This Video of Zoe Saldaña Drinking Yerba Mate and Telling Stories in Spanish Just Made Us Love Her Even More

Something we didn’t know about “Avatar” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Zoe Saldaña is that she absolutely loves yerba mate, the super potent tea popular in Argentina.

The actress, who is of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, told Netflix Latin America — in Spanish — that she first tried the drink when she was living in the Dominican Republic as a kid when some Argentine and Chilean friends gave it to her at school. “The Adam Project” star said that after trying the tea, she was so alert and did so well on her test that she was hooked on the beverage. 

Saldaña said later on in life, after connecting with Vera Steimberg, a makeup artist and “súper boluda” from Buenos Aires, that she started drinking it every day and could re-encounter her love of the beverage. 

In the Instagram video, she shows how she shakes, stirs, and sips mate.

But according to Saldaña, the critical part of her mate is to add a little bit of azúcar! The star says the drink is way too bitter for her unless it has that perfect touch of sugar. Despite her love for the drink, she told Netflix that she can’t get the water temperature right and always burns her tongue. Yikes!

But it seems like the mate is kicking in because Zoé Saldaña has had a pretty busy schedule lately with the hit Netflix science fiction series, “The Adam Project” where she plays Laura, one of the main characters. 

And it looks like she’s enjoying herself too! 

“There’s something really fascinating about working with original content that makes me really look at the filmmaker with so much more reverence. I like working on ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ because James Gunn still also manages to protect some of the innovation and makes it very nuanced. That was also lovely,” Saldaña told the website Syfy Wire about her time working on both productions. “But I like working on things that were conceived out of thin air.”