History of yerba mate

The history of yerba mate stretches back to pre-Columbian Paraguay. It is marked by a rapid expansion in harvest and consumption in the Spanish South American colonies but also by its difficult domestication process that began in the mid 17th century and again later when production was industrialized around 1900.

The consumption of yerba mate became widespread in the Spanish colony of Paraguay in the late 16th century both among Spanish settlers and indigenous Guaraní people, who had to some extent consumed it before the Spanish arrival. Mate consumption spread in the 17th century to the Platine region and from there to Chile and Peru. This widespread consumption turned it into Paraguay's main commodity above other wares like tobacco, and Indian labour was used to harvest wild stands. In the mid 17th century Jesuits managed to domesticate the plant and establish plantations in their Indian reductions in Misiones, sparking severe competition with the Paraguayan harvesters of wild stands. After the expulsion of the Jesuits in the 1770s their plantations fell into decay as did their domestication secrets. The industry continued to be of prime importance for the Paraguayan economy after independence, but development in benefit of the Paraguayan state halted after the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) which devastated the country both economically and demographically. Brazil then became the prime producer of yerba mate. In Brazilian and Argentine projects in late 19th and early 20th century, the plant was domesticated once again opening the way for modern plantation systems. When Brazilian entrepreneurs turned their attention to coffee in the 1930s Argentina, which had long been the prime consumer, took over as the largest producer, resurrecting Misiones Province where the Jesuits had once had most of their plantations. However, the coffee production regions in Brazil are distinct from the mate plantations. According to FAO in 2012, Brazil is the biggest producer of mate in the world with 513,256 MT (58%), followed by Argentina with 290,000 MT (32%) and Paraguay with 85,490 MT (10%).^[1]