Guyaki Yerba Mate - Rasberry Revolution

May 28, 3:04 PMCaffeine ExaminerBig Red Boots  

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Welcome to today's miracle drug, Yerba Mate. Like the quercetin found in FRS energy, this drink had tons of followers, from tree hugging hippie leftovers to avid super athlete mountain climbers. There are disputes, arguments and drama behind mate itself - but a couple things can be agreed upon. First, this Rasberry Revolution tastes great - like a tea and a juice, very exotic and delicious. Second, the company who produces this drink are amazing people who are thrying to save the world with their product. Thirdly, and most importantly, this drink produces a great rush that should keep you alert and bouncy for hours!

The Guayaki company was developed by California Polytechnic University's student and graduate, Alex Pryor and David Karr, that introduced Yerba Mate to North Americans by getting their Yerba Mate into health food stores across the nation. The cool thing about their brand of Yerba Mate is that theirs is fair trade and organic, helping indigenous South American families through saving the  rain forests. The yerba is grown in a reserve there by 34 families that get paid a normal living wage. Theirs is a business model that preserves an intact rain forest that is listed by Conservation International as one of the top 5 biodiversity hotspots. So regardless of all the debates about the nutrition, the drink is very good, very healthy and very environmentally conscious!

Taste:9
The raspberry flavor is really quite fantastic. Part Juice, part tea, it tastes very very healthy. You know when you get a shot of wheatgrass at a juice store? Even though it smelled like your lawn, there is something intoxicating about the feeling like your body is undergoing a superhealth transformation? That is this drink completely. It is very refreshing and you could almost feel the bad chemicals in your body fleeing for cover as this hits your bloodstream. If I were trapped in the hot sun trapped in an uric acid rainstorm in a field of poppies, There is no better drink to protect you.

Buzz/Nutrition:9
First and foremost, there is a debate raging about the reason Yerba Mate is an energy booster. Some proclaim Mate has no caffeine, while others insist it does. You will find many professional people insist that Mate actually contains what is called “mateine,” in the same family of caffeine but chemically they are not identical.  They tout Yerba Mate as a caffeine substitute because mateine isn't addicting, nor is it supposed to cause jitters that are related to caffeine use.

Others insist that it absolutely has caffeine, and that the people saying otherwise are trying to con the public into buying a healthy substitute when it really isn't. My own personal feeling is this; caffeine is caffeine, whether it is called something different,  extracted by different means or from guarana as opposed to green tea. If you are trying to cut down on caffeine, you would do best from just staying away from artifical system boosters entirely.   THE BOTTLE ITSELF lists 70 MG of caffeine.  When I called a  spokeswoman for the company, she said that it really just provides the same stimulation as 70 mg of caffeine, but the label definition of caffeine actually means Mateine - although their special brand contains the same chemicals found in chocolate which can provide euphoria and mood lift.

Now there are other big benefits attributed to Yerba Mate, enough that the NBC Today Show highlighted yerba mate as one of their "five life-changing foods." It is packed full of antioxidants, and there have even been studies linking yerba mate to weight loss. The leaves of the rainforest mate tree contain 24 vitamins and minerals, 15 amino acids. It is noted by the AMA (American Medical Assoc.) as a positive drink in aiding the relief of many blood related disturbances too - so even if it turns out that it is not all it claims to be, at the worst it is a nutrient rich antioxidant filled caffeine boosted energy drink - and that ain't bad at all!

Packaging:7
Nice - not amazing. They list as much info on this as one possibly can pack, from their nutritive information to the caffeine content to the free music downloads they are giving away, chock full of bits about the rugged workers who drink it to the rugged farmers who deliver it, then slap on every badge from fair trade to the Rabbinically Certified Kosher stamp. There is only so much you can do with an overload of information, and while the designers did the best they could with what they have, most of this stuff could have been saved for their comprehensive website, and the package could just be used to advertise the drink.

Website: www.guayaki.com 7
GAH! The biggest most comprehensive website I have seen for a drink in a long time! Shopping carts, recipies, award links for the best places to work in 2007, their people who buy them to the people who work for them, restoration and product links, specials and gift certificates, products and testimonials, 2 FAQs - all in all 18 main links to subpages there they grow exponentially. This is truly a mind-numbing load of documents for a company that puts out a little over half a dozen energy drinks, some big bottles, and loose tea.  Somehow they have turned this into an empire of goods, ranging from special Yerba Mate Drinking gourds to stainless steel slurpee straws for drinking it out of said gourd.
They even have their own guayaki music player to promote artists they like. While I love getting info on my energy drinks, this is WAY overkill! But I am guessing the bigger they are, the better chance they have of making a big splash in the market.  And I should not knock them for trying to be such a large company.  After all, the bigger they are, the more they can help bird conservation and agriculture.

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