Jesuit Tea

 
ARGENTINA, 1956, the herb with its traditionally associated vessel and straw, Scott 656
PARAGUAY, 2002, Ilex paraguariensis, Jesuit Tea, 2699

Jesuit Tea is very well known in South America, where the leaves are used to prepare the popular stimulating drink called yerba maté or maté. For many years the tea had been banned as pernicious, even under pain of excommunication, but eventually the ban was lifted. Jesuits recognized its energizing properties. When food was short, natives could subsist on maté and smaller quantities of food. So the Jesuits cultivated it and prepared a beverage that would later be known as Jesuit tea or "the elixir of the Jesuits". They may have got into the production of maté on their reductions to save the natives from the more destructive epidemic of alcoholism.

  
PARAGUAY, 1931-36, orange tree and maté, Scott C60-C63; maté on both sides, Scott C64-C67

This 1911 cover from Chudrim, Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary, carries an ad for the Elixir of the Jesuits,
presumably being brewed from yerba maté by a strangely dressed Jesuit and two elves.

Jesuit Bark

  
COLOMBIA, 1982, the 2nd centenary of the Royal Spanish Botanical Exhibition, Scott 923, 925, C739
featuring 3 varieties of cinchona: C. lancefolia, C. cordiflora, C. ovaliflora

  
REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, 1963, Scott 444, 466, 448

Around 1630 Spanish Jesuits in South America learned of the healing powers of the Cinchona tree. Its bark cured malaria and reduced other fevers as well. Prejudice against the Jesuits and the drug they brought back to Europe kept many doctors in Protestant countries, for a while anyway, from using it. Two French scientists, Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Caventou, later identified the exact substance in the bark that was curative, an alkaloid called quinine from the native word for bark. Other alkaloids with curative powers have since been isolated. More

   
CUBA, 1962, Scott 759
RIO MUNI, 1960 and 1964, Scott 10, 30

  
POLAND, 1962, Scott 1089
RWANDA, 1970, Scott 367
UNITED NATIONS (Geneva), 1990, Scott 187

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