HERVA MATTE
Herva matte, sometimes called “Paraguay tea,” is the leaf of a small tree belonging to the ilex family. It is, botanically, ilex paraguayensis, and has much the appearance of a small, particularly dense live-oak. It grows wild, and very thickly, in the south Brazilian State of Paraná, the forests straying out into Matto Grosso, São Paulo, Santa Catharina, Rio Grande do Sul, and over the borders of the Argentine; but Paraná is the great home of the little tree and of the manufacture of the leaf into a commercial product. Its preferred habitat is from 1500 to 2000 feet above sea-level, and until recently it had never been cultivated successfully except by the early Jesuit missionaries; but now Argentina announces her intention of fostering plantations of matte, and the Brazilian exporters are more alarmed than were the rubber shippers of the Amazon when they first heard of Wickham’s experiments.
Prepared in Brazil, matte has little sale in that country; only the states of the southern border have learned to drink the infusion. Buyers and users of the leaf are, first, Argentinos and next Paraguayanos, with several other South American countries taking smaller quantities; the confirmed matte drinker rejects Indian teas and coffee with contempt, and there is undoubtedly much to be said for this herb. It is tonic, is not accused of possessing nerve-attacking properties to the same extent as tea or coffee, and has a delicate flavour: it has a good opportunity to prove its qualities in world markets, now that a society has been formed in Paraná to defend and advertise it. In the Argentine stock-raising districts every gaucho has his apparatus for making the infusion, and is said to be able to work all day on this drink and a little bread.
The leaves are gathered for three or four months in the year, May or June until August; carried to a central hearth, they are dried over fires, packed in bags and sent on mule-back to Ponta Grossa or Curityba, and there carefully prepared for export. Mills and sieves of Brazilian invention reduce the dried leaves to powder, divide it into qualities according to the fineness of the reduction, and pack for export; Paranaguá is the matte port. Thousands of colonists and isolated dwellers of interior Paraná depend upon matte for the basis of their living; the hervaes (matte forests) are often seen together with the fantastic Paraná pine, a thick green growth below the tall stems of this other tree characteristic of the landscape of southern Brazil. The Paraná pine, besides its value as a yielder of excellent lumber, is noted for its product of pine kernels so large that they often exceed good-sized chestnuts in bulk. They are to be seen in huge sacks on sale in all the markets of South Brazil, are boiled like chestnuts and form a nutritious and excellent food. They should be better known, but their use seems to be largely confined to the Italian population, who have always had a predilection for pine kernels: when the Romans invaded Britain they brought and planted pine trees of the nut-yielding variety.
Each matte herval is invaded in the picking season by local gatherers; the central fire is started, the trees stripped of small branches; care is taken to prune them so that succeeding yields are not injured; there is not a great variety of shrubs in the vicinity of the matte forests, and not much cleaning has to be done. Brought down to the ports, the cost of prepared matte rarely exceeds six cents: including freight and other costs it could be placed upon North American markets as it is in European, at about eighteen to twenty cents a pound in normal times.
During the year 1915 Brazil exported her highest record of matte to date, 75,800 tons, but left this figure far behind in 1919 and 1920, with over 90,000 tons. This was not such a good price as that of 1913, when sixty-five thousand tons fetched 21,000 contos, at an average price of five hundred and forty-two reis per kilo. The amount exported has gone up steadily since the beginning of the century, when thirty-five to forty thousand tons was a fair total.
Argentina, the most important buyer of the “yerba,” has for some years imposed certain restrictions upon the entry of Brazilian matte, insisting, as she is right to insist, on guarantees and proofs of its purity: Brazil has conformed with wishes of the Argentine authorities. In April, 1915, the customs-houses of Buenos Aires were circularized by the Argentine Minister of Finance, requesting tests which would have meant the opening and submitting to chemical analysis of each package of matte. Compliance meant a very large addition to costs, as each separate analysis meant an expenditure of at least ten Argentine pesos, or about four dollars; as a result importation ceased and orders were countermanded. A month later restrictions were modified, but one analysis of each consignment being obligatory; at the same time even more rigid measures were taken to ensure the entry of nothing but unmixed leaves, the Argentine Counsel of Hygiene urging the Government not to admit any matte which did not contain at least seven per thousand of mateina or cafeina.
No such rules, meanwhile, have been imposed upon matte of Argentine origin or milling; the product of the home mills is not free from suspicion of adulteration with other herbs, and the Revista de Economia y Finanzas of Buenos Aires (July, 1916) wrote scathingly of the law which “imposes analysis upon the foreign product, with the preservation of public health as object, while the product of our mills, uninspected, may endanger it.” The root of the Argentine obstacle really seems to be a new project for planting the tree on an extensive scale in the territory of Misiones, bordering on the south Brazilian, matte-producing, states; the plan includes plantation of thirty thousand hectares of land and the construction of a railway line. If success crowns this enterprise Brazil will not immediately be forced to search for other consumers of the product of her two hundred thousand square kilometers of matte forests, but in the course of a few years she might find her industry seriously threatened. If the society which has taken up matte defence and advertisement is only half as successful as that specializing in Brazilian coffee propaganda, matte will find good markets north of the equator should those below it fail her. The following is the analysis of matte, compared with green tea, black tea, and coffee:—
| In 1000 parts. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green Tea | Black Tea | Coffee | Matte | |
| Essential oil | 7.90 | 6.00 | 0.41 | 0.01 |
| Chlorophyll | 22.20 | 18.14 | 13.66 | 62.00 |
| Resin | 22.20 | 36.40 | 13.66 | 20.69 |
| Tannin | 178.00 | 128.80 | 16.39 | 12.28 |
| Theine or caffeine | 4.30 | 4.60 | 2.66 | 2.50 |
| Fibre & cellulose | 175.80 | 283.20 | 174.83 | 180.00 |
| Ash | 85.60 | 54.40 | 25.61 | 38.10 |
| Extract and colouring matter | 464.00 | 390.00 | 270.67 | 238.83 |
| 960.00 | 921.54 | 517.89 | 554.41 | |
Out of her total exports in 1915 of nearly seventy-six thousand tons, Brazil sent over fifty-eight thousand to Argentina, fourteen thousand to Uruguay, and three thousand tons to Chile. In 1920, seventy thousand tons were sold to the Argentine, eighteen thousand tons to Uruguay, and rather more than three thousand to Chile, where sales of Oriental teas compete with the matte leaf.