Mate bush
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Mate bush ( Ilex paraguariensis ), illustration |
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| Ilex paraguariensis | ||||||||||||
| A.St.-Hil. |
The yerba mate ( Ilex paraguariensis ), also called Mate tree, is a species of the genus of holly ( Ilex ) in the family of holly plants (Aquifoliaceae). It is common in South America . The infusion drink mate tea made from the cut dry leaves is traditionally drunk in South America. The fresh leaves contain about 0.4 to 1.6% caffeine and 0.3 to 0.45% theobromine , traces of theophylline and also caffeoylquinic acids, flavonoids , saponins and tannins .
Description and ecology
The evergreen , richly branched mate tree has an oval tapering tree crown and a light gray trunk with a diameter of up to 40 centimeters. In the wild it reaches heights of growth of 12 to 18 meters or more, but on plantations it is cut back to a height of about 5–6 meters in order to be able to harvest the leaves better.
Its alternate, leather-like, short-stalked and glossy, smooth leaves are 6 to 20 cm long and 3 to 9 cm wide, and have the sawn to notched or sometimes entire edge and an obovate to elliptical, elongated shape , which is characteristic of Ilex species . The tips of the stiff, thick leaves are rounded to pointed, the central vein is yellowish in color.
Ilex paraguariensis is dioecious diocesan . The male axillary thyrses have up to 15–20 flowers. The female flowers usually appear individually to about three. The greenish-white flowers with a double perimeter are four or five-fold. The small chalice is cup-shaped. The male flowers have alternipetale stamens and reduced, cushion-shaped ovary . In the female flowers, the dark green ovary is on top with a sitting, lobed stigma and there are staminodes.
The 6 to 10 millimeters, red drupes are 4- to 8-SAMIg. In order for the seedling to break through the very hard shell, the fruit must first pass through the digestive system of a bird under natural conditions ( ornithochory ). Because of this, the ripe fruits have a color that birds can perceive particularly well.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 40.
Occurrence
The mate bush grows wild as undergrowth in the araucaria forests of western Brazil , Argentina and Paraguay , on the highlands between the Río Paraná , Río Paraguay and Río Uruguay and their tributaries, but not in Uruguay . Its home is the primeval forest of the Paraná Basin .
Taxonomy
It was first described in 1822 by Augustin François César Prouvençal de Saint-Hilaire in Mémoires du Muséum d'histoire naturelle 9: 351. Many synonyms are known, Ilex bonplandiana Münter , Ilex paraguayensis Hook. , Ilex domestica Reisseck , Ilex paraguayiensis Winkl. , Ilex paraguayriensis Bonpl. , Ilex mate St.-Hil. , Ilex paraguensis D. Don . , Ilex vestita Reissek , Ilex sorbilis Reisseck , Ilex paraguajensis Endl. , Ilex theaezans Bonpl. ex Miers. u. a.
Cultivation
Since the late second half of the 19th century, it is mainly in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil in culture cultivated. Even today, however, around half of the mate on the market is harvested from trees growing in the wild.
Optimal growth conditions for Ilex paraguariensis are a relatively constant average temperature of 20 to 23 ° C, medium-high humidity and altitudes of 400 to 800 meters.
For the cultivation of the mate bush, the fruits are mechanically damaged and soaked in water. Germination takes up to three months. In the first two years, the small plants are sensitive to light and need to be shaded. The two-year young plants are cut just above the ground, the new shoots are then stronger and fuller. The first harvest takes place after four years, and the subsequent harvests take place every one or two years, depending on the growing area.
use
The leaves are used. They are cut off from May to September and, in order to prevent blackening, they are briefly heated over a fire in wire mesh drums or metal cylinders ("tapping"). The phenol oxidases (enzymes) that are responsible for blackening are inactivated and the aromatic substances typical of mate tea are created. Then the leaves are crushed or pulverized.
Around 300,000 tons of mate are produced annually, mainly in Brazil, with a small proportion coming from Argentina and Paraguay. Roasted mate tea is also traded. For this, the dried leaves are subjected to a further heating process. In large parts of South America, especially in Brazil, mate is a popular national drink.
Mate as an infusion drink
Mate was already drunk by the indigenous people of South America before colonization. In the vicinity of the traditional cultivation areas, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, in parts of Chile and in the Bolivian Gran Chaco , the majority of people today drink mate regularly - in Argentina around 80% of the population drink mate at least once a week , the annual consumption in 2011 was 6.8 kg per capita. In other countries, however, the drink was never able to establish itself, which is why exports remained low and production is mainly for personal use. The Canary Islands , Syria and Lebanon are an exception . Mate was introduced there at the beginning of the last century by Arab emigrants who returned to the country, and is considered "the main drink" in some provinces ("Piporé", " Yerba Mate "). However, not all of the customs associated with mate drinking in South America have remained there. Originally and now again in the more northern, warmer areas of southern South America, the brew is drunk cold as tereré (ice).
In South America, other infusion drinks are also called mate , e.g. B. in Bolivia and Peru generally infusions from other plants such as mate de coca , prepared from the leaves of the coca bush .
Etymology and history
Mate was already used by the indigenous people of Latin America . The word comes from the Quechua word “mati”, which describes a hollowed-out calabash as a drinking vessel, i.e. the container in which the leaves are poured. Today the ready-to-use dried leaves are sold in Brazil as "erva-mate" or simply "erva", in Spanish-speaking countries called "yerba" or "hierba" (= herb, meaning medicinal herb ). At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish conquistador and founder of Buenos Aires , Pedro de Mendoza , reported an encouraging drink used by the Indians . When the Jesuits settled what is now Paraguay in the following century , they began to systematically cultivate the mate plant and until they were expelled in the 18th century they had a kind of trade monopoly in all of Latin America.
The French botanist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire also systematically classified the mate plant during his travels through Brazil between 1816 and 1822. According to a scientific legend, the fact that it is not brasiliensis, but paraguayensis (or paraguaiensis ) is due to a mix-up when labeling the samples in Curitiba .
Economical meaning
For the Brazilian state of Paraná , mate was the cause of a long-lasting economic upswing and ultimately independence as a separate federal state. Paraná was a district of the state of São Paulo until December 19, 1853 . Over a period of more than 50 years, mate cultivation and its processing accounted for up to 85% of Paraná's economic production. For the production of maté, new towns with roasting plants and processing mills were founded. The transport system developed, regular ship traffic began on the Rio Iguaçu , the long connecting road "Graciosa" and a railway line were built that connects Curitiba with Paranaguá . Accompanying branches of industry such as barrel production emerged. This mate boom lasted until around World War II .
In the last two decades of the 20th century, many hectares of land and little or unused mate farms were occupied by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST, Movement of Landless Agricultural Workers). In 1989 the first MST settlement "Novo Paraíso" (= New Paradise) was built in South Paraná; to date there are over 50 cooperatives, which are now officially recognized and supported by the government with loans and infrastructure.
Today mate is sold in some supermarkets in Germany as an infusion bag, in many one-world shops as “Brazilian Yerba” and in many Turkish and Arab supermarkets as Argentine mate, “Yerba Mate”. For lemonade processed, it is as a scene-drink (z. B. Club-Mate available). There is also an open source mate beer ( recipe and label under CC-BY-NC-SA ), which is sold under the name Mier.
In some countries in the Middle East , such as Syria and Lebanon, mate is drunk in some provinces (see above).
See also
literature
- Daniela Brieger: Characterization of the leaves of Ilex paraguariensis SAINT HILAIRE and possible adulterations with the help of botanical and phytochemical methods. In: Dissertationes Botanicae , Vol. 240, Borntraeger, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-443-64152-0 (Zugl .: Marburg, Univ., Diss., 1995). VII, 268 pp.
- Norbert Ohem: The mate and its ingredients: Phytochemical and pharmacokinetic studies on Ilex paraguariensis St. Hil. Marburg, Univ., Diss., 1992. IX, 136 pp.
- Otto Hintze: The Herva-Mate, its extraction and use. With 10 pictures based on original photos from the mate industry, Bad Köstritz. In: Library of entertainment and knowledge , Volume 9, 1927, pp. 129-142.
- Melanie Haaf: Ilex paraguariensis St.-Hil. (Mate). Dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, 2004, online (PDF).
Web links
- Instituto Nacional de la Yerba Mate (INYM)
- Ilex paraguariensis in PROTA.
- Ilex paraguariensis from Useful Tropical Plants, accessed October 13, 2018.
- Ilex paraguariensis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: World Conservation Monitoring Center, 1998. Retrieved on 9 May, 2006.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Mate tea bush. In: Cornelia Schwöppe, Phytopharmaka GbR, koop-phyto.org. 2019, accessed October 17, 2019 .
- ^ Ilex paraguariensis at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.
- ↑ AT Valduga, JRD Finzer, SH Mosele: Processamento de Erva-Mate. Edifapes, 2003, ISBN 85-88565-57-9 .
- ↑ Plant List
- ↑ R. Hänsel, K. Keller, G. Schneider: Hagers Handbook of Pharmaceutical Practice. Drugs: E – O , 5th edition, ISBN 978-3-642-63427-7 , p. 508, limited preview in the Google book search.
- ^ Ilex paraguariensis at KEW Science.
- ↑ El mate nuestro de cada día on clarin.com (span.)
- ↑ El consumo de yerba mate es de 6.8 kilos por habitante por año y se encuentra presente en más del 90 por ciento de los hogares de Argentina (PDF, span.), On misionesonline.net.
- ↑ Tomar un té on herbogeminis.com (span.)
- ↑ Mier's CC License ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on mier.metamate.cc (English).
- ^ Mate beer from Berlin: The game with cult In: Berliner Zeitung . March 13, 2012.
- ↑ Mate beer is here! ( Memento of the original from February 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on metamate.cc, September 26, 2017.
