Army taps celebrity chef Robert Irvine to overhaul its mess halls – CBS News
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The U.S. Army tapped celebrity chef Robert Irvine to help overhaul its mess halls and meal options, and “CBS Saturday Morning” got an inside look at Irvine’s process.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that drones and flying IEDs are the “threat of humanity’s lifetime” as the calls for regulation on drones grow. “I’m pretty optimistic that we will be able to figure out a solution where we will know what is in the sky at every moment across our country, all at once,” he added.
Walking into Eugene Mosely’s apartment, there are so many pictures on the walls that it’s hard for a visitor not to allow them to grab their immediate attention. Pictures of his late parents, siblings, grandparents, nieces, nephews, and the people who he calls family, despite them not being a part of his bloodline.
“You are born with your blood family. You don’t have a choice. But I learned that there is another family that you can pick and choose,” Moseley said.
Mosely has pictures of his loved ones all over his one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Atlanta. Right: A picture of a teenage Mosley with his late sister Mattie. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
A self-described “talker,” Moseley makes friends everywhere he goes, and those connections have helped him throughout the many moves in his life, from his native Virginia to Colorado, California, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and finally to Georgia. Through all of these moves, which include a stint in the military, Mosely believes his steps have been ordained by God. He said the past decade-plus “has been totally spiritual”.
“My life has been so amazing,” Moseley, 68, said. “God has always had a plan for wherever I have been and where I will be next.”
Mosely spent eight years in the United States Army. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
In 2014, he found himself homeless with nothing but the clothes on his back. With the support of his caseworker, he was introduced to Atlanta Housing and applied for the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
He credits the Housing Choice Voucher Program with giving him the time, safety, and stability he needed to get back on his feet.
This year marks the 71st anniversary of Veterans Day, which takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 11. On a warm Thursday afternoon, a few days before the nation celebrated the men and women who protect this country, Mosley is wearing a new black U.S. Army Veteran cap. He hadn’t previously owned one, but proud of his eight-year career, he now routinely dons one of the two caps he has whenever he can.
“People always walk up to me and say thank you or say that they are in the military, too, whenever they see me in these hats,” Mosley said.
Yet another reason for Mosely to participate in the ancient art of conversation. Whether riding MARTA downtown or while taking walks around his apartment complex near Greenbriar Mall, Mosley says he’s kept an upbeat attitude since he was a kid.
Pictures of Mosely’s parents and siblings have gone with him from state to state. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Born in Buckingham, Virginia, Mosely remembers growing up in the tiny community located 150 miles from Washington, D.C. His late mother, Rosa Mae Mosley, was a domestic worker who lived with the family she worked for during the week, so her children would see her on Friday afternoons and on weekends. That helped Mosely and his siblings grow closer because they were dependent on each other. The brood grew even closer when their father, Stephen Mosely, passed away in his thirties.
Today, Mosley, the youngest of 12 children that his parents had together, has just three living siblings: Lucille Morris, Dorothy Martin, and Rosa Kinny. Though he was close to all of his siblings, who included five brothers, he has vivid memories of his sister Mattie, who passed away in her mid-30s from an aneurysm.
There is a photo of Mosley and Mattie above the white leather sectional in the living room. In the photo, Mosley is 17 years old and only a few weeks from leaving home for basic training and a new life as a soldier.
Mosley joined the military in 1975 and left in 1983. That service led to him receiving Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits, which he still utilizes today. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in July 2020. What began as a routine check-up saved his life, he recalled. A doctor at the VA recommended more tests, and the cancer was found. His fits surgery to remove the prostate took place in September 2020. The cancer has not returned.
“And I’m still here,” says Mosley, a self-described spiritual person.
Mosley says we all have three things in common: Life, death, and living. “What you do with your life and how you choose to live is up to you,” Mosely (above) said. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
“On Veterans Day, we honor the courage and sacrifice of all who have served and reaffirm our commitment to support them every day,” said Kai Mentzer, Director for the Atlanta VA Health Care System. “Veterans like Mr. Mosley show us that strength grows through resilience and healing. At the Atlanta VA Health Care System, we are committed partners in our patients’ journeys – providing care, connection, and unwavering support. We take pride in Atlanta’s vibrant community that supports Veterans year-round, demonstrating our city’s compassion, unity, and strength.”
During his military career, Mosley worked with the field artillery unit and served as a dental specialist. He knows full well how much those jobs and that career helped shape his life. As a civilian, Moseley held jobs of all kinds. He smiles when recalling his career in hospitality and as a Greyhound bus driver. During his interview with The Atlanta Voice, Mosley shared a story of his bus, full of sleeping passengers, nearly careening off a cliff in Pittsburgh one night. The bus stayed the course after a bit of a slippery ride, and once again Mosely chalked the entire experience up to God watching his back and ordering his steps.
“I don’t hear voices, I hear a voice. It’s the same voice I’ve heard since I was a child,” Moseley, now retired, said of the conversations he has with God.
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
A Bible rests on a table in the corner of the living room. A crystal angel blowing a horn stands sentry on the kitchen island.
A sports fan, Mosley attends Atlanta United matches and Atlanta Hawks games. He said he enjoys being around people and in the middle of the action. A week earlier, he attended a jazz concert at City Winery.
Music is a kind of therapy, he says. In his living room, there is a laminated collection of photos of Patti LaBelle on a tabletop, and a Nelly t-shirt draped over a chair. On another chair was a Kane Brown concert t-shirt. Mosley admitted that he didn’t attend the Brown concert, but enjoys all types of music.
“It’s my peace,” he says of music. “Music is where I go for serenity.”
Two of Mosely’s plants are now inside for the fall and winter seasons. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Mosley also loves plants and has them inside the apartment and outside on his patio. There is life all around him, and one of his mottos is that we all have three things in common: Life, death, and living.
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
“What you do with your life and how you choose to live is up to you,” he said. “I used to think that I was afraid of dying, I just didn’t understand that God has a plan for wherever I will be.”
Living in his one-bedroom apartment, with his plants, which were brought inside off the balcony because of the weather conditions, Mosley says he’s happy and fulfilled.
“I have everything I could imagine I would ever have,” he said.
The family of one of the 67 people killed earlier this year when an American Airlines plane and a United States Army helicopter collided over Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the government and the airlines involved in the crash.
Other families are expected to join this first lawsuit that seeks to hold the Federal Aviation Administration, the Army, American Airlines and its regional partner, PSA Airlines, accountable for the deadliest U.S. plane crash since 2001. PSA Airlines operated Flight 5342 that crashed Jan. 29.
The widow of Casey Crafton from Connecticut, who is raising three young boys without her husband, filed the lawsuit. Her lawyers also represent the majority of the families of people who died in the crash.
“Casey was a devoted father and husband, and we built a beautiful life together,” said Rachel Crafton in a statement about the lawsuit, in which she described her husband as “a loving brother, a supportive son, a committed employee, a selfless friend” and someone who “made everyone around him feel valued and respected.”
As her husband had worked as an aviation mechanic, Crafton said he “was betrayed by this system he trusted” when Flight 5342 crashed.
“As his wife, I cannot stand by and allow his life to be lost in vain,” the statement continued. “Today, we are taking legal action because the accountability of American Airlines, PSA Airlines, and the Army and FAA is the only way to ensure this never happens again and no other family has to live with the pain we have to endure each day without Casey.”
Crosses are seen at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
The National Transportation Safety Board has already highlighted a long list of things that likely contributed to the crash, although the final report identifying the cause won’t be ready until next year.
The Black Hawk helicopter was flying well above the 200-foot limit, but even if it had been at the correct altitude, the route it was flying provided a scant 75 feet of separation between helicopters and planes landing on Ronald Reagan International Airport’s secondary runway. The helicopter’s altimeter may have provided faulty readings.
The NTSB has also said the FAA failed to recognize an alarming pattern of near misses at the busy airport in the years before the crash and ignored concerns about helicopter traffic around the airport. Investigators also said that overworked controllers were trying to squeeze as many planes as possible into the landing pattern with minimal separation on a regular basis. If any of those things — or a number of other factors — had been different that night, the collision might have been avoided.
Crews pull up a part of a plane from the Potomac River on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
The lawsuit says the airlines failed in their duty to protect the passengers because they were aware of the helicopter traffic around Reagan airport but failed to adequately train pilots to handle it and take other steps to mitigate the risks. Other airline policies, such as allowing pilots to accept an alternative runway that intersects with the helicopter route and heavily scheduling flights in the second half of every hour may have contributed.
The lawsuit says the PSA pilots should have reacted sooner when they received an alert about traffic in the area 19 seconds before the crash instead of waiting until the last second to pull up.
Among the jet’s passengers were several members of the Skating Club of Boston, who were returning from an elite junior skaters’ camp following the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas. A figure skating tribute event in Washington raised $1.2 million for the crash victims’ families.
Others on the flight from Wichita included a group of hunters returning from a guided trip in Kansas; four members of a steamfitters’ union in suburban Maryland; nine students and parents from schools in Fairfax County, Virginia; and two Chinese nationals. There were also four crew members on the plane and three people in the helicopter’s crew who were killed.
The victims are chief warrant officers Andrew Cully and Andrew Kraus, and sergeants Donavon Scott and Jadalyn Good, the Army said Monday in a release.
Cully, 35, was from Sparta, Missouri. Kraus, 39, was from Sanibel, Florida. Scott, 25, was from Tacoma, Washington, and Good, 23, was from Mount Vernon, Washington.
They were part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, an elite team that does nighttime missions, when their MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed at about 9 p.m.
The helicopter was on a routine flight training west of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, according to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. The base is about 10 miles south of Tacoma under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Joint Base Headquarters.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The skies in the area were mostly clear with light winds from the south around the time of the crash, according to the National Weather Service.
L-R: Sgt. Donavon Scott, 25; Sgt. Jadalyn Good, 23; Chief Warrant Officer Three Andrew Cully, 35; and Chief Warrant Officer Three Andrew Kraus, 39.
U.S. Army Special Operations Command
Cully was commissioned in May 2013 as a U.S. Army aviation officer from Missouri State University and was deployed to serve in Operation Atlantic Resolve and Operation Swift Response, according to the Army. Kraus joined the Army in 2017 and has supported multiple training missions and deployed in support of contingency response operations. Scott enlisted in the Army as a UH-60 helicopter repairer, and has served on two support missions to Operation Inherent Resolve. Good served as a helicopter maintainer and was “instrumental in the success” of numerous training missions, the Army said.
All four soldiers earned multiple awards, including the Meritorious Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.
The soldiers “embodied the unwavering dedication, selflessness, and excellence that define the very spirit of the Army and Army Special Operations,” Col. Stephen Smith said in the release.
“As we mourn their loss, we stand united in honoring their memory and their extraordinary commitment to the mission. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families, loved ones, and the entire Night Stalker community during this profoundly difficult time,” Smith said.
Their regiment’s mission is to organize, equip and employ Army special operations aviation forces around the world, according to the Army’s website.
“Known as Night Stalkers, these soldiers are recognized for their proficiency in nighttime operations,” the website said. “They are highly trained and ready to accomplish the very toughest missions in all environments, anywhere in the world, day or night, with unparalleled precision.”
This was the second deadly crash of this elite unit in recent years.
Five Army aviation special operations forces were killed when a helicopter crashed in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2023 during a routine air refueling mission as part of military training. They were all part of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
In March 2024, two soldiers from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord SOAR unit were hospitalized when their Apache helicopter crashed at the base during a routine training exercise.
Four service members who were involved in an MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crash Wednesday night in Washington state are believed to be dead, the Army said Friday.
The crash happened in a rural area near Joint Base Lewis-McChord at approximately 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday. The four service members were assigned to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), the Army said.
“Our hearts are with the families, friends, and teammates of these Night Stalkers,” Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, said in a statement. “They were elite warriors who embodied the highest values of the Army and the Army Special Operations, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
Recovery efforts are underway, and the cause of the crash “remains under investigation,” the Army said. Names of the service members have not yet been released.
“We thank the skilled professionals who are working tirelessly, around the clock to bring our Soldiers home,” Braga said.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is located just southwest of Tacoma, Washington. Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders posted on social media Wednesday that the crash had occurred near Summit Lake, which is located about 20 miles west of Olympia, the state’s capital.
Veterans in Minneapolis were treated to some healing sounds today.
At the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, a special sound filled the falls.
The Navel Aviation Alumni choir were there to honor their fellow veterans through song.
The choir has a rich history, dating back to 1949. In 2002, it was disbanded, but 13 years later, members reconvened.
Choir director and Minnesota native David Carlson helped lead the effort.
“After we struck a chord or two, I said we can still do this,” said Carlson.
Good enough to do shows across the country. Even performing at Carnegie Hall.
But the real honor is performing with and for those who share the title of Veteran.
“I feel like we went through flight training together so we share that kind of camaraderie, but we also just love to harmonize and we love to sing for audiences, especially a place like this,” said one choir member.
“When we sing their respective service songs, and you see a guy in a wheel chair, struggling to stand up, yeah that makes a difference,” said Carlson.
Charlie D’Agata goes inside a training exercise at Fort Johnson in Louisiana with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to see how they’re preparing for future conflicts.
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PELHAM — Dan Newman is ready to jump out of his comfort zone as the town’s new fire chief.
Newman started Monday after the department was led by an interim chief for six months following former Chief James Midgley’s retirement in 2023.
Town Administrator Joe Roark said 20 candidates applied for the position. Municipal Resources Inc. looked at seven candidates before the field was narrowed to three who were interviewed by the town.
“The interim chief (Anthony Stowers) did a great job over the last six months so we could conduct a thorough hiring process,” Roark said.
“But there are big shoes to fill,” Roark added. Midgley had been with the department since 2001 and its chief since 2009.
Newman will earn $122,500 annually, Roark said.
“‘We are very excited to get him going and he has an excellent department to work with,” Roark said.
Newman, 53, comes to Pelham from the Merrimack Fire Department where he worked his way up the ranks over the last 19 years. He started as a volunteer, on-call firefighter before becoming a paramedic and assistant chief of operations.
“Chief Newman’s leadership and dedication to public service make him a perfect fit for our community,” the town said in its official announcement.
Becoming chief has been a humbling experience, Newman said.
“I’m excited about being uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s the challenge of stepping out of a comfort zone and being a part of another team. It sends you back to when you first started in the fire service.”
Newman is originally from Massachusetts but grew up overseas. He lives in New Hampshire and enjoys spending time with his wife and five sons.
In the U.S. Army, he was stationed in Louisiana before settling in New Hampshire. He served 21 years in the military as an active duty member, in the Reserve and the National Guard.
His military experience and leadership in that capacity helped drive the town’s decision to appoint Newman, Roark said.
In the Army, Newman was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a platoon leader in Iraq and a company commander in Afghanistan, both during times of combat. Not many people receive that type of leadership during their time in the service, Newman added.
“It shaped me,” he said.
“Being that soldier and having done your leadership time in an austere condition, and not in good neighborhoods, you learn a lot and take those lessons with you.”
The fire service was something that crossed Newman’s mind but started taking shape once he moved to New Hampshire with his family.
“I wanted to do something for my community,” he said. “I was looking for a career that gave me the same purpose that I had in the military.”
Newman’s knowledge of New Hampshire fire departments was appealing to the Board of Selectmen, Roark said.
There’s a unique culture in New Hampshire with a community feeling from surrounding mutual aid partners, the new chief explained.
He said this area is also about that “Yankee ingenuity” tied to history but looking forward at the same time with departments and other chiefs working together to best serve each other.
“It’s no secret we rely on each other,” Newman said. “New Hampshire is different than a lot of the country.”
Since he has only worked with one other department, Newman said he had to get out of his comfort zone and trust his gut to not pass on the opportunity to apply for the position.
Newman knew some members of Pelham Fire through training classes. He said he was attracted to how the department served the community and how its values aligned with his own.
Above all else, the firefighters with the department sold him on the possible job.
While he’s only been on the job for a few days, Newman said his goals in the short term are to support the department’s high standards of serving the community in what has been laid out by his predecessors.
“It’s about figuring out where I fit in that piece of the pie,” Newman said.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who’ve been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
“My daughter was very, very humble,” said Ashley’s mother, Deborah White, ahead of Memorial Day this year. “She would be appalled at all the accolades that she has received since her death.”
Ashley White died on Oct. 22, 2011, around three months into her tour in Afghanistan, when a soldier on the Special Operations task force she was serving alongside accidentally triggered an improvised explosive device that killed her and two other people. She was 24. After her death, White was posthumously awarded a long list of some of the military’s highest distinctions, including the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Meritorious Service Medal.
White was one of a few dozen women recruited from hundreds of applicants to join Special Operations forces on the front lines of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, at a time when women soldiers were still banned from combat roles. Born and raised in northeastern Ohio, White joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program during her second semester at Kent State University, where she studied sports medicine.
Ashley White is remembered as a war hero and trailblazer for her service in Afghanistan, at a time when the U.S. military still banned women soldiers from combat roles.
“I think she liked camaraderie, and the tightness within the group,” Deborah White said. ROTC is a leadership training program to prepare college students for various roles in the Armed Forces, and it requires them to complete a term of military service after obtaining their degrees. Ashley White began hers as a Medical Services Corps Officer and served for several years with the U.S. National Guard in Greensboro, North Carolina.
But in 2011, the military was commissioning women for Cultural Support Teams, the cornerstones of an initiative to communicate with Afghan women, whose customs often kept them from interacting with U.S. soldiers as long as the soldiers were men. Women on cultural support teams were explicitly tasked with facilitating interactions with civilian women and children. A flier advertising the positions asked female soldiers to “become part of history” alongside male-dominated Special Ops. White applied for the program and accepted a spot. She went through additional training and deployed in August.
White’s service in Afghanistan likely contributed to the military’s decision to officially lift the ban in 2013 — a watershed moment that acknowledged the work many women soldiers had been doing for decades and opened the door to career opportunities previously reserved for men.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the 2015 book “Ashley’s War” about White and the women who served with her, noted in a talk with the Council of Foreign Relations after the book’s release that she and her teammates “quite frankly may well have laid the foundation for ultimate integration.” With her death, White’s mother said “she has broken the glass ceiling.”
Lemmon’s chronicling of the women who inconspicuously steered part of the war effort without any promise of renown placed White at the center of it all, and brought her story into the mainstream. “Ashley’s War” became a New York Times bestseller.
Those who knew her felt inspired by White’s track record of achievements, but they’ve told Lemmon — and White’s mother — that it was how White personally carried herself, with kindness and strength, that made her special.
“Ashley was the heart of this really all-star team of soldiers who came together to answer this call to serve and who actually could not raise their hands fast enough to be there,” said Lemmon during that talk in 2015. “I think the thing that people remember about her so much was she never talked to you about what she could do … she let her actions speak for themselves. And I think she showed the power of character in action. She never had to tell you how good she was and, in fact, never would.”
White’s legacy is far-reaching. As Deborah White said, “it’s everywhere.”
She was among only a handful of women honored for acts of particular valor in a display at the National Museum of the U.S. Army in Virginia, multiple housing complexes for women veterans in two states bear her name, and two students graduating from her Marlboro Township high school receive $1,500 scholarships each year through a foundation established by White’s family in her memory.
People across the country, within and outside of the military, have hailed White as a hero, an exemplary soldier and a trailblazer who helped pave the way for the next generation of women rising up through the ranks with fewer limitations than they’ve ever had before.
Asked where White’s courage came from, especially at such a young age, Deborah White gave her daughter most of the credit.
“I mean, all of my kids are driven. Maybe we raised them right,” she said. “I don’t know. She blew me away.”
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
An internal investigation is underway after a refrigerator containing beer and hard liquor was found in an office of the Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, which serves as the headquarters of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD. Catherine Herridge reports.
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The Army has launched an investigation after a member of its Golden Knights parachute team died from injuries he sustained during a training jump.
Army officials identified the parachutist as Sgt. 1st Class Michael Ty Kettenhofen, who joined the U.S. Army Golden Knights in 2020. He had jumped more than 1,000 times with the Army.
Sgt. Kettenhofen jumped on Monday, had a “hard landing” and died from his injuries on Tuesday, officials said.
“The U.S. Army Parachute Team is deeply saddened by the loss of one of our own. Sgt. 1st Class Ty Kettenhofen was loved, admired, and respected by all those who knew him for his sense of humor, joy of life and accomplishments as a senior non-commissioned officer and demonstration parachutist,” said Lt. Col. Andy Moffit, Golden Knights Parachute Team commander. “Our hearts and faith are with his family and friends as we grieve and heal with them. Ty will be honored and remembered as a Golden Knight, Soldier, and friend.”
Sgt. 1st Class Michael Ty Kettenhofen
U.S. Army
CBS News Miami aired a segment with Kettenhofen and the Golden Knights in early March, where their videos went viral after the parachute team was reported as unidentified flying objects.
The Golden Knights travel around the world to show off their sophisticated and complex parachute training. According to the Army, the Golden Knights have earned over 3,800 medals in competition while also achieving 348 world records in the process.
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It shouldn’t be hard to persuade people to take a sip of yerba mate. It’s completely natural. It makes you feel simultaneously energized and relaxed. You can drink it all day without feeling like your stomach acid is burning through your esophagus. It’s the preferred caffeine source of Lionel Messi, Zoe Saldaña, and the Pope. I’m drinking yerba mate with my Argentinian mother-in-law as I write this, and I’ll probably be drinking it with her or my husband when you read it. And yet, my track record for tempting friends into tasting it is abysmal.
The average Argentinian or Uruguayan drinks more than 26 gallons of the green infusion each year, but as far as I can tell, the average North American has never even tried South America’s most consumed beverage—at least not in its traditional form. After more than 100 years, plenty of added sugar, and growing consumer desire for “clean caffeine,” something companies are calling yerba mate is finally on shelves near you. But in this land of individualism and germophobia, the real thing will simply never catch on.
The plant has been seen as a moneymaking commodity since Europeans first arrived in the Americas. Long before North Americans rejected yerba mate, European colonizers were falling head over heels for the stuff. Within a few decades of their arrival in what is now Paraguay in the early 16th century, the Spanish were already drinking the local infusion they’d picked up from the indigenous Guaraní. The Guaraní people had used yerba mate—which they called ka’a—as a stimulant and for its medicinal effects since time immemorial. They collected leaves from a particular species of holly, dried them, and then either chewed the ka’a or placed it in an orange-size gourd to be steeped in water and passed among friends.
An early-19th-century lithograph of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the ruler of Paraguay, holding yerba mate (Source: Letters on Paraguay by John Parish Robertson and William Parish Robertson)
The Spanish liked the energy yerba mate gave them and began selling the leaves. But according to Christine Folch, the author of the upcoming book Yerba Mate: A Stimulating Cultural History, Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay were the ones who transformed yerba mate into a true cash crop, by developing techniques for cultivating it on a large scale—methods that relied on the forced labor of indigenous people. Yerba-mate use exploded. By the 1700s, it was consumed all over South America:from what is now Paraguay across Peru, Bolivia, southern Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile.
In the United States, the first major push to popularize and cultivate yerba mate didn’t happen until 1899, when representatives from Brazil and Paraguay boasted about its benefits at the International Commercial Congress in Philadelphia. Soon after, the first U.S.-based firm, the Yerba Maté Tea Company, was founded. The company’s marketing slogan was straightforward and catchy: “Drink Yerba Maté Tea and be happy.” “Here, then, we have an ideal drink,” a 1900 Yerba Maté Tea Company pamphlet proclaimed, “one that promotes digestion, gives immediate strength of the body and brain and acts soothingly upon the nervous system.” Plus, it added, “the ladies will be especially interested to know that it exercises absolutely no bad effects upon the complexion.”
Promotional material published by the Yerba Maté Tea Company in 1900 (Source: Yerba Maté Tea by William Mill Butler)
The promotion frothed up interest: Curious individuals wrote to their local newspaper asking where to buy yerba mate, and farmers searched for information on how to grow it. Newspaper articles from the time prophesied a future when yerba mate might displace tea and coffee. Entrepreneurs formed new companies hawking yerba mate; some saw Prohibition as a perfect opening for the buzzy nonalcoholic drink. It was peddled hot and cold. In the 1930s, the United States Army even considered distributing daily rations of the beverage to soldiers.
And yet, by the end of the 1930s, demand remained low. Marketers were perplexed, writing, “When can we expect an increase in consumption? The United States and France have proven themselves impervious to all temptation.” Americans just didn’t seem to have a taste for yerba mate; one 1921 review in the New York Herald read, “The flavor and taste were of a peculiar rank and insipid nature. If our South American friends can relish this beverage they are very welcome to all of it that grows.”
True, yerba mate is bitter and tastes like freshly cut grass. But coffee tastes like burnt rubber the first time you try it, and Americans can’t get enough. Something deeper is going on here. Ximena Díaz Alarcón, an Argentinian marketing and consumer-trends researcher, says it makes sense that Americans never put down their mugs of coffee or tea to pick up a gourd filled with yerba mate. “There’s no cultural fit,” she told me from her home in Buenos Aires.
Traditionally, yerba mate is consumed from a shared gourd through a shared straw called a bombilla. “Here in Argentina,” Alarcón said, “mate is a cultural habit, it is a tradition, and it is about sharing with others.” But sitting down for an hour or two and sharing a beverage, especially from the same straw, is not something Americans are accustomed to.
Still, even when entrepreneurs of the past stripped away the communal aspect of yerba mate and sold it to North Americans in individual tea bags, coffee and tea definitively won out. That makes sense: A huge part of the appeal of mate is the ritual and community of it, not just the compounds it contains. Bagged mate simply doesn’t have as much going for it. In order to persuade Americans who have no connection to the tradition of yerba mate to incorporate it into their lives, the drink has to be both convenient and superior to coffee or tea—in the process, losing the very things that make it so beloved in South America.
Over the past decade, Americans’ burgeoning thirst for healthy, plant-based caffeinated drinks has helped bring yerba mate into food fashion—at least superficially. Today, you can find it at the corner store and at major grocery chains such as Whole Foods and Walmart. But the yerba mate that fits American culture has no leaves, no straws, and no gourd. Instead, it is an ingredient mixed into canned and bottled energy drinks. This style of yerba mate is convenient and fast, and requires no swapping of spit.
Although carbonated, canned yerba mate has been around since the 1920s, the demand for it is new. Today, “people want more natural products and simpler ingredient lists,” says Martín Caballero, an editor at BevNET who grew up drinking yerba mate when visiting family in Argentina. “So using yerba mate as an energy caffeine source has been something we’ve seen more of.” Like, a lot more: In 2021, the Coca-Cola Company launched Honest Yerba Mate; Perrier now has an “Energize” line featuring yerba mate, and the start-up Guru sells an organic energy drink “inspired by Amazonia’s powerful botanicals.” (For the record, yerba mate doesn’t actually grow in the Amazon.)
At least one company has directly felt the difference between marketing real yerba mate and the diluted stuff. Guayakí, founded in 1996, built its entire business around working with indigenous communities in Paraguay to sustainably grow the plant. At first, the company sold only tea bags and loose-leaf yerba mate, but in the mid-2000s, it shifted its focus to selling yerba-mate energy drinks. Adding bubbles and sugar paid off, as did an ambitious marketing campaign targeting college students: Over the past decade, Guayakí has likely introduced more Americans to yerba mate than all previous marketing efforts combined. And although I admire their efforts and business philosophy, their canned “Classic Gold” tastes an awful lot like watered-down Diet Coke. But perhaps that’s the strategy.
These days, it’s easy to find young influencers promoting the canned version of yerba mate—or, as they often call it, “yerb.” Meanwhile, I’ve mostly given up my role as an ambassador for old-school yerba mate. My friends and colleagues just aren’t interested in sharing a green, bitter drink. But my baby couldn’t be more excited about it. Every morning, we offer her our gourd and silver straw (after sucking up the warm water so she doesn’t get jacked up on caffeine), and she grins before placing la bombilla between her tiny lips. I like to think she loves it for the same reason I do: not for the taste, but for the intimacy and ritual.
