Wednesday December 13, 2006

 

 

Our Brazilian Evening Continued

 

After the meal, Inge introduced us to her cats Timothy and Barnabas

 

One of her gifts to us was this beautiful, wooden dish made out of Pau Brasa (Brazilwood) and designed in the shape of the fruit and nut of the cashew.

I had forgotten that cashews grow at the base of a fruit (Caju).

I found these two pictures on the Internet.

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Tea Gourd

I don’t remember ever hearing about drinking tea from a gourd with a metal straw.

 

The tea can be purchased in bags.

 

We joked that it looked like cattle feed!

 

I was surprised at how much tea Inge poured into the gourd.

 

 

 

Inge did not add hot water, but demonstrated how to drink it.

From the Internet:  The infusion called mate is prepared by steeping the dried leaves in hot water rather than boiling water like tea or coffee. Drinking mate with friends from a shared hollow gourd (also called a mate in Spanish, or cabaça or cuia in Portuguese) with a metal straw (a bombilla in Spanish, bomba or canudo in Portuguese) is an extremely common social practice in Argentina, Uruguay, southern Paraguay, the east side of Chile and southern Bolivia and Brazil.

 

This metal straw (photo from the Internet) is similar to the one Inge had. 

We did drink Brazilian tea with the meal, but not from a gourd.  I would like to try that sometime!

 

 Notice two tea gourds with her Brazilian memorabilia.

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Amethyst Chips

 

 

Another pretty Brazilian gift from Inge.

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I love learning things about other cultures – and ours.

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Thanks Inge for a great evening!