By Sophie Becker

Ya Heard of Yerb?

The Story Behind the Ubiquitous Yellow Can

By Sophie Becker

If you go to the University of Vermont, you have definitely encountered people sipping from tall yellow cans while walking around campus. Maybe you’ve seen towers of them or even an entire curtain made out of them. Students here have adopted yerba mate into their college culture and routine. When I found out that Cat Pause, our on-campus store, was the fourth biggest retailer of Guayakí brand yerba mate in the country, I realized how prevalent this drink is on campus. As an advocate of conscious consumption, I believe that even though we cannot always be perfectly sustainable consumers, we should nonetheless make an effort to be educated and mindful of what we purchase and consume.

My first encounter with yerba was in my hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina; there, I saw the drink become popular on social media. Before I knew it, yerba cans started showing up on the shelves at my local Target. It was not until I came to UVM, though, that I saw such copious consumption of this beverage en masse. I was curious why this drink was so popular, particularly at this school.

This drink is popular with high school and college students in part due to its high caffeine content. As an alternative to coffee and energy drinks, a 15.5 fluid ounce Guayakí Yerba Mate, according to their website, has 150 mg of caffeine. Mate also contains minerals like potassium and magnesium, vitamins B1, B2, and C, amino acids, and polyphenols, all of which have been proven to have positive health benefits by a 2021 conference of scientific dissemination created by the National Institute of Yerba in Argentina. During this conference in which scientists and researchers shared the results of their studies, it was established that yerba mate protects cells from oxidative damage, improves the body’s natural defenses, and positively impacts the circulatory and digestive systems. When I spoke to UVM students about their reasons for drinking yerba mate, many mentioned that they love the taste of yerba mate — a sentiment that I strongly agree with. They also appreciate its ability to wake them up in the morning while appearing more natural and eco-friendly than other energy drinks. Lastly, UVM students, with their earthy sensibilities, mentioned that the values of Guayakí aligned with their own, giving them more reason to consume it.

Once I had heard my peers’ thoughts on yerba mate, I wanted to learn more about this drink and its history. According to the Yerba Mate Argentina site, mate is an herbal drink made from the leaves of a tree in the holly family, Ilex paraguariensis, which is native to the Atlantic Forest in South America. This tropical forest with a diverse variety of wildlife extends along the Atlantic coast of South America, from Brazil to Uruguay. The tree was first cultivated by Indigenous groups in Paraguay, specifically the Guaraní and Tupí peoples, who originally lived in Central Paraguay and still live throughout South America. These groups’ methods highly influenced the way people currently drink yerba mate, though its preparation and consumption has varied from region to region and throughout history.

The most common method of preparation is to handpick, cut, dry, and grind the leaves into a fine powder. The leaves are then placed in a calabash gourd and steeped with hot, but not boiling, water. After preparation, the mate can be enjoyed through a metal straw, called a

bombilla, which has a filter at the bottom to separate the leaves from the liquid. People sometimes add in sugar or swap the water for milk, and if the tea is prepared over ice and with cold water, it is called ‘terere.’ Traditionally, mate is served to a group of people in a ritualistic ceremony as a way to create strong social ties amongst participants, and it thus has great cultural significance for certain indigenous tribes in South America. During a typical ceremony, the host pours the tea into the calabash gourd and then drinks the first, most bitter cup. They then re-steep the tea and pour another cup, which is given to the next person in the circle. This cycle continues until everyone has consumed a cup and the leaves have lost much of their potency.

We call this drink yerba mate, yerba, or just yerb, but where do these terms come from? The word mate comes from Spanish conquistadors’ interpretations of indigenous words for the drink. The words that indigenous people used never referred to the drink itself, only to the cup that held it. Many Indigenous groups called the gourd a version of the word mati, but the Spanish misunderstood and used the term mate, which they adapted to be easier for them to say, to refer to both the cup and the drink itself. The use of the term ‘yerba’ comes from Indigenous word for plant or herb. As the Spanish colonized South America, they spread yerba mate to Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.

In exploring how the drink acquired worldwide popularity, I discovered that the brand behind the yellow cans, Guayakí, is really what brought yerba mate to the United States and catalyzed its success here. One of the co-founders, Alex Pryor, is an Argentinian who grew up drinking traditional yerba mate with his family. He moved to California for college with a duffle bag full of clothes and yerba mate (with his gourd and metal straw) and got a degree in food science at California Polytechnic State University. While doing so, he began informally selling yerba mate with his friend David Karr, who later became a co-founder of Guayakí along with Pryor. The pair’s small enterprise brought about the popularity of yerba mate in the US. With this increasing demand naturally came an increase in pressure for producers.

I started to wonder about the current state of yerba mate—where is it now being produced and consumed? According to a 2021 publication in the journal Nutrients, the top three countries producing yerba mate are Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. However, less than five percent of this product is being exported while the rest

is used for domestic consumption. Presently, the heart of yerba mate production is in the Misiones province in Argentina. Syria and Lebanon are some of yerba’s largest importers due to the high number of people who immigrated from these nations to South America prior to WWII. Syrian and Lebanese immigrants began drinking yerba mate and ultimately spread its popularity in their home countries upon returning, where it continues to be consumed in large quantities. Unfortunately, this drink’s high consumption rates globally and domestically has its drawbacks.

As a result of global demand and an unregulated market, corners are cut in order to keep up with competition. Its widespread consumption has had two major impacts: decreasing biodiversity and increasing soil degradation. To make space for yerba mate plantations, many farmers cut down forested areas to create their fields, fragmenting forest habitats and decreasing the biodiversity in that area. Biodiversity creates ecological stability and resilience, and without it, an ecosystem is susceptible to major destruction and disturbance. These farms also tend to use large quantities of herbicides, which intensify soil erosion by eliminating other plants that keep soil in place. In addition, soil fertility is severely reduced in monoculture fields, as a lack of diverse plant decay prevents organic matter from being added to the soil.

Furthermore, a variety of social issues have been exposed in the field of yerba mate production, specifically in Argentina. Yerba mate was identified in the United States Bureau of International Labor Affairs 2016 as a product that frequently involves the use of child labor. The yerba mate confirmed to be produced using child labor is primarily distributed and consumed in South America. In addition, there is the issue of poverty among the farmers who are working on slim margins, as the effort and money they put into this crop often do not outweigh what they can sell it for. Farmers and nearby residents also have to deal with harsh health outcomes that are associated with using herbicides on crops. Roundup is a popular herbicide used for the yerba mate plant and has been found to have carcinogenic effects by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015. These herbicides also include toxic compounds and endocrine disruptors that can cause cancerous tumors and developmental issues. The writer Adam Dohrenwend in a 2019 thesis on the socio-economic impacts of yerba mate poses the question, “¿Cuánto crecimiento de PIB de un país justifica la leucemia de un niño?”— “How much growth of a country’s GDP justifies a child’s leukemia?”

Despite the negative aspects associated with the increasing demand for yerba mate, the drink has positive impacts. The increasing global demand for mate can benefit the areas of production, but only if more companies adopt similar business models such as the one Guayakí has adopted. Instead of ignoring Indigenous roots and cultural values, depleting resources in the name of company profit, and showing disregard for ecological wellbeing in relation to the company, Guyaki has done the opposite. Alex Pryor wanted to create a business model that would help the ecosystem and communities that grew yerba mate while also providing a product with nutrients and health benefits. His company began working with indigenous people in Paraguay and small farmers in Argentina, encouraging the use of agroecology to preserve biodiversity. Guayakí oversees 200,000 acres of protected lands owned by indigenous communities and small farmers growing yerba mate plants, according to the Guayakí annual impact report. Later on in the company’s history, three more entrepreneurs with sustainable visions for Guayakí joined the team. Steven Karr (David Karr’s brother), Don Miguel, and Chris Mann helped pioneer a new vision of business they call market-driven regeneration. Their practices include permaculture which prioritizes working with the environment. In practice, this looks like planting trees where they would naturally grow and taking care of the soil and the surrounding environment. Karr, Miguel, Mann, and the rest of the leadership team have identified four pillars of regeneration: practicing conscious leadership, partnering with their values, celebrating communities and cultures, and taking responsibility for their footprint. Every year, they report on their social and environmental performance and upload that to their website in an effort to be transparent.

It is important to be aware of what we consume, and no business will be perfect, but it is our duty to educate ourselves so that we can be conscious consumers. Guayakí is one yerba mate business to support, but there are a few other options. Clean Cause yerba mate has ethical business values and practices and donates a major portion of their proceeds to helping those in recovery from addiction. Another yerba mate seller is Dobra Tea, a tearoom right here in Burlington. There, they serve fairtrade yerba mate in a traditional gourd and bombilla. Guayakí combines the positive business practices and a connection to the culture of the drink. Because of the accessibility and popularity of this product, the students of UVM show their support for Guayakí Yerba Mate by spending approximately one dollar extra on a bright yellow can instead of the alternative coffee or energy drink. H

Art by Lauren Manning