How To Select Yerba Mate

When a large commercial brand isn't better.

We know how hard it is for people – especially people new to yerba mate – to know what product to buy. Today there are numerous yerba mate brands on the market, and most of them don’t look familiar. A new customer may have to choose between a bag on which all the writing is in a foreign language, and another much more expensive one, covered with pictures of people in swimsuits and exaggerated claims of health miracles.

We know that most of our customers just want a good tasting premium tea. They don’t want to be confused or ripped off. Fact is, yerba mate is delicious and healthy enough without needing all that silly hype and the inflated prices that pay for the fancy ads. So, here’s our advice (and yes, we would be happy if you bought MyTea products, but we think you’ll do that just because you like it).

Yerba Mate farm in South America

The best yerba mate is often the product of family-run farms that stick to the best traditional methods of producing their mate. Many of these growers also carefully stick to organic guidelines, lovingly tending their soil and their harvest in the purest, most natural ways. Some of these small producers come from generations that go back hundreds of years and understand the need to grow, select, blend and package the healthiest, best tasting yerba mate by taking their time to grow, harvest, dry, and age the best yerba mate leaves without the commercial pressure to produce huge quantities as quickly as possible. Large commercial growers usually will not have the necessary will and time to produce a top quality product.

Before you buy, take time to know more about the product and how it’s produced. Just like coffee, yerba mate varies because of many factors, including the air, soil, water, weather, and small differences in method belonging to the areas in which it is grown. Generally, the best-tasting and most consistently high-quality mate is produced in Argentina, Paraguay, and some parts of Brazil.

Green does not always mean “good”.

Although the public has become very aware of the good qualities of green and “white” tea, it is important to remember a few points. First of all, yerba mate is a very different plant from the camellia sinensis plant that almost all actual “tea” is a variety of. Experienced mate drinkers, like us, know that the greener the yerba mate is, the more bitter-tasting it will most likely be. A good quality yerba mate, like wine, must be produced from good organic quality leaves and aged to a smooth, rich, earthy taste. Aged yerba mate retains its aroma, flavor, nutritional value, and adds a touch of earthiness with enough body to provide a feeling of fullness in the mouth. More than a little bitterness, or strong grassy tastes, are signs of a sloppily or hastily prepared product.

Yerba Mate Leaves

Research has also revealed that the yerba mate aging process, like the fermenting of wine and the transforming of “green” tea into “black” tea, is responsible for transforming many of the nutritional compounds into the forms that benefit the body and provide the most pleasurable flavors. This aging is not the same as the technological processing that mass-market products undergo, which rob them of nutrients and subtlety of taste. This is the art of refining our most precious herbs and foods to their peak of flavor and nutritional value.

Consider how you take it.

Yerba Mate is judged very good when it consists of a mild, earthy, woody, and long lasting taste with only a hint of bite. At MyTea, we follow a time-honored tradition of combining mate with carefully chosen herbs to produce unique, delicious flavors, and to enhance its healthful effects. Mate drinkers, like tea and coffee drinkers, are encouraged to flavor and/or sweeten their own brew according to their taste. Please refer to our Yerba Mate preparation suggestions here.

Still after all these years,

The cultivation of MyTea Yerba Mate starts from selected seeds obtained from fresh ripe fruits of the llex paraguensis plant. The seeds are soaked, washed and planted in a nursery where the seedlings remain for about 12 months. It is then transplanted to our organically fertilized farm land. After about 4 years, the first harvest is obtained. When harvested, branches that are 4 to 5 years old are carefully cut by hand by farm workers called tareferos. These branches are cut from the plant and transferred to a drying chamber where leaves are slow roasted to the heat from a blend of specially selected varieties of wood, preventing fermentation or spoilage, and enhancing the natural earthy taste.

dried Yerba Mate

The dried leaves are then prepared for grinding, after which leaves the mate is aged and dried for approximately two years in carefully controlled environment. In this way, the chemical bonds in mate’s complex chemistry are gradually released, creating the balanced, rich flavor, the ideal nutritional profile, and the relaxing yet mood-enhancing effects of a truly premium, mature yerba mate.

We Hope,

This has given you some insight as how to choose your next cup of yerba mate tea and we sure hope MyTea becomes your tea for many years to come.

Yerba Mate farm in South America

Additional Links:
Order Yerba Mate Online| The Health Benefits of Yerba Mate

MyTea Co.

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or contact us directly:

1-888-My-Tea-Co
info@myteaco.com