On the calendar
Yete × Greats of Craft
Loose leaf on the table, a few hours to drink and talk, no one rushing you out. These sessions are small on purpose.
TicketsNew York City
Yete brings the century old ritual of Yerba Mate into parks, cafes, and offices across New York City. We bring everything needed to experience mate the traditional way.
About Yete
Building Connection through Yerba Mate.
Yerba mate has been passed around across South America for centuries. One gourd, one person tending it, everyone else taking a turn. It's a format as much as it is a drink, and it has a way of slowing things down without anyone asking you to. We've been doing this in New York for a few years, in parks, cafes, and borrowed spaces. We host park mateadas, tasting sessions, and office sessions for teams. If you've never had mate, we'll show you how it works. If you have, you know how it goes.
WHAT IS YERBA MATE?
A drink that's been around for centuries. Still going strong.
Mate is made from the dried leaves of the Ilex paraguariensis plant, native to the subtropical forests of South America. The Guaraní people were drinking it long before European contact. By the 1800s it was the daily drink of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Brazil. It still is.
In New York we use the same gourds, the same bombilla straws, and the same ritual. The setting changes. The drink doesn't.
Mate contains caffeine. If you're sensitive to it or on medication, treat it the same way you would coffee or tea.
How it's prepared
Loose leaf packed into a gourd, a bombilla straw inserted, hot water poured over. One person (the cebador) prepares and passes it around. You drink it down, pass it back. When you're done, you say gracias and it stops coming to you. Easy to learn in a few minutes.
The energy
Mate has caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline. Most people find the energy steadier than coffee. No hard spike. Part of that is the theobromine, a milder stimulant also found in chocolate. A typical serving runs 30 to 80mg of caffeine, spread over an hour or two of refills.
Why it's shared
One gourd going around a group means everyone's doing the same thing at the same time. It slows the conversation down in a good way. Gives people a reason to stay seated and actually talk. That's what makes it work for the kind of gatherings Yete runs.
The story
How Yete came to be
UT Austin
College and the first sip
I worked as a Guayaki ambassador on campus, handing out cans at parties and events across UT Austin. That was the introduction. Somewhere in the middle of studying for the CPA I switched to loose leaf, and the habit went deeper than the job ever was.
What I loved was watching people's reactions. Even from a can, the elevated feeling mate gives you was something they hadn't felt before.
November 2025
Argentina
A week learning how mate goes from seed to gourd. Farms, forests, and long conversations about the soil, the harvest, and the care the process takes. Seeing the production side changed how I think about every serving poured in New York.
Argentina, 2025
The people behind it
Fernando and the team at Zapecá, the artists at Taller Galería Dawa. These are the people keeping a strong and deeply rooted mate culture alive. Most of what I know about mate, I learned from time spent with them. Yete would not exist without those conversations.
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New York City
Yete
Everything from those years shaped what Yete became. A reason to slow down, sit with people, and pass something around. Parks, cafes, offices. The gourd still goes around.
Events
Gatherings I hold and spaces I visit
Three ways to experience yerba mate in New York City. Each one is different. The gourd still goes around.
Tasting Classes
An introduction to Mate
Held in local NYC cafes, these small-group sessions walk through the history, culture, and ritual of yerba mate. You'll learn how mate is prepared, where it comes from, and what makes it unlike any other drink. No experience needed, just show up.
Book a classCorporate Tastings
The New Happy Hour
A live mate session for your team. No alcohol. More energy. Something people actually talk about afterward. We cover the culture, run the session, and bring everything. Your team just shows up.
View one-pager Book a sessionPublic Mateadas
Picnics, Buenos Aires style
The same thing they do in the parks of Buenos Aires: friends and strangers sitting together, one gourd going around. No agenda. Just mate, conversation, and whoever shows up. We run these across NYC parks year-round.
Join a mateada
From the feed
Follow @yete.nyc ↗Gallery
The photos
Argentina, cafe tastings, park sessions, and the gourds.
Argentina
Farms, streets, and people. November 2025.
Cafe tasting
Room tastings and smaller groups.
Park Mateadas (Yerba Mate Picnic)
Grass, thermoses, and whoever wandered over.
Gourds
From Lucio and Gaby's studio in Buenos Aires.
Mates
Handmade gourds from Buenos Aires
I'm working with Taller Galería Dawa, a studio in Buenos Aires run by two ceramicists, Lucio and Gaby. They paint and fire each mate by hand. When I visited, we ended up talking for a while about why the sharing culture around mate matters to people. They understood it without much explanation. The gourds reflect that.
A selection of their work will be available to ship across the US starting June 2026. If you want to know when the shop opens, get on the list.
Get on the list
Connect
Say hello
Hosting something, coming to an event, or want to hear when the shop opens? Reach out.