Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Yerba Mate For The Masses



In it's most basic form, yerba mate may never make it with the masses, at least not here in these United States. Chances are it's going to take some sweetening, flavoring and fancy packaging to get it to go over in this part of the world.

Not that Guayaki's not going to give it a try. Already the most notable of yerba mater vendors operating in the U.S., Guayaki hopes to take their products to a wider audience in the future. Guayaki co-founders David Karr and Alex Pryor spoke recently with Bloomberg.com on this and other topics. Read that interview here.

Tea Guy Speaks Amazon Store

3 comments:

Alex Zorach said...

I find Yerba mate to be naturally much sweeter than any tea or coffee, and less bitter than a typical tea. It is a bit of an aqcuired taste, perhaps, but so are tea and coffee. I don't think it's necessarily going to need any sweetening or flavoring to appeal to the masses; if anything, I think it would need these boosts / modifications less than coffee or tea would.

Kailee said...

One of the coffee shack chains in OR sells this stuff. I had never tried it because I was being judgy thinking it sounded 'weird' I wanted something different one day and tried it - AMAZING! This stuff is delicious! Not too sweet or bitter at all!

~Kailee

www.preciouscargobakery.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Hi Bill,

I read your recent blog post about "mate for the masses". I'm not sure if you've tried Nativa, but I'd like to send you some. I think you'll be pleased and perhaps change your mind about needing to add things to it.

As for 'the masses', due to the harvesting lead-time and the enormity of our market here, I decided the only way I could guarantee continued supply
of premium product from our grower is by not going for the 'masses' :)

Take care and Happy Holidays!

Paula Farell
Nativa Yerba Mate