As with other brewed herbs, yerba mate leaves are dried, chopped, and ground into a powderous mixture. Unlike other brews, however, mate is traditionally sipped from a dried and carefully carved, hollow calabash, through a special metal straw (traditionally silver) called a bombilla IPA: /bom'bi?a/ (/bom'bi?a/ or /bom'bi?a/ in Argentine and Uruguayan pronunciation). Bombilla usually means "light bulb" in Spanish, but locally it is "little pump" or "straw". The bombilla acts as both a straw and sieve. The submerged end is flared, with small holes or slots that allow the brewed liquid in, but block the chunky matter that makes up much of the mixture. A modern bombilla design uses a straight tube with holes, or spring sleeve to act as a sieve.