Maté might be an acquired taste but it will put a spring in your step and give you some energy to keep up with the pace of the Dublin Latin American festival, writes ROISIN INGLE

URUGUAY NATIVE Sofia Arteaga is a professional singer but today she has come to the Exchange building in Temple Bar, Dublin to talk about something else – tea. Not just any tea. Arteaga is almost evangelical about the social ritual of yerba maté tea drinking, and as part of the second annual Dublin Latin American festival she is hoping to convert some Irish people to the national drink of her country.

“If you have it more than three times, you will be seduced. You just need a few times for your brain to understand the new taste,” she says.

The drink has been a way of life since the 16th century in countries such as Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and parts of Chile, Bolivia and Brazil. It’s shared between friends and family, passed around in a circle and sipped through a metal straw or “bombilla” from a traditional vessel called a gourd, which is made from hollow, dried fruit.

The tea itself consists of the dried leaves of the yerba maté plant Ilex paraguariensis, which is harvested in parts of South America. The server, or “cebador”, pours hot water into the gourd and each participant sips until the leaf-infused water is gone. It’s a little hit of tea rather than a mug-sized portion, and people often have up to 30 goes of the gourd before they are sated. “In Uruguay a very common call is, ‘let’s have a maté’, or ‘come and we will talk about it with a maté’,” says Arteaga.

People can be seen walking around with flasks of hot water under their arms and cafe owners don’t bat an eyelid if people pop in to get a hot refill for their flasks.

My first taste of maté is a positive experience, although, as Arteaga says, the taste is definitely an acquired one. She pours the water into my gourd and I sip the hot, grassy-tasting liquid, grateful that a filter in the straw stops any stray leaves ending up in my mouth. You stop drinking when you hear a gurgling sound that suggests there is no more water left in the gourd. (This last bit of the maté has a horribly bitter aftertaste.) By the second go I am starting to appreciate the fun, sharing aspect of the drink and by the third it feels as though I am experiencing a kind of maté high.

“The health benefits are enormous,” says Arteaga. “It’s full of vitamins and minerals, and it’s a powerful anti-oxidant, it really cleans the body.”

There is plenty of etiquette to navigate when it comes to maté drinking. There is usually only one server of the tea and the cebador traditionally gets the first taste. You don’t say “thank you” when you have been served but it’s customary to say “thank you” to indicate that you don’t want any more tea. If you hold on to the gourd for too long you might get the friendly warning that “it’s not a microphone” to encourage you to pass it along, and the gourd is always shared in an anti-clockwise direction.

“It is something very personal,” explains Arteaga. “Some people will share maté with everybody, even complete strangers. There are some who will never share, not even with their own family.” Arteaga’s sister Selena is unusual in her family in that she doesn’t like maté and never takes part in the drinking sessions. “I enjoy everything around the drinking of maté except the taste of the tea itself,” she says.

OVER THE WEEKEND, Temple Bar was transformed into Temple Barrio for the festival with, in addition to the maté workshop, a Latin American food market, events for children, exhibitions and, of course, lots of uplifting musical interludes. The event, which continues next weekend, was organised with the help of an enthusiastic team of volunteers but with very little by way of financial resources.

One of the volunteers, Josef Herrara from Cuba, says the idea of the festival is to “show off our culture and bring people into our community . . . We are a sociable people, very happy, so it’s about having fun together.”

Herrara says he was one of 500 people who came to Ireland from Cuba in 1994. He actually bought a ticket to Russia but got off the plane when it stopped to refuel at Shannon. “I didn’t know where I was. I told the flight staff that I didn’t want to continue on flying and they said, ‘Okay, welcome to Ireland’,” he laughs. “We found a very friendly country, the people are so free here.”

Another of the organisers, Rafael Abarca, who has been living here for 12 years since arriving from Ecuador, says the 25,000-strong Latin American community had been “quiet for many years . . . It’s our custom to celebrate, everybody knows we are culturally a very rich community so we just thought we should try to organise all of the South American countries together so that we can make ourselves heard a little more,” he says.

The festival is not just about celebrating the cultures of South America but showing an appreciation for the country they now call home. “My ideology is be proud of where you come from but also be proud of where you live,” he says. “We are so proud to live in Ireland. People say things about the weather or whatever but it’s a lovely country.”

Even with all our problems at the moment? “Here there are no troubles. The situation is not going to be forever. You want to see problems, go to South America.”

See lancifestival.com, cultureofmate.wordpress.com

Latin American festival

Classico Latino with Colombian pianist Ivan Guevara-Bernal. National Concert Hall, John Field Room, Friday August 19th, 1.05pm. €10/15

Brazilian Night at the Turk's Head bar, Temple Bar, Friday August 19th, 9pm. Free until 11pm, €5 euro afterwards

D'Callaos World Tour at the Purty Kitchen, Temple Bar, Saturday August 20th, 9.30pm. €10