From: ShadeTreeMate.com

Sindre Hegna from YerbaMate.no out of Norway was nice enough to sit down with me via the net and speak a little about Yerba Mate and his thoughts on everything in between. I met Sindre on Linkedin.com and I reached out to him wondering a little more about Norway and what Mate’s future holds there. Hopefully this post makes it to some of his followers abroad, just make sure to use Google Translate when you are linked to his site as you will not know what the heck is going on. Thanks again Sindre! Read up!

Introduce yourself? How do you drink your Mate, and what brands do you like?

My name is Sindré Hegna, I am 31 years where most of the years has been spent in Norway, but my work and studies has made it possible for me to live in New Zealand, Barcelona, Tallinn, Singapore, Stockholm and Buenos Aires. I drink yerba mate the traditional way with my favorite bombilla and mate cup, preferably with Taragui or Canarias.

Why do you drink mate? How were you introduced to it? Why did you start this business?

In 2009-2010 I lived in Buenos Aires and it was here I encountered yerba mate for the first time. I became very found of the taste, the way it was consumed and all the traditions around it. Before I knew it I had completely stopped drinking coffee and was all into yerba mate. When mate also have such an impressing list of health benefits it was too hard to leave Argentina without it. So when I came back to Norway I decided to import mate on a smaller scale. One the one hand I would have a steady personal supply and on the other hand I could try to sell it and see if there were more mate lovers in Norway. I teamed up with a childhood friend and we made a website and did all the preparations so we could go online and sell different brands of yerba mate.

When do you think you will regard Yerba Mate as a full-time job?

We launched the website some six months back and today we get a small but steady supply of orders. Yerba mate is a niche product that the majority of the people in Norway never have heard about. Therefore I believe it will take some time before I can consider this as my full time job. But when that is said, I strongly believe that yerba mate has a great growth potential. More and more people are discovering yerba mate and its benefits so with time I am confident the market will grow.

What is the coffee culture like in Norway?

The coffee culture is very strong in Norway, being the number 2 country in the world when it comes to coffee consumption per capita. And we are always embracing new coffee or tea trends, so why wouldn’t yerba mate be the next thing?

How do you describe yerba mate to customers and friends?

To my friends and potential clients I describe yerba mate as green tea from South America, only much better than the regular green tea. For all those that drink coffee, I describe it has having the same effects, but only much healthier. If i have a friend that is into work out, I tell him that he should try some yerba mate in combination with the training so he could feel the difference. Since yerba mate has so many healthy sides, it is easy to describe it with something that the person can relate to.


What is the future for mate?

Since yerba mate still is an unknown drink for most people, we need to focus on the niche that drinks it today. The ones that drinks it today, will provide the base for our future growth. The growth comes in the distribution of yerba mate to health shops and specialized grocery shops. By slowly increasing the sales volume, we will be able to lower our prices and thereby be more attractive. The key to the long term success, is in the continuous work of increasing the awareness of yerba mate, expanding the distribution network and the direct sales through our website. We know this will take time, so patience is also something we need to add, in rather large portions I believe.