This 1920 article predicted Paraguay’s beverage yerba mate “may become a habit some day in the United States.” It was not to be.

The article also noted the country’s 10:1 female-male ratio. Today, it’s completely even.

A celebrated and valuable product of the little inland South American Republican of Paraguay is “yerba maté,” made from the leaf of a very tall, bulky tree. The leaves are cut from the branches, placed on brushwood and roasted slowly in holes sunk in the ground and lined with skins.

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The tea is imbibed through a “bombilla,” or tube, which is placed in the “maté,” or gourd, containing the infusion. An alcoholic “kick” is not claimed for yerba maté, but that it is refreshing to a degree — that it will certainly buck one up — is attested by the fact that a large proportion of the people of Central South America are irrevocably addicted to it. Its popularity extends to all classes.

A century later, it had yet to catch on in the U.S.

The women outnumber the men ten to one, which really indicates a considerable gain for the male sex, because fifty years ago the score was said to be twenty-five to one in favor of the women.

Paraguay’s gender disparity has completely evened out by now, with the country’s male:female ratio at a virtually-identical 1.01 to 1, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. (If anything, that means men actually slightly outnumber women.)

Paraguay, Land of the Tea With a “Kick”: Yerba Mate May Yet Become a Favorite Dry Beverage Here–Inland South American Republic, With Ten Women to Each Man, Seeks Commercial Advancement

Published: January 4, 1920