Drink Hearth Yerba Mate - Product Review

'From the earth, with heart' is the motto of Drink Hearth, a company that aims to provide a sustainable and natural energy drink, without the crash of caffeine. 

What is Yerba Mate?

Yerba Mate is a herbal infusion, originally from the South American rainforest, which is naturally rich in antioxidants and nutrients. Containing 7 out of 9 essential amino acids, as well as nearly every vitamin and mineral your body needs, it also contains more antioxidant power than any other tea-based drink, including Matcha. The combination of stimulants and vasodilators gives you an energy boost, without the crash associated with the likes of coffee and traditional energy drinks. Regular Mate consumption can also help reduce lactic acid buildup, promoting faster recovery and reducing the effect of DOMS.

Yerba Mate also has a rich history of sharing and family. In various parts of South America, friends and family sit around the cebador, who pours water into the Mate gourd, taking a sip and passing it on the next person.

What makes Drink Hearth special?

Founded by married couple Charan and Pavan Gill, Drink Hearth focuses on the importance of connection. In the Ancient World, the Hearth was not only essential for cooking food and heating water, but also served as the central gathering place for the family, where discussions were had and stories were told. 

You can hear more about Charan and Pavan's story on The Everyday Hustle Show, on BBC Asian Network.

Drink Hearth use real fruit juice for their drinks, with no artificial flavours or preservatives. As well as being vegan friendly and non-GMO, Drink Hearth also make their product sustainably. 

So what did we think?

We were lucky enough to be sent some cans from our friends over at Drink Hearth to try. Their Mate offering comes in two flavours: Lemon and Hibiscus, and Passionfruit. We shared both flavours amongst the office, and compiled our thoughts.

Our first thought was that the packaging was beautiful, it really encompassed the sense of the South American rainforest, with its vibrant colours and patterns. We also thought the size of the cans was really good - not too big that we'd struggle to finish it in a short time period. 

Having never even heard of Yerba Mate before, we weren't too sure what to expect. For some reason, probably purely because it came in a can, we expected it to be fizzy. It was actually a present surprise to find it was actually more like a juice than a carbonated drink.

Initially we couldn't really taste much of a difference between the flavours, we did expect the Lemon and Hibiscus flavour to have more of a citrusy hit. That being said, we did still enjoy the taste! They also weren't as sweet as we thought they would be, although this is actually a good thing, as we worried that they'd taste too overly sweet like other energy drinks. You could definitely tell that it was natural flavouring, and we much preferred this to normal, sugary energy drinks.

After testing these drinks for a few days we came to the conclusion that they definitely helped us avoid the 3pm slump in the office! We found them refreshing and thirst quenching, with a nice delicate taste that satisfied our sweet tooth cravings, without the inevitable crash that follows the sugar high.

Overall these were a hit in the office. Whilst we can't attest to the long term affects of Yerba Mate, we definitely found that they gave us a slight energy boost, and all in all we really enjoyed drinking them.

If you want to try some for yourself, you can find Hearth's Yerba Mate at Harrods, BXR London and Planet Organic. You can also purchase through them directly at drinkhearth.com. 

You can follow them on Instagram here.

Thanks again to our friends over at Drink Hearth for letting us try out their flavours.