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If you’re a person and want to drink mate (mah-tay), make mate. If you’re a company and you want to stay in business, make bottled evaporated cane juice-rich drinks—we the masses demand convenience and sweetness. This new bottled stuff tastes great, and lifts you up, and it’s still healthier than 90% of other bottled drinks, and mate as usual is a uniquely good-for-you non-caffeinated source of energy, of get-up-and-go.
So I give it a A-, and I’m grading it without due consideration of Guayaki’s pioneering eco/social programs in South America (see video at bottom). If I include their progressive business practices, I’d give it an A.
Still—hipsters, hippies, mommas and all those seeking the real deal—stick with Guayaki’s A+ straight mate in a gourd or french press—it’s far cheaper and healthier, even if it’s not sweet enough to charm the masses.
IMAGES: New School (top) is yummy but sweet. Old School (below) is healthy, cool, cheap. Click above to purchase.
PS: the bottles arrived at Hotelephant in a record amount of packaging for any review we’ve ever done in 6.5 years—not a contest a LOHAS company should want to win. Six bottles each packed in styrofoam peanuts in individual boxes in a big box filled with styrofoam peanuts. I understand that you want to keep the bottles from breaking, but such a green-minded, progressive company should not be using styrofoam or plastic, ideally.
The original flavor is my favorite bottled beverage on the market. And that’s sayin’ alot! Bummer to hear about the packaging, an area to improve upon for sure, but I love this company. It was the very first to introduce me to how the for-profit model can really do some good. I’m not wording this right. I’m actually really tired and was just about to go make some Guayaki mate before I saw this post!
All Guayaki’s products DO have caffeine in them; it’s just that the caffeine is naturally occurring; the benefits of Guayaki Yerba Mate? 24 vitamins and minerals, 15 amino acids and tons of antioxidants. No jitters like coffee and energy drinks, focus & clarity and so much more.
Guayaki’s Yerba Mate contains the caffeine equivalent of 1/3rd cup of coffee per serving.
the other great reason to buy and make your own Mate… try $39.99 for a case of 12 16oz bottles of Guayaki Yerba Mate, not including shipping. That seems excessively expensive to me, espeically when you can make 12 of thier cases of Mate for half that.
[...] hang out with ex-military man and green journalista Adam Shake…and to meet with my friends at Guayaki Yerba Mate, who were receiving a commendation from the Ambassador to Paraguay for their service to the land [...]
I am extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days..
vs. 
The original flavor is my favorite bottled beverage on the market. And that’s sayin’ alot! Bummer to hear about the packaging, an area to improve upon for sure, but I love this company. It was the very first to introduce me to how the for-profit model can really do some good. I’m not wording this right. I’m actually really tired and was just about to go make some Guayaki mate before I saw this post!
All Guayaki’s products DO have caffeine in them; it’s just that the caffeine is naturally occurring; the benefits of Guayaki Yerba Mate? 24 vitamins and minerals, 15 amino acids and tons of antioxidants. No jitters like coffee and energy drinks, focus & clarity and so much more.
Guayaki’s Yerba Mate contains the caffeine equivalent of 1/3rd cup of coffee per serving.
Enjoy and FEEL the Guayaki buzz!
I love mate!!
the other great reason to buy and make your own Mate… try $39.99 for a case of 12 16oz bottles of Guayaki Yerba Mate, not including shipping. That seems excessively expensive to me, espeically when you can make 12 of thier cases of Mate for half that.
[...] hang out with ex-military man and green journalista Adam Shake…and to meet with my friends at Guayaki Yerba Mate, who were receiving a commendation from the Ambassador to Paraguay for their service to the land [...]
I am extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice blog like this one these days..