Get out your gourd. Yerba Mate is the South American tea that deserves all its praise Words by Matt Dursum If you’ve traveled to South America, you’ve likely seen people of all ages walking around with gourds or egg-shaped ceramic cups with a straw and a large thermos of water. This is the omnipresent mate culture of South America, a tea drinking practice that puts other tea-obsessed places like England and Japan to shame. Yerba…
Words by Matt Dursum Photography by Yaron Ptashnik Music goes hand in hand with many life events: romantic courtships, solitary moments, and, of course, adventurous road trips through exciting new landscapes. Music is the catalyst for memories. At least it is for me. I lived in Japan from 2009 to 2013. Not big-city Hello Kitty, sprawling neon signs Japan, no. I was in the boonies. In the small and charming coastal community known as Minami…
Words by Matt Dursum No matter where you buy produce in the world, you’re sure to find apples. The usual varieties like Golden Delicious, Macintosh, and Red Delicious are ubiquitous worldwide, but this is just the boring surface of the apple’s diversity. When scientists published the genome of the apple tree in 2010, it created quite a shock. The apple, as it turns out, has twice as many genes as us, 57,000 in all. This…
Words by Matt Dursum Photos by Samantha Demangate It’s a drizzly Friday afternoon in Buenos Aires. The rain and breeze offer a brief relief from the searing summer heat. This abnormally cool day is perfect for a craft beer tour. Joining me are my friends from the U.K. and my girlfriend. My Argentine friends wanted nothing to do with this, claiming unanimously that drinking anything but ice cold Vermouth or Fernet and Cola during this…
Words by Matt Dursum Photos by Samantha Demangate Some life events pass by unnoticed, while others cling to our waking memories like starving lampreys. For those of us in Buenos Aires, Argentina during 2022’s FIFA World Cup, time bent out of shape, seemingly standing still for moments until the rushes of cathartic energy and emotion leaked into our brains and the psyche of the entire nation of Argentina. The Buildup Soccer is Argentina’s game. Although…