Tererê

 One of the big customs here in Southern Brazil is chimarrão, which is a tea that tastes like green tea to me.  There are special cups and the tea leaves are put directly into the cup, hot water is added to the cup and then the tea is drank through a special metal straw with a sieve type thing on the end to keep the tea leaves from going up the straw.  People drink this stuff 24/7 and you can find it in every store, business place, and home.  People share the same straw with everyone else, often strangers.  Their theory is they do not spread germs because the water is really hot and the straw is made of silver and gold.  I don't buy it.

Anyway...the cold version of this tea is tererê (pronounced te-de-day).  The boys love tererê.  It is made in a similar fashion as chimarrão, but with really cold lime kool-aid.  We make it and drink it here at our house, and do not share our straw with strangers or even friends...yet.  I enjoy drinking it with the boys because it is very social.  Everyone has to take turns since we are sharing the same cup and straw.  We sit and talk while we drink and enjoy our time together.  The Brazillians definitely seem to have the relaxing, taking it easy, and enjoying time with others thing down.

Here are some pictures of the boys drinking tererê.  Owen does get his own cup with just kool-aid in it.  He gets too annoying because he does not know how to take turns and thinks it should always be his turn.

This is what the tea looks like in the cup.  At the beginning of a person's turn you add the kool-aid, then they have to drink all of the liquid until the straw slurps.  It is not cool to not drink until you hear the slurp.  Then you add more kool-aid and the next person's turn starts.