Bombillas for Mate

Bombilla is an essential accessory for a traditional experience. If you’re making a hot mate or a cold tereré, a good bombilla is necessary for an authentic and effortless drinking. You don’t have any similar accessory with tea or coffee — bombilla, alongside with gourd, is an instantly recognizable symbol of mate, and is even present on a mate emoji 🧉. However, since bombilla is unique to mate and tereré, it is also quite an alien and exotic accessory, especially to those people who are just starting with yerba mate. With so many shapes, sizes and materials, it can be quite hard to navigate the vast world of bombillas for mate. No matter if you are a novice matero who knows nothing about bombillas, or a seasoned cebador with several bombillas in their collection — this ultimate guide will help you set the record straight and learn everything you should know about bombillas for mate.

What is a bombilla

Bombilla (pronounced [bom-BI-ya] or [bom-BI-sha] in Rioplatense Spanish) or bomba in Portuguese, is a sophisticated drinking straw with some sort of filtration system on one end. The word bombilla is literally translated from Spanish as little pump. It is used for preparing and drinking mate traditionally, by putting it inside the gourd with yerba mate, filling the gourd with water which is infused with yerba mate, and then sipping mate through it.

Bombilla is one of the essential accessories for both a traditional hot mate and tereré, and in the hands of a well-versed cebador it is not only a filtering utensil, but also a tool for shaping and molding a mountain of yerba, which is important to make sure that your mate or tereré is balanced and long.

A brief history of bombillas

The usage of bombillas is tightly intertwined with the history of the drink itself, going back millennia. Even though it is believed that first people who drank yerba mate infusions simply filtered leaves and stems through their teeth, there are multiple evidence that Guaraní were using hollowed out and perforated canes of American bamboo in order to prevent yerba mate leaves and stems to get into their mouth. Sometimes, you can hear people refer to their bombillas as cañitas, which comes from the Spanish caña, meaning cane.

With the arrival of European settlers and commercialization of mate, metal became the predominant material for bombilla, on par with other cutlery. To this day, the most popular and common material for bombillas is stainless steel, but you can also find a more intricate artisanal bombillas made from softer Alpaca aka German Silver, which is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc. Due to the softness of metal, a master craftsman can engrave and shape the bombilla unlike any other material, turning this seemingly simple utensil into the art form.

Anatomy of a bombilla

Upon a closer look, you may notice that an average bombilla can be (sometimes physically) divided into three separate parts — a mouthpiece, neck and a filter. In a well-functioning and beautiful bombilla, each of these parts serve a purpose.

Mouthpiece

The part that touches the lips of matero is called a mouthpiece. The purpose of a mouthpiece is to make it comfortable for your lips to sip on a hot beverage. Since stainless steel has a pretty high heat conductivity, this usually means that unlike the regular drinking straw, a mouthpiece of a metal bombilla for mate is slightly thicker than the neck, slowing down the transfer of the heat from the mouthpiece to the lips and preventing sudden temperature spike feeling.

In order to make it more convenient to sip on mate and not force you to tilt your head or the gourd, or scrunch you lips, mouthpiece is usually slightly bent relative to the neck of bombilla, as well as flattened, resembling the top part of a saxophone. Also, due to the fact that mate is often shared between multiple people, sometimes in a more high-end bombillas they plate the mouthpiece with some metals that have antimicrobial properties, such as sterling silver or copper.

Neck

The main straw body of bombilla is called a neck. The purpose of neck is to transfer the filtered infusion to the mouthpiece. Neck is usually shaped as a cylinder, but in some bombillas it may also be flattened, helping to cool off hot mate a bit along with the mouthpiece. An experienced cebador will also use a neck of bombilla to shape and maintain the mountain of yerba, which is crucial for finer Uruguayan and Brazilian yerba mates.

In alpaca bombillas, neck also may serve as a sort of canvas for an artisan to engrave beautiful patterns or to personalize it with a name or a symbol. Oftentimes, you may also find some sort of ornament in between a neck and a mouthpiece, like a beautiful looking stone, or a crest, to name a few.

Filter

Arguably the most important part of a bombilla is its filter. As you may already guess, its purpose is to filter out most of the yerba mate particles and make sure that you are drinking a pure infusion without leaves and stems. Filter also may be used by cebador, along with the neck, to shape the mountain of yerba.

Sometimes, filter can be partially or fully detached from the neck of bombilla, allowing for a better cleaning. Overall, filter is the main point of differentiation between bombillas, and is the first thing you’ll want to establish when making a decision about adding a new bombilla to your collection, so we’ll talk in more details about different filtering systems used in bombillas a bit later in this guide.

Materials

There are many materials that bombillas can be made from. Although metal ones dominate the current market, other materials have their own pros and cons that you need to know about. Let’s explore the differences between these materials and find out what you can expect from owning such bombillas.

Stainless steel

Pretty much the de facto material for bombillas, stainless steel has proved to be an excellent metal for any cutlery. It is durable, resistant to rust, patina and discoloration, can be thrown in dishwasher or boiled with no issues. Furthermore, it is hard to scratch or bend stainless steel bombilla, and you can make a very fine and intricate filtering system out of stainless steel. It’s hard to deny that stainless steel is the most superior material for bombillas.

The only disadvantage I can think of, is that due to the hardiness of the metal, stainless steel bombillas are much tougher to engrave it by hand. If stainless steel bombillas are personalized, it is usually either by laser engraving or machine-made carving, which will never match the warm and bespoke feeling of a handmade touch of a craftsman.

Alpaca

Alpaca is a much softer alloy of metals, making it the most popular choice of material amongst bombilla artisans. It is easy to bend and carve out almost any kind of engraving on an alpaca bombilla, and get a unique accessory that is unlike any other. It is still durable enough to withstand occasional drops and boiling temperatures. And most importantly, this alloy is much cheaper than other soft and neutral metals, such as sterling silver or gold, providing a warm shine for a fraction of a cost of those precious metals.

However, alpaca develops patina very quickly and requires a frequent cleaning and polish, which may be too cumbersome for many people. Another disadvantage of alpaca is that this alloy contains nickel, which some people are allergic to.

Bamboo

One of my personal favorites, bamboo is the most ancient and traditional material for bombilla. It is natural and soft to touch, and due to a low heat conductivity bamboo bombillas are the superior choice for people with sensitive lips, who don’t want to burn themselves with a hot beverage. Bamboo is also a very cheap and readily available materials, and is still pretty durable — you don’t need to worry about breaking bamboo bombilla if you accidentally drop it on a floor.

The main con of bamboo is that there is no variety in the shapes and filtering systems. Bamboo bombilla is pretty much a hollowed out stem with some holes at the bottom, which is not good enough for Uruguayan yerba mate or Brazilian erva, but also some dustier Argentine and Paraguayan yerbas. It is really easy to clog bamboo bombilla and if you will get it clogged it is quite hard to clean it out. Since bamboo is a natural material, it is also more prone to formation of mold on the inside, so you need to pay an extra care into cleaning and drying it properly between uses. It is highly advised not to throw it into a dishwasher or use a dish soap on bamboo bombilla.

Other materials

The vast majority of the bombillas on the market will be made out of either stainless steel, alpaca or bamboo. However, you may also stumble upon other materials, so it may be useful to learn why they are not more widespread and know what you’re getting into before making a decision to get a bombilla made from one of the following materials.

One such material is glass. It is quite rare to find a glass bombilla, but they do exist. A professional glassblower can create an exquisite and well-functioning bombilla that will do a decent job at filtering out yerba mate leaves and stems from most of con palo brands. It is also quite fun to see the infusion traveling from the gourd into your mouth through a transparent glass. The cons however in my opinion outweigh the pros. Most obvious one is the durability of a glass bombilla. Glass is a very fragile material that is really easy to break if you drop it or even while cleaning it, since the glass must be pretty thin in order to fit in a small opening of a gourd. It is also quite hard to create a fine filtering system out of a glass, making such bombilla not suitable for Uruguayan P.U.1 yerbas and fine Brazilian ervas.

Another novelty material is plastic. At this day and age, you can find pretty much anything made out of plastic. It is cheap and lightweight, which is good for many use-cases. Unfortunately, bombilla for mate is not one of them. It is quite hard to find a cutlery out of food-grade plastic that does not leach nasty chemicals, especially with hot water. The only acceptable usage of plastic for bombillas is for disposable yerba mate kits that are meant for introducing new people to mate.

And the final novelty material that I’ve seen on the market is palo santo. It is a very beautiful and fragrant hardwood that grows in South America, and is a very popular material for gourds, since it enriches the flavor of yerba mate and has a warm and natural feeling to it. However, it is not a great material for bombillas in my opinion. Sure, people have been carving musical pipes out of wood for entirety of human history, but palo santo is very prone to cracking, and it is nearly impossible to curve such bombilla for it to be comfortable to sip from without straining your neck or accidentally spilling the gourd. Some people who used palo santo bombillas also report that it gives off too much flavor and overshadows the taste of mate, whereas palo santo gourd provides a much more balanced yet still fragrant and unique infusion.

Filtration systems

With metal bombillas it is possible to achieve various ways of filtration by multiple different filtration systems. In my opinion you can highlight three main filtration systems that have different advantages and disadvantages to one another — spoon, slotted and spring. There are many other filtering systems, such as globe or half-globe, but in my opinion they don’t offer any advantages and are more of a novelty. Let’s explore the most common ones and find out what are their pros and cons.

Spoon filter

Arguably the most prevalent filtration system is a spoon one. With this system, the filter of bombilla is shaped in a form of a flattened hollow spoon with drilled out holes. It is quite simple yet very effective — the quality of filtration depends on the amount and size of holes. The more holes there are, and the smaller they are, the fewer particles this filter will let in and the lower is the chance to clog such bombilla. As mentioned earlier, flat filter of a spoon bombilla also can be used by an experienced cebador to shape the mountain of yerba. A small nice bonus to the spoon bombilla is also the fact that you can use it to scrape off the washed out yerba mate leaves out of the gourd once you’re done drinking mate.

The main disadvantage of spoon bombilla is that it can be quite hard to clean this filter, especially with smaller holes. It is almost impossible to reach the inside of the spoon filter with a cleaning brush. Some spoon bombillas however have a detachable filter that you can unscrew or unhinge to help with cleaning the bombilla.

Slotted filter

Another simple but quite effective filtering system is slotted. A slotted bombilla has a few slits at the bottom, which in conjunction with a flat profile create a pretty efficient filtration. The flatter is slotted bombilla, and the more slits it has, the better is its filtering system. Slits are not as efficient at filtering as holes in a spoon bombilla, but due to the fact that all of its body is flat, including the neck, slotted bombillas are actually more convenient to shape and maintain the mountain of yerba, especially when you are in the middle of the mate session and need to quickly mold the mountain without taking the bombilla out of the gourd. Just like with spoon bombillas, a flat slotted bombilla can also be used to scrape the used yerba out of the gourd.

Apart from slightly worse filtration, the main con is that it’s really hard to properly clean the inside of the slotted bombilla. Flat profile of the whole body of the bombilla makes it pretty much impossible to insert the cleaning brush. There are, however, a cylindrical slotted bombillas out there with unscrewing filter that are much easier to clean, but the trade-off is that it is less convenient to shape the mountain of yerba with non-flat neck of such bombilla.

Steel Pico de Loro Bombilla With Removable Slotted Filter

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Spring filter

A quite popular filtration system in Argentina is a spring one. Spring bombillas usually have a standard cylindrical neck akin to a regular straw, with some holes at the bottom and a coil on top that acts as a second layer of filtration. With such system you don’t need to worry about the size of holes on the bombilla, since they are covered with a compressed spring that creates tiny slits on top of those holes. The main advantage of this system is that it is really easy to clean spring bombillas, unless the coil is welded to the neck of the bombilla. In most spring bombillas, however, the spring itself can be released and taken apart for cleaning, and the cylindrical neck of bombilla easily allows to insert a cleaning brush in order to scrape the accumulated gunk from the inside.

The disadvantages of spring bombillas are the slightly worse quality of filtration, compared to spoon bombilla, and the fact that non-flat cylindrical neck of spring bombilla is less convenient for scraping out washed-out yerba after finishing your mate and molding the mountain of yerba which is less crucial for Argentine yerba mate, hence its popularity in this country.

What bombilla to get

Now that you know all there is to the different materials and shapes of bombillas for mate, and what are the pros and cons of each, you may wonder what bombilla you should get for yourself. The answer to this question highly depends on your yerba mate preferences and the variety of gourds that you have or plan to add to your collection.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet, is the length of the bombilla. Most bombillas on the market vary from short 15 cm bombillas to a long bombas for chimarrão that reach up to 30 cm in length. The average bombilla is about 20 cm in length which is suitable for most of the gourds. The properly sized bombilla when inserted into the gourd should have a few centimeters of neck and the whole mouthpiece sticking out from the brim of the gourd, but not too much that it tips the whole gourd over.

Personally, I have a modest yet varied collection of bombillas that cover each of my gourds and allow me to enjoy each regional type of yerba mate. But, if I had to pick only one bombilla, that would most likely be a spoon bombilla with filter that can be removed for cleaning, that is about 20 cm long. It is the most convenient and practical shape of bombilla that will cover any type of yerba mate and will fit most of the gourds on the market.

Steel Bombilla With Removable Spoon Filter

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If you have overly sensitive lips and even 60°C / 140°F mate feels too hot for you, a bamboo bombilla is a really great option, especially if you don’t intend to drink much Uruguayan or Brazilian yerbas.

Bamboo Bombilla

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Spring bombilla is always nice to have on hands for those times when you want an easier time cleaning it up and don’t need the best filtration that spoon bombilla has to offer.

Steel Bombilla With Spring Filter

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And of course if you intend to explore the vast world of fine Brazilian ervas, I highly recommend getting yourself a proper bomba, which is a variety of spoon bombilla that has a very fine filter for chimarrão and a long enough neck for huge Brazilian cuias.

Chimarrao Bomba

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Taking care of bombilla

As with all the other cutlery in your house, you need to properly wash and clean your bombilla after each use. Metal bombillas are the most convenient here — you can safely wash them with a dish soap or throw them into a dishwasher. As mentioned earlier, it is not advised to wash bamboo bombilla in such way — just run some tap water through it and make sure that filter holes are not clogged with yerba mate pieces by poking them with a needle or a toothpick.

I also highly recommend you to establish a monthly cleaning ritual for your metal bombillas. Let’s say, in the beginning of every month, you put all of your metal bombillas into the wide enough pan or saucepan and fill it up with water, just enough to cover all of them. Then, you bring it to the boil and add a couple of teaspoons of baking soda and let them simmer like that for at least 30 minutes. If you’re a daily mate drinker, you should notice that the water inside the pan turned brownish-green from all the gunk that accumulated inside your bombillas. Let them cool down and after that simply clean them with some dish soap and a cleaning brush if possible.

***

Hopefully after reading this guide you now have a clear understanding of the history and purpose of bombilla, different materials they’re made from, filtration systems, and their pros and cons. You simply cannot have an authentic mate or tereré experience without a bombilla, which is unique and exclusive accessory to this beautiful drink. Let me know in the comments if you have any more questions left about bombillas. Do you have bombillas in your collection? If so, what are those, and what do you like about them? What bombillas do you want to get that you don’t already have?