Meet the Semillas

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Why a name change? And why now?

We’ve considered changing her name probably five or six times over the last 20 years, for a number of reasons. But now feels like the right moment—an opportune time—because we’re really leaning into our values and striving to be more respectful and inclusive of all the different people we work with.

Today, we collaborate with small farmers and Indigenous communities across three countries: Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. When we started the company in 1996, we were working with just one tribe—the Ache Guayakí—in Paraguay.

As things have evolved, it feels right that we evolve too. This change is about being more inclusive and more respectful.

We’ve always asked: how can we leverage the power of business to drive meaningful change? There’s nothing quite like business when it comes to mobilizing resources, aligning around a focused purpose, and making things happen.

Right now, as a company, it feels like we’re at a creative inflection point — a moment of asking, What will the next chapter look like? To me, a big part of Madre is that creative energy. It represents strength — the ability to hold everything happening in the world and transform it into a force for good.

It also represents something deeper: an incredible sense of care. A kind of energy that holds space for possibility, resilience, and connection.

Why now? Because it’s been 30 years since the founding day. In the beginning, we were only working with one community in Paraguay—Hoa Aqui.  Now, we’re connected to many communities across South America, working in three countries: Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. We collaborate with all kinds of growers—small farmers, Indigenous leaders, quilombola communities, and even some large farms.  That’s why this moment feels right. The name Yerba Madre reflects that evolution. It represents more people, more cultures, and a deeper connection with nature.

It also speaks to the feminine energy of this planet. Only the female yerba mate plant produces seeds. Those seeds help the plant—and the forest—regenerate, thanks to animals like toucans and tapirs that spread them.

We’ve learned so much from yerba mate over the years—its properties, its legends, and its sacred place in Guaraní culture. The name Yerba Madre is rooted in those teachings. It represents the mother of the forest, and a call to protect and regenerate what sustains us.

This is all very important, this new name in this moment.

What are your hopes for Yerba Madre in the next 5 to 10 years?

My hopes have been consistent—that we continue to lean into the entire yerba mate category and bring forward the traditional loose-leaf, along with all the different varietals, cuts, and regions that yerba mate can be sourced from. So people can enjoy it in the morning, the afternoon, or whenever they feel like it.

I also really hope we continue to lean into being a leader in the regenerative movement—mostly so that we inspire other businesses to do the same. In other words, the more successful we are at creating a profitable business model that drives impact at the source—socially, environmentally, and culturally—the more other businesses and people of all ages will come together and rally behind doing more positive business.

That it continues to inspire—to connect to life, to nature, to each other, and to oneself first—then to connect with friends and family, to come alive, and to have the courage to make your dreams real.

As a business, I think in the next 5 to 10 years we will grow—at a conscious rate. The most important thing here is the rate of growth. I don’t see any conflict between regeneration and economics. On the contrary, there are multiple layers of collateral benefit when you connect the market with the places where yerba is grown—protecting watersheds, soil, and biodiversity.

In the next 5 to 10 years, Yerba Madre will focus closely on the pace of growth—so it aligns with the capacity of the forest, the people, and the yerba madre plant.

What was the moment when you truly appreciated the power of yerba mate?

The very first time i drank it!

I grew up with extreme hay fever and had been taking medications like Benadryl and Sudafed for most of my life. But they didn’t help much—they just made me feel sluggish and tired. I eventually cut those drugs out of my life completely when I was a teenager.

By the time I got to university, I was really into mountain biking, surfing, and even more vigorous things like strong yoga. I noticed that when I was active, my energy would flow better.

Then one day, Alex shared yerba mate with me—out of a traditional gourd, during a barbecue. Within 15 minutes of drinking it, I could breathe so much better. I was shocked.

I’d spent my whole life searching for something that worked. I’d even been told I was allergic to everything green. And here I was, sipping this very green drink, from a plant I didn’t even know much about—and suddenly feeling relief. It was a real moment of awakening.

I got together with David and you know we had met in class years ago discovered we had a lot of common interest he invited me over to play music one night and as I was sitting in this on this floor just tuned my guitar up he comes back from the kitchen with a kettle and a mate gourd and explained it to me and I'm like wow this is unique like ritual paraphernalia I'm like and we started drinking theh grourd and I was just like whoa like what is this stuff here I just really instantly felt invigorated and alert and we just like fell into like really magical jam session in ways and like afterwards I was just kind of shaking my head I'm like whoa like you gotta explain more to me and brought up Alex and I'm like I need to meet Alex I need to get a go where like it was definitely one of those life changing moments in my life.

Like one of those profound truths in my life where it was like it just a bell really did ring like whoa I've never had anything quite like this where and like I discovered maybe like you know a couple weeks earlier that I'm really caffeine sensitive and too many cups of coffee and I would be pretty spun and the crash was really uncomfortable for me so matte just really felt super harmonious with my body and it's something that since that day it's like I've pretty much been drinking everyday sense for the past 30 years

I was living in Europe at the time, and David came over to visit me. I met him at the train station — he came running up, didn’t even say hello. He was holding a picture of this guy walking through the rainforest, and it was Alex. He said, “You’ve got to meet this guy — he changed my life.”

Then he pulled out a wampa — like a bullhorn — and said, “Here, you’ve got to try this,” and shoved it in my face. I drank it, and right there in the train station, it was like a bell went off in my head. I thought, What is this?

We got on a train and just started going. Everywhere we went, people were like, “What is that?” And we just started sharing it with everyone. We ended up traveling for about two months, making tons of friends. People were inviting us to stay with them. It was this beautiful, unexpected adventure, and I just kept thinking — what the heck is this all about?

I'm from Argentina, and I grew up with Yerba Madre. I remember seeing my parents drink it, smelling it—it’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. It’s been with me not only during everyday moments but also in the hardest ones—through grief and pain, witnessing the causes and consequences of deforestation.

Even in those times when I felt lost—whether as a teenager or a young adult—yerba mate was there. It helped me find myself, discover new parts of who I was becoming. I learned that getting lost isn’t always bad—it can be part of the journey—but there’s fear in that too. Yerba Madre always helped guide me back, offering clarity and new vision.

From finishing high school and not knowing what to study, to moving to California in search of new horizons, to graduating from university in San Jose and not knowing what was next—yerba mate gave me confidence and courage. It inspired me to start my own business, selling yerba mate at the market to help regenerate our ecosystems.

To me, Yerba Madre symbolizes family, identity, and culture. It’s rooted in simple, powerful principles—like friendship. Meeting David and the Semillas was key. That connection gave even more meaning to yerba mate. It’s what brought us all together—David, Domiguel, Steven, Chris, Richard—the founding partners. I honor the plant and the ritual of sharing it.

With all the challenges we face in the world today, how can Yerba Madre have a positive impact?

The value of the female plants—those that produce the seeds and help propagate biodiversity. They play a key role in bringing the forest back.

We discovered that Yerba Madre, when I first saw it 30 years ago, grows naturally in the shade. You don’t need to cut the forest down to grow it. In fact, you can regenerate the forest with yerba mate.

That has a very positive impact. Yerba Madre, in this moment, is instrumental in restoring the forest and creating biological corridors for jaguars, tapirs, and other species among the remaining fragments of the Atlantic Forest

Yerba Madre can have a positive effect culturally. I think, first of all, by bringing a product from another part of the world that imparts friendship and is traditionally consumed in moments of hospitality.

From a regenerative agriculture impact, having a business model of market-driven regeneration—where intentionally, the more we scale the business, the more we can scale our impact at the source—the more we can pay fair trade wages to small farmers and Indigenous people growing Yerba Madre in its natural environment. It’s a very virtuous cycle.

From a healing perspective, I think a lot of people would benefit from switching out, say, unhealthy energy drinks or even too much coffee in their diet, for something that’s alkaline and nourishing.

The main thing with yerba mate is that it nourishes while it stimulates—rather than depletes.

Our slogan is Come to Life — because when you drink mate, you feel more alive. And that’s exactly what we need from humanity right now: a sense of aliveness to drive the progressive change our world needs.

What’s powerful is that our business model supports that transformation. The more mate you drink, the more rainforest you help restore, the more communities you support. It’s a common-sense model — and one we hope to see more businesses adopt.

We often talk about the regenerative business movement. Yes, regenerative agriculture is a huge part of what we do — in the field, in the forest. But there’s also regenerative culture within a business. That’s something I want to see flourish within Yerba Madre, and ripple out into the world. Because that’s the kind of energy we need to drive real, lasting change.

What has the yerba mate plant given to your life?

It’s been there as a guiding light every time I’ve gotten lost. I love getting lost and finding new pathways, and yerba mate has given me the courage to do that—to discover new directions and avoid falling into binary ways of thinking. Yerba mate has helped me see new combinations, new relationships. It’s always been there throughout my life.

It’s given me life. It’s given me love, friendship, brotherhood. It’s given me purpose.

And for me—like for a lot of people—it’s about being part of something bigger than myself. Doing things with others is such a joy. To be in service of something that’s not just about you, but about the collective good.

It's respect in so many ways. I have deep respect and love for these gentlemen — there's a great deal of trust, too. Everyone is working their hardest and contributing where they can. I've learned so much from each of them, both personally and professionally. Early on, I realized: this is the kind of environment I want to be in. These are people I can learn from — people who have all the right tools. There's a lot of humility, incredible passion, and this sheer will to make the business successful. There have been a lot of factors working against us over the years, but we’ve persevered. That drive and tenacity — it’s been everything.

I've spent a lot of time on the road by myself, and mate has always been a companion — a steady co-pilot. It keeps me alive and awake. But sharing it with someone else, with the cebadores, is always a pleasure. That simple act — it inspires.

One of the most amazing things has been the time we’ve spent sharing mate together. Mate does more than just awaken the mind — it opens the heart and even the pineal gland, inviting deep conversations that help us deepen our relationships.

We developed a ritual of sitting down and sharing mate every time we got together. It’s been an incredible part of our journey, and it still is.

We’re also lucky to have amazing partners and families in our lives who continue to challenge us to grow — personally, professionally, and in our relationships. Without change, we get stuck in patterns, so these open dialogues help us learn and evolve together.

Because we’ve always been focused on something bigger than ourselves, it has opened us up in incredible ways. It’s pretty amazing that we tend to agree on almost everything. When we don’t agree, it’s usually because we haven’t fully understood the other person’s perspective. Practicing this openness has been invaluable, and I’m truly grateful for it.

What is the most important part of the Yerba Madre mission now?

The most important part is to bring us all together—to come to life and connect with each other but also with ourselves and the energy of Mother Earth has that's represented in this sacred plant the yerba Madre. No matter how far apart we are, the planet is becoming a very small place. We have a responsibility to create life again—in our ecosystems, our communities, and our families.

Every morning when you drink yerba mate, you come to life. You learn, together with others, how to restore life to this planet—a planet from which we’ve extracted so much and disrupted so many living systems.

I think the most important part of our mission now is the same as it has always been: to connect and serve Yerba Madre. The more we connect with people and share the vision, why we are doing what we are doing, our mission, people get really excited to know it's something really good for them, they can drink every day that's good for the planet.

It’s about a simple custom: being together with friends and your community, sharing something that helps you feel more connected to yourself and to others.

What role do customers and Ambacebadors play in growing Yerba Madre movement?

They play one of the most important roles—everything, really. They are the voices that raise awareness about where yerba mate comes from and the principles it represents: the culture of sharing the gourd, the values of family and friendship, and the space it creates to share dreams, challenges, and opportunities. It builds community. Without our customers and Ambacebadors, we wouldn’t be able to regenerate the market—or the source. We wouldn’t be able to support the farmers or protect the last remnants of forest where yerba mate grows.

Well, it’s a very important role. We’ve always said we believe people vote with their dollar—and so our customers are the ones who actually purchase the product and make the whole market-driven regeneration business model work.

Without our customers buying the product, we wouldn’t be selling anything. If purpose-driven businesses in the world weren’t supported, they wouldn’t exist. So, all the power really lies with the consumers—and I think that’s important to keep in mind.

And of course, the Ambacebadores are the ones who’ve truly embraced the spirit and our values. They’re the ones sharing on our behalf, and they’re vital in continuing to spread the message, the spirit, and everything we’re working to do as a business.