Tea Straws

Reader Contribution by Ilene White-Freedman
Published on December 17, 2014
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A bombilla is a Latin American tea straw used to drink yerba mate. Why not use it to enjoy all kinds of loose herbal teas?

I learned about yerba mate from Denise. Denise volunteers on our farm. She drives an hour from the city to spend the day on the farm, a connection to nature for her and a reminder of her mother land of Brazil. One cold day she came to the farm with a canteen of hot water and a traditional drinking gourd filled with tea leaves. She told me they were yerba mate leaves, and she described the traditional ceremony of adding water and passing a drinking gourd around a circle of friends. She showed me the beautiful stainless steel drinking straw, a bombilla, which strained the loose tea from the bottom of the straw. She pours the water at drinking temperature, not piping hot, so she can sip it through the straw.

I was intrigued. I bought yerba mate and a bombilla tea straw at my local food co-op. Yerba mate is a strong caffeinated tea, without the caffeine effects of coffee and with a reputation for significant health benefits. I am not used to caffeine and it still gave me a shaky reaction. But really, it wasn’t the mate I was after. It was the tea straw. I love drinking from stainless steel straws. I love the aesthetic of a collection of tea straws in a mug, ready for friends and tea. I broadened my tea collection to include quality loose teas from Mountain Rose Herbs. I will never go back to Celestial Seasonings. No more “natural flavors” flavoring my tea. I can use the straw to strain a mug of dried herbs from my herb garden, like my own chamomile flowers. Perhaps I will begin to mix my own tea combinations, another branch of the DIY passion. I can personalize the herbs in my mixes. But even without getting into mixing my own teas, drinking loose tea has improved the quality of tea in my life.

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