suited to the precisionist mentality, it must be done just so. Fortunately, with each batch we use the same malt extracts, the same hops, same yeast, same flavorings and, if we are young and foolish, the same monosaccarides to boost the octane over six percent. ”

“ The bacteria as a class are incapable of producing alcohol in appreciable amounts. The alcoholic beverages, beer, wine, and cider, are produced by the growth of yeast, in such sugar containing liquids as fruit juices, extracts of grains, etc. The common types of yeasts are incapable of acting on milk sugar, but they can ferment glucose, maltose, and cane sugar, forming equal amounts of alcohol and carbonic acid gas, which causes the effervescence of fermented and carbonated drinks. There are, however, some types of yeasts found in milk and its products that are able to ferment milk sugar. ”

“ Yeast organisms attack the sugar and must, breaking it up into alcohol and carbonic acid gas, the latter passing off as it is formed. When active fermentation ceases, the new wine is drawn from the pomace and is put into closed casks or tanks where it undergoes a secondary fermentation, much sediment settling at the bottom of the cask. ”

“ But if we stir into that solution some beer yeast, the phenomena of fermentation soon appear in the above circumstances; for carbonic acid gas is evolved, with intestine movements of the liquid, and an increase of its temperature. A body of yeast rises to the surface, and exhibits a continual formation and rupture of air bubbles. At length the sugar being in a great measure decomposed, the motions cease, the liquor becomes clear, and instead of being a syrup, it is now a dilute alcohol. ”

“ The wine-maker does not, like the brewer and distiller, deliberately introduce either yeast, or any equivalent of yeast, into his vats; he does not consciously sow in them any plant, or the germ of any plant; indeed, he has been hitherto in ignorance whether plants or germs of any kind have had anything to do with his operations. Still, when the fermented grape-juice is examined, the living Torula concerned in alcoholic fermentation never fails to make its appearance. How is this? If no living germ has been introduced into the wine-vat, whence comes the life so invariably developed there? ”

“ The first thing to be done is, to fill a few jars with clear water, and to throw into each a few strips of any common water-weed, of which callitriche is always the best, and most generally attainable. If the water is very foul it will be better to travel a little distance for a supply, because the specimens are wanted as cleanly as possible, and if thrown into clean water when caught, their own motions will tend [109] to cleanse them, and fit them for the glass jars at home. ”

“ No fermentation followed, consequently no alcohol resulted. From this it was learned that the yeasts necessary for the production of the alcohol of wine live in nature in the air and are found in abundance on the outside of the grape. If the grapes be crushed the sweet juices serve as food for the yeast plants. These when well fed grow rapidly and, by a simple process of budding, produce myriads of yeast plants. These, like their parents, give rise to ferments which break down the sugar into and alcohol. ”

“ By boiling the infusion of malt and hops, cooling out of contact with air, and fermenting with pure yeast [232] in vessels to which only carbonic acid or pure air is admitted, a beer is produced of superior quality, which may be preserved without trouble for any time. Even a partial adoption of these precautions is attended with valuable results. In preparing pure yeast to start with, the author makes use of the fact that oxygen favours the growth of true yeast, but hinders the propagation of the other ferments. ”

“ An excellent medium is such a solution with some albuminous matter, or phosphates and ammonia salts, added to it. But the best medium for its existence and growth is constituted by some liquid like wort or grape juice. In such a liquid the formation of yeast, accompanying fermentation, may be induced by exposure to the air in a brewery or some other place where alcoholic fermentation is going on, the air of such places containing the germs that develop into the yeast plant. ”

“ The cause of the chief troubles which arise in the fermentation is the presence of contaminating bacteria among the yeasts. These bacteria have been more or less carefully studied by bacteriologists, and their effect upon the beer or wine determined. Some of them produce acid and render the products sour; others make them bitter; others, again, produce a slimy material which makes the wine or beer "ropy." Something like a score of bacteria species have been found liable to occur in the fermenting material and destroy the value of the product of both the wine maker and the beer brewer. ”

“ The amount of alcohol consequent upon the growth of yeast cells has direct relation to the concentration of the wort. When intensified the yield of alcohol increases; when lowered there is less.
Generally: Patent 103 proposes to neutralize any deleterious acidity in a wort which contains inorganic salt by adding an antacid material; patent 105 requires the addition of nutrients during the growth of the yeast 'at a rate such that the yeast may propagate and substantially all of the alcohol which may be formed is assimilated by the yeast' ”

“ By a rare accident we might get the true alcoholic fermentation, but the odds against obtaining it would be enormous. Pure air acting upon a lifeless liquid will never provoke fermentation; but our ordinary air is the vehicle of numberless germs which act as ferments when they fall into appropriate infusions. Some of them produce acidity, some putrefaction. The germs of our yeast-plant are also in the air; but so sparingly distributed that an infusion like beer-wort, exposed to the air, is almost sure to be taken possession of by foreign organisms. ”

“ If a few be put into flour and water, potatoes and water, or any suitable mixture, they grow and multiply, producing more yeast plants like themselves, and in growing they give out carbonic acid gas and water, with a little alcohol. Cooks talk about keeping a little yeast in sugar and water, but it is kept only as this year's corn is kept when it is sown to make next year's bread. It does not grow freely in sugar and water only, it requires something more. Flour and sugar is easy and convenient, or potatoes. The better the food suits the yeast the faster it grows ”

“ These facts clearly show that the various phenomena adduced by the supporters of the theory of protoplasmic fragments are quite consistent with the presence of a dissolved enzyme as the active agent of the juice, and at the same time that the properties demanded of the living fragments of protoplasm to which fermentation is ascribed are such as cannot be reconciled with our knowledge of living matter. If living protoplasm is the cause of alcoholic fermentation by yeast-juice, a new conception of life will be necessary ”