Aug 9

Erva Yerba Mate Brew Co.

Los Angeles CA

They started their adventure in 2012 as a farm-to-festival concessions business serving burgers and fries – they would drive to pick up organic grass fed beef and vegetables from farms local to some of the country’s biggest music festivals as a way to make locally-sourced organically-grown food “cool,” and as a way to connect local farmers to the enormous ecosystems that are huge music festivals, so they really appreciate the work Farm2Me’s doing.

Erva Brew Co. is the new incarnation of their concessions business – they sold all of the fryers and grills and now focus on getting yerba mate to as many people as possible, as sustainably as possible.

The Team

Erva is run by husband and wife team Tiffany and Juan Rivera, and their partner Ryan Beaucher. They started in 2014 selling the drink that was on their concessions menu, Ginger Mate Limeade, at one farmers’ market in downtown LA (Los Angeles), and sold about 2 gallons their first day as Erva.

The Brew

Now, they brew and sell about 300 gallons/week of 5 different flavors at farmers’ markets, special events, and festivals – all over. Every batch is made by hand, not pasteurized, and has no preservatives. They don’t use any “natural” or artificial flavors, only wholesome real-food ingredients. All of their organic strawberries for the strawberry-lime are sourced from the farmers’ market, and all of the other ingredients are certified organic and purchased from a local produce distributor. While they do offer their mate in recyclable plastic cups, they concentrate on introducing people to their refillable bottle program – each time you refill, you earn a point towards a free refill. Zero waste y’all!

The refill price is half the price of a new bottle, because they really want to encourage people to see the benefit of refilling.

They distribute only in kegs, the hope being that people can bring their own bottle (or one of Erva’s) to fill up, rather than just being another bottle on a shelf in a single-use disposable container.

A+

Yerba Mate Flavors

Current flavors:

• Strawberry-lime
• Hibiscus-lemon
• Ginger-lime
• Moroccan Mint
• Lavender-lemon (rotating seasonal)

Past Seasonal flavors:

• Pineapple-rosemary
• Blackberry-basil
• Watermelon-lavender
• Apple-mint
• Vanilla-clove