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Who’s Got the Yerb? Tea often will soothe your mind and soul. Yerba mate will take care of the rest. 
Coffee devotees are notorious for their inability to complete routine morning tasks before they’ve had a cup or two. So it came as a surprise when a tea-like beverage pepped up one Pacific Northwest coffee drinker above and beyond the bean. In the ‘90s, Dan Garcia was operating Monarch Mountain Coffee in Sandpoint, Idaho, when he was contacted by an Argentinean company offering samples of yerba maté tea. Garcia was intrigued, and when he got the samples of maté he brewed and Americano through his espresso maker using the maté, and felt invigorated after finishing his cup. “I didn’t know when it came on and didn’t know when it left,” Garcia says. “It’s a different feeling than coffee.” He then put the product in front of his customers. Some of the feedback included improved mental clarity and better focus. Pretty soon Garcia was importing maté and starting his new yerba maté business, Aviva, Ltd., of which he’s the CEO. So just what is it? “Yerba maté technically is an herb,” Garcia says. “The main difference is the naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. A 100-gram sample of maté has more than three times the potassium of a banana, 2/3 less caffeine than coffee and while blueberries have an antioxidant umol count of over 3,000, maté’s rates in at 161,000. Its ease of appeal is met by an acquired taste. “It’s grassy, green and very herbal, similar to green tea,” Garcia says. In South America, yerba maté traditionally is prepared in a gourd – the maté – and consumed with a straw called a bombilla. However, where a typical maté tea bag is 2 ounces, going the gourd way calls for about 20-25 gram of maté to be mixed with just 5 or 6 ounces of water. Now, Garcia claims to be a “99-percent” maté drinker, but he still likes his cup of coffee every now and again. “We distribute all over the country, mainly in the coffee and tea sector,” he says. “It’s growing tremendously, but it still hasn’t scratched the surface.” Maté originated in Paraguay but has flourished through commercial markets in Argentina and Brazil. Aviva, which gets its maté from Paraguay, boasts being the North American distributor of wild-harvest maté. Currently, Aviva offers maté in 25-count boxes of bags ($5.50) and half-pound packages ($8) on its Web site, www.yerba-maté.com, and is making its way into health food stores across the country. |
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