When you’re prepping for a night out, it’s hard not to first think of hard liquor, seltzer, or a can of beer.
But today’s young people, ravers, and partiers are leaning away from alcohol more and more as their source of energy for a night out.
Only 18-20% of Gen Z Americans (between the ages of 21 and 28) drink regularly compared to 30-31% of Millennials. And with younger generations rediscovering dance music, it’s easy to see why these trends align.
Enter YATE: a yerba mate brand focusing on fueling a night out while paying homage to the taste and social intentions of the ancient tea.
We sat down with Eric Hoang, one of the founders of YATE, to hear about this internationally popular rave drink making its way into American venues.
EDM Maniac: First question, what is YATE?
Hoang: YATE is a yerba mate created for social occasions. We were essentially inspired by music and nightlife and wanted to do something different in the better-for-you beverage space because so many options are “granola/wellness” branded.
The difference between yerba mate and other caffeine drinks is the energy you get from it and its unique functional benefits. Native to South America, yerba mate’s caffeine content is higher than that of matcha or green tea, but it has a more mild, sustained caffeine feeling as opposed to the high you often get with coffee that peaks and causes you to crash or get the jitters. Yerba mate also has theobromine in it, which is found in chocolate, and can contribute to people experiencing a feeling of euphoria.
What people don’t realize though is how much sugar is in the more popular ready-to-drink yerba mate brands. Some of the incumbent brands have upwards of 30 or 40 grams of sugar. So where we distinguish ourselves is we’re about a third of the sugar, a third of the calories, and a hundred percent yerba mate, meaning we don’t add any additional caffeine. You’re getting caffeine from only organic yerba mate.
This also results in a much more earthy, tea-forward taste. We cater our formulas and our recipes to be very mixologist-friendly. We want our products to be used as mixers.
From a branding standpoint, our packaging is very black and bold, and this is intentional because if you go into a Whole Foods or Sprouts, you’ll probably notice that the healthy beverage section is full of bright colors, rainbows, and pastels. We’re doing something a bit edgier and different, and trying to stand out from the pack.
EDM Maniac: How does YATE align with the dance music scene?
Hoang: People at a lot of the very well-known venues in Europe such as Berghain and Watergate in Berlin are already drinking yerba mate when they’re clubbing. So it’s a cultural niche that already exists in the world.
There’s a cool ritual when you order yerba mate and the bartender gives it to you, you drink a little bit off the top, you hand it back to the bartender, and then they pour a shot in it, shake it, and give it back to you.
So we’re not reinventing the wheel, we just want to do it in the US.
We started to realize that when you go to raves and festivals, people would pre-game with yerba mate. Naturally, I think people are becoming more aware and privy of what they’re putting in their bodies so there’s this growing subset of people that want to consume something that’s natural.
People are seriously cutting back their alcohol consumption, particularly Gen Z. But specifically when you drink a zero-ABV beer, all you’re really getting is a placebo and it doesn’t really deliver a function.
I think when people are out raving, dancing, or partying they want to feel literally anything in lieu of being drunk. So I think YATE is able to deliver on that.
EDM Maniac: What inspired you to start YATE and how did you first launch the drink?
Hoang: My two co-founders (Mike Ferrari and Galen Perry) and I actually met while living abroad in Shanghai. We were all from the US but we were living abroad for our day jobs. We essentially met through a small expat community partying.
I was working in a corporate job for a long time and I got sick of it. So pre-Covid, I actually launched the first hard seltzer brand in China called ZEYA.
I had no clue what I was doing. I shared the same office building with my co-founder Mike, who was working for a big beverage company at the time. I’d also ask him for advice, and we started hanging out, working together, and partying together. We would go to shows where we were subject to only drinking Red Bull, but when me and my co-founders would go to techno shows, we would drink yerba mate that we found in Shanghai, and it tasted and felt great.
EDM Maniac: What makes YATE different from the other yerba mate brands out there?
Hoang: So between the three of us, we love tea and the taste of tea. And we saw that no one was really doing that. Our competitors are very fruit-forward. We wanted something that was less sweet as well.
Especially if you look outside of yerba mate within the energy category like Celsius, Bang, Monster; they’re all really, really sweet.
We also market ourselves differently. Yerba mate has been consumed for centuries in tribes within South America. The ritual is you drink it out of gourd, and pass it around a circle, almost like a joint. It’s innately a very social activity.
What’s so cool to us is that beyond the functional aspects of yerba mate, there is this social component to it already built in. We went so far as to trademark the word “social energy.” So it’s the energy to go out and do whatever you want. Go out and socialize, be with your friends, your community, or your tribe.
Because the energy category historically has been very function-driven. Like pre-workout, action sports, running a 5k, etc.
But what about just having the energy to enjoy yourself? Corona doesn’t tell you to do anything, just go find your beach and have fun. Right? So why can’t energy also be fun?
All images credit YATE
