Guayaki - 15 Reviews

I believe the Eurythmics wrote a song about this tea, or was it Heart? Billy Ocean? Taylor Swift? There are a lot of songs out there that deal with things being great in dreams and I can tell you if nothing else, this beverage is absolutely dreamy. Like most Guayaki teas the yerba mate is the main thing you taste, but this has a very faint floral, hibiscus taste to it with hints of lime. There is nothing in here that is overpowering. You know what though, dreams are never perfect though. There is always an aspect r two that seem out of place. In here I could do with a tad bit more flavoring, and just the smallest amount of sugar. When it comes to tea I almost always prefer them to be unsweetened, but mate benefits from the smallest touch of sweetener. Even in its imperfect state I could drink this forever though.

Ten years ago I was sitting in a kitchen in Portland, OR and a mug of tea was placed in front of me. I took one sip and my world changed. Up until that point I had never had yerba mate before and I had no idea how vastly different it was from every other tea I had ever drank up until that point. It was earthy, woodsy, bitter wonderfulness with a nice boost of caffeine. Since that time it has become more prevalent and I couldn't be happier.

From my own gathering of intel Guayaki seems to be the longest running and most readily available producers of ready to drink yerba mate on the market. I have yet to try one of their flavors that I wasn't in love with and I drink them all the time. As someone who doesn't normally drink coffee, these beverages give me a nice little push of energy from their caffeine content.

With the Bluephoria tea they have mixed in elderberry and blueberry juice in with their already wonderful tea. The result is just as good as you would imagine. The juice kind of sits on top of the tea, flavorwise, so there's not so much a new taste, just the separate flavors hanging out together, and that is how I like my tea. It has aa decent sweetness to it without tasting like liquid candy. The fact that it tastes like blueberries and elderberries and not just some generic sugar-berry amalgamation is what makes this drink so great. Guayaki has done it again and I can't wait for their line to expand yet again.

This is simply yerba mate and nothing else. It has that great bitter not-tea tea flavor like yerba mate should. It's perfect for when you need a little bit of caffeine and you've had your fill of sugar. Everything this company releases is near perfect and this is the base of it all. It's wonderful, and if you're not familiar with yerba mate this company is the place to start. If you're cool with unsweetened drinks I would definitely start with this variety.

There are very few things in this world that bring me more pleasure than jumping off of something that is a decent height into water. The thing is that I am not a fan of swimming, and being in the water doesn't do much for me. It's overcoming the fear and the drop that is what I enjoy. I should probably go skydiving at some point. This weekend my ladyfriend and I took a trip to Ithaca to do some hiking and we ended up at a spot where you could cliff jump. There were different levels, and the one that the locals said was a 40ft drop was the best. There was a 60ft one, but I was sketched out because you had to jump out a bit to clear a large branch/log that was in the water. I jumped over and over and the panic that struck me about midway down never lessened.

This all really has nothing to do with this yerba mate tea, but that is where I was physically, as well as mentally when I drank it. I was parched and exhausted, so this refreshed me and the natural caffeine in it gave me the little push I needed to continue on. It was a perfect choice for when you're hanging out at a manmade dam in nature just outside of a hippy town.

Yerba mate is so great because it tastes so earthy, without tasting like you're drinking the water that was just filtered through a potted plant. It tastes natural and right. As we all know peach in tea is a slippery slope because most of the time it ends up being too strong, and tasting like peach candy. Guayaki held back with their peach. It's there, but it doesn't overshadow the taste of the mate. The fact that natural peach was used for the flavoring also helps. As a result of all of this, what I drank was one of the best peach teas I have ever encountered. Yerba mate is a different world if you're not used to it, but it's worth the learning curb when you grow to love it.

You know what yerba mate is from South American rainforests. I'm sure people cliff jump there, so my initial paragraph wasn't pointless rambling.

I bought it, tried it and thought it tasted familiar. A quick visit to the Guayaki website told me that it's just a rebranding of their Pure Empower Mint tea. So yeah, go there and read that to see what it's like.

I must implore everyone who tries this beverage to not give up after one sip. I completely understand why you would want to. Something about that first sip seems like the drink had gone bad. It tastes like the beginning stages of fermentation, and it's not very pleasant. The thing is that if you can make it past the first introduction of tea to tongue, you will be rewarded. With each sip this drink gets better and better until you get to the last drop and you are completely bummed out that it is gone. That's right, this went from gross to “when can I get another bottle?” in 12 small ounces.

With a name like Classic Gold I expected this to be straight up yerba mate and carbonated water, with a little sugar mixed in. To be fair, that was delivered but along with it came some spice as well as prune, lime, tamarind and ginger juice (I don't know how you juice ginger). The culmination of all of this is extremely interesting on ones taste buds. You can swish it around your mouth and actually make out the different flavors. That's exactly how I like my beverages. It has the classic yerba mate flavor, with just the right amount of sweetness and additional flavors.

I'm telling you, work past that first sip and you will find that you are in for a true treat.

Guayaki is a company that knows what they are doing, and what they are doing is making yerba mate based beverages that are nothing if not delicious. This is the 9th product of theirs that we have reviewed and so far they have all received either 4 or 5 out of 5 bottles. That is a rare thing indeed in the world of these Thirsty Dudes.

For those of you not familiar with it, yerba mate is essentially a tea. Does tea have to be made from a specific plant, or is it just any plant that is steeped in hot water? I think I'm safe referring to this as a tea. I've heard others do it, so I'm going to follow suit. As with all teas it has its own distinct taste, that is hard to describe, but once you've had it, you'll always be able to place the flavor. It's been compared to green tea, but I don't really see it at all. Both are a tad on the bitter side, but yerba mate has an earthier flavor to me.

Guayaki has been making this tea for years and recently has started producing a sparkling line. I for one love it. Tea based sodas are always hit or miss, but this is an inner circle bulls eye. The yerba mate flavor is right in the center and it's softened up a bit by some sweetener and a mixture of cranberry and pomegranate juice. What we have here are three bitter flavors, which could easily take all of the moisture out of your mouth, but instead blend together in a perfect way. Both of the juices are easily recognizable in the taste, but they are living in harmony together instead of fighting to see who will solo in the spotlight. I suppose that is because they both know that they will only ever be supporting characters in this drink; yerba mate is taking them all the way to Broadway.

You gotta free your mind maaaaaaaannnn. Open up your third eye and see the world for what it really is. It's beautiful maaaaaannnnn. You gotta see the trees for the forest maaaaaaan. No maaaaaaan I got it right. It's not “see the forest for the trees,” that doesn't make any sense maaaaaaaaaannnn. You can't have a forest without trees and trees are beautiful maaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn, just like life.

You know what else is beautiful maaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn? Guayaki yerba mate, that's what. The stuff is delicious. It's so beautiful maaaaaaaaaannnnnn. It's like the trees. They have this one flavor called Pure Mind, and whenever I drink it I just feel like I'm one with the planet. There are these little birds on the label and they are just so beautiful maaaaaaaaannnnn. It has that wonderful earthy, slightly bitter mate flavor to it, but the bitterness isn't really there because it's sweetened and it has all of this beautiful pomegranate juice in it. Antioxidants maaaaaaaaannnnn, now there's a mind trip. This is seriously one of the best tea drinks I've ever tried maaaaaaannnnnn. The thing is maaaaaaaaaannnnn that it doesn't taste overpoweringly like mate or pomegranate. The two just live in harmony like the trees and the forest maaaaaaaaannnnn. That's where the saying comes from anyways. Some shaman drank this tea and thought of the awesome harmony that it contains and creates and just thought of trees and forests, and little birds. You really just need to drink this and free your mind maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn.

Tina had had enough of her restless nights. She was a busy woman and she needed to be at the top of her game. You see she was in the middle of a big job at work that required her to be at the lab at 6am and she was sometimes there as late as 11pm. Whenever her friends complained about working too much, or being tired, all she had to do was shoot them a look and they would shut up immediately. Originally she had drunk coffee to help her stay alert, but her body became accustomed to it, and it stopped working well. She then moved onto your everyday energy drinks, but she really was never comfortable with all of the artificial garbage in them. On top of that they gave her the jitters and they also kept her up during the few hours that she actually had for sleeping. She was a mess and her research was suffering because of it. Then one day on one of her brief and rare breaks she wandered into a health food store and saw this little bottle of Guayaki. The bold pink letters of “Yerba Mate” stood out to her like the bat signal in the night sky. An all natural, organic drink that would work the way an energy drink should without advertising as being one. On top of all of that it was grapefruit and ginger flavored. It tasted like a typical yerba mate tea, you know earthy and bitter with a coating of agave and Stevia laden grapefruit juice to mix things up a bit. It was a bit more diety than she had hoped, but for an all natural energy drink that wouldn't make her feel crazy, she was happy to deal with it. She had also hoped that there would be a little kick from the ginger, but alas there was not. It only appeared in the faintest form of flavor. That day the gods looked down upon Tina and bestowed their grace upon her for her excellent work in the field of hotdog milkshakes. Her research would soon propel the world into a utopia where hotdogs and ice cream were properly fused into one glorious dessert drink.

Michael loved Saint Patrick's Day. Actually, let me clarify, he didn't care anything about Saint Patrick's Day; he loved the few weeks right before the holiday when McDonalds had Shamrock Shakes. Every year for two weeks he would down as many as he could. When they disappeared for another year it was always a sad occasion. This past year he had kept a quarter of a cup of it in his fridge so he could enjoy it again later. He had planned on holding off for a week or two, but truth be told Michael was a weak willed man. Less than 24 hours had passed since he purchased the frozen beverage before he found himself standing in front of an open fridge with an empty cup and a minty taste in his mouth. It had been glorious, but now the joy was over and he was still thirsty. He had opened the fridge to get some yerba mate, but was distracted by the milkshake. With a shrug Michael grabbed the pitcher of tea and filled up his now empty McDonalds cup. He thought for a second that he should probably rinse it out, but along with being weak willed he was also lazy. When he took a sip he was shocked at how minty the residual shake had made his tea. Normally Michael wasn't a fan of mint tea. It was always overpowering. This was different though. It was smooth and the yerba mate and the mint blended together nicely. He was so pleased with what he created that he ran out into the living room and had his roommate give it a try. Ron, the roommate, was annoyed that Michael was interrupting his viewing of Desperate Housewives, but he knew the only way to get him to leave was to try it. “It's good,” Ron said. “It tastes just like the Guayaki Pure Empower Mint that I drink at work all the time.” With that he turned up the volume and Michael went upstairs to his room, leaving the fridge door wide open.

I'm thankful for tacos, pizza, video games, and Ferrari's. I am also thankful for yerba mate that doesn't tastes like an old shoe filled with tea. I am also thankful for drinks that compliment my breath (bref) with the niceties on mint. Yes, I brush my teeth (teef) twice a day, never floss, and tongue scrape, but sometimes a brother just likes a little extra help, and if I can get it in a delicious tea, I'll take it.

I go to the store all the time to see new drinks that we haven't reviewed and these Guayaki cans have been staring me out every single time I go to "the aisle". Finally, I found one that we haven't reviewed so I can drink it. It's not autumn themed, I know, but I don't care. I'll drink soup in the summer, drink cider in the spring, drink iced tea in the winter, and... Buffalo doesn't really have a fall. It just goes from warm to garbage pretty instantly so we have a limited "hoodie" weather unless, of course, you're me and you wear hoodies as winter coats.

This tea was good. Quite good. It was bitter like a yerba mate should be, but not as earthy as some of the other ones. "Entry level" yerba mate, if you will. It's nicely, lightly sweetened with a nice end taste/aftertaste of mint.

This I like. This you should like.

Yerba Mate is a tea all of it's own. It has such a specific taste that just always pops out at you. This style of tea should also always have a leopard on the bottle. Why? Leopards are awesome, that's why. Look at that thing. Is it smiling, or does it just want to rip you in half? It's the secret of the leopard. I would totally ride that thing around like in Harold and Kumar (I don't care what the world thinks, that movie is hilarious). I'd pick up Mike and the two of us would ride around from bodega to bodega looking for drinks. Sure we might have to buy the leopard a Gatorade once and a while, but he too will be a Thirsty Dude.
Guayaki knows how to blend their mate with other flavors. The citrus in this balances out the bitterness of the tea perfectly. It's not overly sweet or bitter, just a nice happy medium with a tangerine twinge. You know who loves tangerines? That leopard and I. Shibby.

Here I am on a seven-hour drive home from doing stuff with my new band in New Jersey. I have a sack of drinks in the back seat. I obviously have a problem. I needed a little pick me up, so I went with a yerba mate. I love the bitter aftertaste it has. The caffeine content is also nice. This flavor tastes like a nice natural berry heavy fruit punch was dumped into the vat of tea.
Now onwards to Buffalo. My roommate just texted me that my cat is emotionally disturbed. I can't wait to see what she's doing now.

I really need to check out some more Guayaki flavors. This is my second one, and it's even better than the first. It's yerba mate tea with passion fruit and peach in it. Two of my favorite fruits mixed in with an "unusual" tea. Sounds like a dream to me.
I was driving home from Philadelphia when I drank this, and I was in such awe of the flavor that blasted my taste buds that I was in fear of crashing my car. Well that's an exaggeration, but it's just plain great. It has a very strong taste without being overly sweet, and that is something I look for in an iced tea.

This drinks sub-flavor claims to be "a raspberry revolution blend." I don't think there is so much of a revolt of berries, but maybe a small scuffle. The raspberry and cranberry juice that are used to flavor the mate aren't overbearing, but they are present enough to make this a truly tasty tea. If you're not familiar with mate, it may be a weird iced tea experience for you, but once you get used to it, it's a nice change from your black and green teas you're used to. It has a decent amount of natural caffeine in it, and it's also a large supplier of antioxidants.