Bombilla (filter straw)
A metal straw with a strainer at the submerged end, so that a drink can be taken from a vessel packed with loose plant material without a separate filter. It is a drinking vessel and a filter at once, which is unusual, and the filter design is what separates a good one from a blocked one.
Identity
- Category
- Filter or infuser
- Native name
- bombilla
- Romanised
- bombilla, bomba
- Also called
- mate straw, filtered straw
- Material
- Alpaca silver, stainless steel, brass or bamboo; filters as flattened mesh or coils
- Skill level
- Beginner
Porosity
Not porous. It contributes nothing of its own to the liquor, so it can be moved between teas freely and washed with detergent without consequence.
Where it comes from
South American, alongside the gourd. Flattened spoon filters, spring coils and perforated bulbs are the common designs and they suit different cuts of leaf.
Named here rather than presented as generic equipment. The object belongs to a practice, and TeaHQ describes it from the outside.
If you do not own one
A strainer and a cup. There is no substitute if the practice is what you want, because the vessel is packed with loose material and nothing else lets you drink from it.
This one is not marked essential. The tea can be made without it.
Brewing methods it is used for
- Herbal infusion (tisane) — Steeping leaves, flowers or fruit that are not Camellia sinensis. The method looks like tea brewing and follows different rules, because the material has none of the compounds that make tea sensitive to heat and time.
Care and maintenance
Rinse it through immediately after every use — a bombilla blocks with fine dust, and dried material in a coil filter is very difficult to clear. Spring-coil types come apart for cleaning and one-piece mesh types can be boiled through. Metal conducts heat and the mouth end of a bombilla in hot mate gets hot.
Other filter or infusers
Sources
This page is TeaHQ synthesis. No external source stands behind the description, the material or the account of how the object is cared for. Where the record names a tradition, that attribution is TeaHQ’s own reading of common practice rather than a citation.
TeaHQ names no maker, brand or shop and has nothing to sell. Nothing on this page should be read as advice to buy the object — the substitute note above exists because owning it is usually optional.