Trader Joe's Organic Sparkling Yerba Mate Beverage and Sparkling Green Tea Beverage

Here's my attempt to keep things lighthearted -shoutout to Trader Joe's for giving their employees MORE PAID SICK TIME to encourage them to exercise increased precautions. YESSSSSSS. We all know it's one thing to say you support your employees and it's another thing to actually do it, so props to my dear TJ's.

Anyhoo - I recently worked with another nurse that I never worked with before, and he asked what my hobbies were. Honestly, it sounds quite dumb but grocery shopping is one of them. Not in our current climate of course. But y'know...during peace time when introverts avoid contact with people but in public places. I love grocery shopping - it gives you the thrill of spending without the guilt (y'all know it's true), and it's interesting to see what different kinds of grocery stores in different places stock, the prices, and what other people buy. If I sound like a grandma, it's because I am. One thing I'm SHOCKED that I see in stores (the last time before I hunkered down like every other socially responsible human being), is seltzer. I thought people would for sure be hoarding seltzer AND toilet paper. :P

I get America has an increasing love for seltzer, but is it necessary to put seltzer in EVERYTHING? Flavored water, okay fine. Alcohol, okay I get the White Claw appeal (TJ's is apparently carrying a White Claw-esque product in some stores). Juice, sure. But tea? Is this actually necessary?

Sparkling tea with extra flavors because boring old tea just doesn't cut it - this is 2020 y'all. I picked up both the yerba mate and green tea varieties. Interesting to note, they are tea BEVERAGES, not tea tea. 

I don't think you'll get much health benefits out of this - the tea is from a concentrate or extractives, whatever that means. Plus, each tea has "natural flavor," which means its natural kinda but I have no idea what that is. Regardless, both of these products passed the organic certification by QAI, which means they passed some benchmark arbitrarily set by the QAI. Still don't know what that means but if it makes you feel better, go ahead.

But they are both 0 calorie and the yerba mate one does have 60mg of caffeine. Fits modern values I s'pose.

1) A sociocultural observation - part of the appeal of Trader Joe's is that they do carry products you can't find anywhere else. Spun positively, a team of people at TJ's travel the world to find cool things to bring back and sell to American consumers. And at other times, some of TJ's products cherry-pick a few aspects of a particular culture, divorce it from that cultural context (in varying degrees), and then repackage it as something new and exotic to pander to customers. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to get inspiration from other places for new products, but in America we tend to extract things here and there from others and melt it into the existing culture without paying much attention (or respect at times) to the original place(s) and people. What is yerba mate to the consumer? I don't know..but let's throw in some hibiscus and citrus cuz why not.

2) That all said, I first tried Yerba Mate as a bagged tea from Whole Foods. It's earthier, stronger, and more herbal than green tea. In this bottled beverage, the yerba mate flavor is there but it's not as strong as a freshly brewed version obviously. The hisbiscus and citrus flavors aren't very noticeable but they probably round out the bitterness. It does have a reasonable amount of caffeine, which was great for powering me through a study session.

3) I like green tea. I like grapefruit. I like mint. I've had fruity flavored green teas. I've had mint-flavored green teas. Grapefruit and mint probably taste great in a mojito. But the combo of all three is odd. It's not disgusting. I just don't think the three flavors are very complementary. It's kind of extra, not in a good way. More doesn't always mean better.

4) I like seltzer, but I wasn't a fan of the carbonation because I don't think it added anything pleasant for me, especially in the green tea beverage. The yerba mate was better, probably because the flavor was better, so I didn't mind the carbonation, but I actually enjoyed both drinks more on the second or third day when it was flatter. But that's just my personal preference.

5) The drinks are bottled in glass. If you remove the label and toss the cap, I'm sure y'all DIY savvy people can repurpose it into a cool vase or something. As for me, it goes in the recycling cuz I ain't got time for that.

6) $1.49 per 12oz drink.

TL;DR: Trader Joe's Organic Sparkling Yerba Mate Beverage. Fizzy sorta yerba mate. 7 out of 10. Trader Joe's Organic Sparkling Green Tea Beverage. Fizzy let's-throw-everything-hipster-into-a-bottle green tea. 5.5 out of 10. Mantou Joe repurchase? Highly unlikely. But it'd be nice to see TJ's bring Yerba Mate to the tea selection.