Mainlining

After a fleeting relationship with coffee, I've mostly given it up. For whatever reason, since moving to New Zealand I've gotten hooked on coffee. It's not that Missoula had bad coffee--quite the contrary. It's just that coffee is pretty much the only sort of casual social / business engagement that people do here.

I had grown to like my new persona as a coffee drinker. Despite lightening up my wallet considerably, it's not a bad drink. Unfortunately, coffee has really started to disagree with me. The brutal acidity and the diuretic effect of the coffee finally caused me to give it up.

To help cope with the coffee cravings I've taken back up with an old friend from my Missoula days: Yerba maté. Yerba maté is a relative of holly grown in South America. Dried, ground up, and steeped in hot water, yerba maté is strong stuff. My preferred method of brewing is to add some cold water to my Planetary Designs half-liter "desk press" mug add some boiling water and then add a generous quantity of yerba.

My preferred method is not, however, the traditional method. In Argentina they suck the tea through a slotted silver straw from a gourd. In solidarity with South Americans everywhere, I have purchased a gourd (the maté) and a bambilla (the straw). Following the proper methodology I have seasoned my gourd and consumed my first traditional yerba maté.

My first thought when I read how full you are supposed to pack your gourd was, "holy crap, I'm going to go broke buying maté for this thing." Then, after discovering that you are supposed to refill your gourd with water until the flavor is gone, I realized that my maté gourd is way too big. This is clearly a social gourd and not a solo model.

The effect of consuming maté in this concentration and quantity is that I can now fold space-time with my mind, much like the shipping guild in Dune.