Every country has its drink. England has tea. Brazil has coffee. Argentina? Here they’ve got mate.

What’s mate (pronounced MAH-tay)? In a word, tea. In a sentence, it’s a jumble of hot water and the dried leaves of the yerba mate plant. Mate is everywhere in Buenos Aires: vendors sell it on the streets, picknickers sip it in the park, and as I recently discovered, students drink it in class.

Before I divulge the story of how I took my first taste, let me explain the culture behind classroom consumption. Several minutes after a professor begins their lecture, a student in the class will invariably unveil a large thermos full of boiling water, a bag of dried leaves and a small, round mate cup (straw, or bombilla, included). The student will fill the cup with leaves and hot water, thus beginning the “Mate Marathon.” When the student finishes the first cup, he/she will pour in more water and pass it along to the person sitting nearest them. After that person guzzles the second cup, they pass it back to the initial student, who refills it and doles it out to another neighbor. And so on and so forth. What I find fascinating is that unlike Kindergarten snack day or Friday afternoons in your best friend’s basement, there is no pre-determined mate schedule. Whoever feels inclined will bring the necessary accoutrements, and sipping will commence.

This mate merry-go-round works best when everyone is seated in a circle, as we were today in my Latin American Politics class. The groups were discussing a piece we read about the development of post-World War II economic structures. An article about a subject I don’t understand in a foreign language? A good opportunity for me to hone my prism-drawing skills.

Nevertheless, my day took a turn for the best when one of my classmates whipped out a cup and started filling it with water and leaves. While my fellow group members opined about their economic models of choice, I was fixated on the spherical chalice as it made its way around the circle. When the round, wooden mug reached my desk, I gazed into it as if it were some Hogsmeade concoction that were about to come to life. Thankfully it didn’t. As I put my mouth to the bombilla, I remembered the words from the girl pouring the mate, “be careful, it’s hot.”

“I’ve had hot before,” I thought. “It can’t be that hot.”

It was that hot. The water immediately burned my tongue and lips, and the remnants of my first sip spilled onto my notebook. Luckily, no one noticed. I made sure my subsequent slurps were slower and more subdued. After a few minutes, the burning in my mouth diminished and I was able to put my taste buds to the test.

In my several prior encounters with tea, I made sure to add copious amounts of sugar. However the mate I had today wasn’t sweet. Rather it had a distinctly dry flavor (understandably so—it is literally nothing other than water and leaves). I’m no tea connoisseur, but I think I’ll need a couple more trials before I reach a verdict.

For now, I’m just glad to be able to check “drink mate” off my list of “Things to do in Buenos Aires.” Next up? Fútbol.