It began as a legend and custom of the Guarani, an indigenous group that occupied the territory of present-day Argentina before the Spanish conquest.
During the conquest, the Spaniards "discovered" the mate and adopted it.
The Jesuits in their missions in the northeast of the country began the organized cultivation of the plant, and thus began the rapid diffusion of mate.
After independence, mate became a symbol of the gauchos, the Argentine cowboys that lived in the large pampas. As the gauchos became a symbol of national pride or a symbol of Argentina, mate also became a cultural and national custom. E. Walker.