The Best Yerba Maté Brands For 2020 [Reviewed]
Yerba maté is a popular drink from South America with a long history of use for boosting energy, supporting the cardiovascular system, improving focus and concentration, and promoting general health and wellbeing.
Every yerba maté brand has its own unique flavor profile. It’s common for yerba mate drinkers to develop a particular taste for one brand over another — but I encourage you to try a few different brands before settling on just one.
In this article I’ll cover the top yerba maté brands for 2020. I’ll cover where the company is based, where the maté comes from, and what makes each brand stand out.
Let’s jump straight in.
The Best Yerba Maté Brands [2020]
There are dozens of yerba maté brands around the world but most of the top-rated companies come from South America. This comes to no surprise as this is a region of the world where yerba maté is taken very seriously.
Everything on the list below originates from South America — but is available all around the world.
1. Canarias
Canarias is one of the most well-known yerba maté brands in the world. It’s a Brazilian company that sources its yerba mate from farms in Uruguay — which is known for producing some of the best yerba mate trees in the world.
The flavor of this yerba mate can be described as slightly smoky, creamy, and bitter. It packs a heavy hit in terms of energy levels. I’d even consider this brand to be the strongest on the list in terms of flavor and energy boosting activity.
As a Brazilian-style yerba mate this product has much more polvo (yerba mate dust) than the more common Argentinian style yerba mate. This gives the brew a stronger taste, but is also more likely to clog your bombilla.
For this particular yerba, I’d recommend going with a spoon or hook-style bombilla to avoid clogging. Spring or bamboo bombillas are going to have a hard time with Canarias yerba mate.
2. Taragui — Red
Taragui is one of the most well-known names in yerba maté. It’s an Argentinian brand that ships yerba mate to every corner of the earth. You can find this stuff in just about every country.
This brand has two main products — the red bag and the blue bag.
The difference between Taragui red and Taragui blue is the presence (or absence) of stems (palos). The red bag has the stems included, while the blue bag has gone through extra levels of processing to remove the stems from the leaves before being ground up.
Yerba maté stems have different chemical makeup than the leaves — and a different flavor. Some suggest the stems are bitter, but there’s more to it than that. Including the stems adds a woody and creamy flavor to the brew (and perhaps some slight bitter flavors as well). Yerba with the stems included have a more robust full-body flavor, and don’t clog up the bombilla nearly as easily as yerba without the stems.
This brand isn’t necessarily the best tasting option on the list, but it’s exceptionally consistent. I’ve had Taragui Red in Australia, Argentina, Canada, and the USA and it always tastes exactly the same every time.
3. Cruz De Malta
This brand of yerba maté is a great option for beginners because of its mild flavor. It’s less bitter than a lot of the other yerba mate options on this list and even has a slightly sweet flavor.
Cruz De Malta also has less polvo (yerba mate dust) than many of the other brands, which tends to clog up the bombilla and can gives the mate a bit of a chalky flavor. I’ve found this brand is one of the least likely options to cause your bombilla to clog while you drink — even if you’re using a traditional bamboo bombilla which is notorious for getting blocked up mid cycle.
With less polvo this yerba is also less stimulating than some of the other brands on the list. It offers about mid-strength potency in terms of its energy boosting effects. If you want something stronger, opt for a Brazilian-style yerba maté such as Canarias or Rosamonte instead.
This brand uses Argentinian-grown yerba mate leaves, and is one of the cheaper options you’ll find outside of South America.
4. Guayaki
Guayaki is best-known for their canned (or bottled) yerba mate drinks, but the company also sells loose leaf yerba mate. The yerba maté this company uses comes from Argentina and applies the traditional Argentinian style to more modern methods of preparation.
You can find Guayaki canned yerba mate in any supermarket in South America or North America, and in quite a few shops around Europe and Australia as well.
The canned yerba maté come in 5 flavors:
Lemon Elation
Orange Exuberance
Revel Berry
Enlighten Mint
Bluephoria
The company also sells carbonated yerba mate in regular and low-sugar options as well as yerba mate and fruit juice combinations (terrerre).
This is an excellent product for people who like the concept of yerba mate (clean energy) but don’t actually like the taste of yerba mate. These canned teas are made from the same plant, but have been carefully formulated with other flavors and ingredients to hide the naturally bitter and woody flavor of the yerba mate plant.
Being pre-prepared, this yerba maté doesn’t have any polvo or palos, and is much less bitter than loose leaf yerba tea. This yerba maté is comparable to a cup of coffee in terms of energy-boosting.
5. Buddha Teas Yerba Maté Tea
If you prefer using tea bags to make your yerba maté, this is an excellent option.
These tea bags are made from certified organic yerba maté sourced from all around South America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay).
These teabags are perfect for keeping at your desk at work, or for preparing cold brew yerba maté. The brew won’t be as strong as a traditional loose leaf yerba maté, but it’s more convenient for people who don’t want to mess around with the cup and bombilla setup and just want a simple stimulating cup of tea.
You can also buy loose leaf yerba maté tea from Buddha Teas. It contains almost no polvo and minimal stems. This tea is great for beginner’s because of the low bitterness, but also lacks a lot of depth compared to other yerba maté options on this list.
Buddha Teas is an American company with a large selection of herbal tea bags above and beyond just yerba maté.
6. Rosamonte
This is a brand for experienced yerba mate drinkers only. It has a very strong and unique taste that stands out among other brands.
Compared to most of the options on this list (aside from Canarias) Rosamonte is one of the most bitter options you’ll find — but not in a bad way. While the bitterness makes this yerba mate a poor choice for novice drinkers, it brings a lot of complexity to the flavor if you’ve developed a taste for the bitterness. You can find notes of coffee, wood, and even some buttery notes in this complex flavor palate.
Everytime I drink this yerba it seems the flavor seems to be a little bit different. I highly recommend this brand if you’re a regular drinker and want something a little bit different.
Rosamonte yerba mate is grown and processed on the company’s farm in Argentina.
7. Runa
This is another canned beverage, but there’s something a little different about this beverage compared to everything else on the list.
Runa is made from a closely related species to yerba mate called guayusa.
Guayusa isn’t technically yerba mate, but it’s very similar. The botanical name for this plant is Ilex guayusa — compared to yerba mate which is Ilex paraguariensis. Both plants are in the same family and contain high concentrations of caffeine.
Each can contains 150 mg of caffeine (roughly one and a half cups of coffee) along with a host of antioxidants and other phytochemicals.
This is an excellent product for people who want the stimulating benefits of this yerba mate sibling without the bitter flavors. Compared to Guyaki, another canned yerba mate drink, this product is slightly more stimulating.
You can find this tea in six flavors:
Berry
Blood Orange
Pineapple
Mango
Watermelon
Lime
8. Nobleza Gaucha
This is another yerba maté option that’s perfect for beginners. The flavor and potency of this yerba mat´is right in the middle of the scale. It isn’t too bitter, nor is it too strong — but it still offers enough body and energy to be considered a quality yerba maté option.
Nobleza Gaucha contains the palos (stems) but doesn’t have any of the undesirable splinter palos (which can irritate the mouth while drinking).
The polvo of this yerba maté is about average, which helps give the yerba its flavor and energy-boosting effects, but isn’t too much that it makes the brew overly bitter or chalky.
The flavor of this yerba maté can be described as smooth, creamy, or even slightly buttery. It’s a very enjoyable drink for novice and experienced drinkers alike.
How to Shop For Yerba Maté
This list is just a taste of the many yerba maté brands on the market right now. These are also just a selection of the bigger brands that ship their products around the world. If you go to different countries in South America you’ll find a lot of smaller yerba maté companies ofrfering some truly unique and top-notch products.
Here are some of the most important factors to consider when shopping for yerba maté:
1. Type of Yerba Maté
The first consideration to make is what style of yerba maté you want.
You can find yerba maté in three main formats:
Loose leaf yerba maté — this is the most common format, and the type you’ll need to drink yerba maté the traditional way.
Teabags — this option is better for people who just want to make their yerba maté the same way they make any other tea. These products are more common outside South America.
Canned or bottled yerba maté — companies like Guayaki or Runa do this very well, but there are other options too. These products are better for people who don’t like the flavor of yerba maté, or prefer the convenience of a premade natural energy drink.
2. Flavor Profile
The next consideration to make is the flavor. Although all yerba maté leaves are similar tasting, the flavors from one brand to the next can vary a lot. This is the same with coffee or tea. To the untrained palate, the difference is subtle — but the more you drink it the easier it becomes to identify differences in flavor from one yerba maté to another.
Here are some common flavor notes in yerba maté leaves:
Bitter — Most yerba maté has some bitterness to it, especially in the first couple of washes. If you don’t like the bitter flavor it helps to look for a brand with less bitterness to it (such as Nobleza Gaucha or Cruz De Malta). The most bitter options are the Brazilian-style matés such as Rosamonte or Canarias.
Woody — A lot of yerba maté has a woody flavor, especially if it contains the stems (palos). The most woody yerba maté I’ve tried is Rosamonte.
Smoky — Part of the processing for yerba maté is to roast the fresh leaves over a fire. Some companies will roast their leaves directly over the fire, importing a strong smoky flavor. Other companies roast their leaves over a pan to avoid too much smokiness. If you like the smoky flavor in yerba maté I suggest you check out a brand not on our list called Picada Vieja.
Creamy — Some yerba maté has a mild creamy or buttery flavor. These yerba matés are great for beginner’s because it helps cut back on the bitterness. Products with a creamy flavor include Nobleza Gaucha and Canarias.
3. Palos (Stems)
Yerba maté can be split into two different categories — yerba maté with stems (con palos), or without palos (sin palos).
Palos refers to the stems of the yerba mate leaves.
What’s the difference?
The stems of the yerba maté plant impart their own flavor, which can range from bitter and woody, to creamy and sweet. The fibrous stems also help prevent clogging in the bombilla, and give the mountain of yerba in the gourd more structure to let the water rinse through it efficiently. The only issue is that some of the lower quality brands don’t filter out the splinter palos — which are very tiny strands of fibrous stems that can irritate the mouth while you drink.
Yerba mate without stems tends to be less bitter, and is a little bit stronger in terms of energy-boosting because there’s more leaf content in the tea (the leaves are the source of caffeine, not the stems). These teas are easier to clog, and lack the full-body flavor of yerba mate with palos.
Choosing yerba mate with or without palos comes down to personal preference. I recommend you try both to see which version you like better. Most brands will offer an option with palos and an option without.
4. Polvo (Yerba Maté Dust)
As the leaves are ground up to make the tea, a fine powder is also produced in the process. This fine powder will quickly dissolve in hot water and impart a strong bitter flavor and potent energy-boosting effects. You can think of this like matcha green tea where the entire leaf is essentially being suspended in the tea.
Brazilian style yerba maté contains a lot of polvo, and some brands will even offer their yerba mate in a near-powder consistency. These yerba matés are very strong. If you can get past the bitterness, these are excellent teas for energy-boosting and weight loss effects because they contain much higher levels of caffeine and other phytochemicals.
Other companies (like Taragui, Nobleza Gaucha, and Cruz De Malta) will filter out most of the polvo before putting it in bags. This removes most of the chalky texture and bitterness — but cuts some of the energy-boosting activity at the same time.
Companies like Canarias and Rosamonte fall somewhere in the middle — removing some, but not all the polvo produced during the manufacturing process.
5. Country of Origin
Different countries in South America have their own preferences for the styles of yerba maté they produce.
The most popular outside of South America is Argentinian yerba maté. This is because Argentinian yerba uses larger-cut leaves, and tends to have much less polvo than brazilian or Uruguay yerba mate.
Brazil has it’s own special form of yerba maté called chimarrão — which is a vibrant green powder. This yerba mate is made without stems, and has a very potent flavor. It’s like the matcha of the yerba maté world and requires a little bit of extra skill to drink without clogging your mate bombilla.
Uruguayan yerba mate is somewhere in the middle between Argentinian and Brazliian style maté.
What is Yerba Mate?
Yerba maté is a popular coffee alternative from South America. The leaves of the tree are high in caffeine — giving the brew powerful stimulating effects.
Unlike coffee, yerba maté is also high in a compound called theobromine — which is the main stimulating component of dark chocolate. The combination of caffeine and theobromine gives yerba mate a smooth stimulating effect profile. It’s as potent as coffee, but much less likely to result in side effects like anxiety shakiness.
Learn more about the Yerba maté plant and its effects.
The Benefits of Yerba Maté
Boost mental and physical energy levels
Promotes focus and concentration
Supports the cardiovascular system
Provides a rich source of antioxidants
Promotes conversation and socializing
Summary: Where to Buy Yerba Maté
There are plenty of reasons to give yerba maté a try. It’s a natural stimulant similar to coffee or tea but with its own set of benefits and unique culture. Yerba maté tea is rich in health-promoting antioxidants, saponins, and other phytochemicals.
Buying yerba maté in South America is simple — you can find this tea just about everywhere and there are even maté bars that sell the tea over the counter the same way you would order a coffee.
Outside South America you have to look a little bit harder to find the tea. The best place to buy yerba mate is online. You can find most of the larger brands on marketplaces like Amazon for cheap, or by visiting specialty online yerba mate retailers if you want to find more niche products like Picada Vieja.
Let me know what your favorite brand is in the comment section below!
Author:
Justin Cooke
The Sunlight Experiment
