Fans at World Cup matches are bringing cups and straws to share a sip of yerba mate as they root for their national teams, with the drink moving through crowds alongside flags, jerseys and songs. In Kansas City, Missouri, when reigning World Cup winners Argentina arrived at their hotel, fans were outside pouring and sharing yerba mate in gourd cups with metal bombillas, the straw that acts as a filter for the steeped leaves. The scene showed how a simple drink can become a social ritual in the middle of a global sporting spectacle built on national loyalty, celebrity, and commercial attention.
Who Gets to Set the Terms
At Cafe Corazon, one of the biggest importers of yerba mate in the Midwest, a line of fans wearing sky blue-and-white striped jerseys was nearly out the door on Monday, the day before Argentina played its first match of the World Cup. Dulcinea Herrera, one of the co-owners of Cafe Corazon, said, “Our mate has been flying off the shelves.” She said, “So a lot of people have been coming in to try it. People who aren’t Argentinian want to just have that experience. And we have a lot of Argentinians coming in saying, ‘Oh, this reminds me of home.’” The rush turned a cultural drink into a commodity moving through a retail pipeline, with fans lining up to buy a taste of belonging.
Plenty of the World Cup’s most famous stars are avid drinkers, from Uruguay’s Luis Suarez to Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Messi posted a photo of himself holding a mate cup in one hand and the World Cup trophy in the other after his team won in 2022. The image tied the drink to the tournament’s biggest stage, where the same symbols of national pride and sporting glory are packaged for mass consumption.
What the Drink Carries
The drink dates back to Indigenous people and the gauchos, South American cowboys, and is sipped around the world, with other nations and cultures adding a different spin or flavor, said Christine Folch, a cultural anthropologist at Duke University and author of “The Book of Yerba Mate.” People in Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil prefer their mate in different types of vessels and prepared certain ways, which can be a cultural identifier when fans meet up at a friendly match. Folch said she has a large collection of mate cups, including ones made of cow hooves and horns, alongside hand-stitched, leather-wrapped metal cups and gourds.
In the early 20th century, mate became popular in Syria and Lebanon, which is why one of the main places to get the traditional dried leaves in the United States is at Middle Eastern grocery stores, Folch explained. In the United States, it is often sold in refrigerated cans, marketed to an American audience as a natural energy drink and mixed with fruit flavors. Some Cuban Americans drink a version of mate that is sweetened and carbonated. In Berlin, Club Mate is a popular carbonated drink that often gets mixed with alcohol. The drink’s movement across borders shows how culture gets remade as it passes through markets and migration, with each version shaped by who is selling it and who is buying it.
Traditionally, the leaves of the trees are smoked during preparation, so the mate can have a smoky overtone as well as a strong grassy, earthy flavor that people say makes them feel less jittery than coffee. It is pronounced like MAH-teh, not as in soccer teammate.
A Shared Cup, a Shared Relationship
Folch said mate is made for social settings, like a sporting event, because traditionally people share the same cup or bring enough to share. “When somebody offers you mate and you accept, what you have done is you have stepped into a relationship. So it’s a way of bonding with people,” Folch said. That social logic is part of why the drink keeps showing up in crowds where people are already trying to build temporary communities around a team, a flag, or a match.
Sebastian Cufre and his father Rene, who was born in Argentina, drove to Kansas City from Albuquerque trying to score last-minute tickets to the match. They met other Argentina fans at Cafe Corazon and shared a cup of mate around their tables. Cufre said, “It’s like something that you pass around during the games.” He said he has tried the canned American version but is not a fan. “Honestly, I don’t even consider that to be mate,” Cufre said. “That’s like a completely different class of beverage.”
Fernando Villagran, originally from Salta, Argentina, traveled from California to cheer on Argentina’s team. He said, “It’s not only a drink, but a social thing.” He said, “It is about friendship.” In the middle of a World Cup built on spectacle and hierarchy, the cup being passed around at tables and outside hotels offered a smaller, shared ritual that fans could actually control.