Meta Mate 23 the first organic certified leafy vacuum packed mate to be brought out on the market was a joint venture between Barao Erva Mate and Meta Mate.
It’s 5pm on a chilly July evening in Barao de Cotegipe. Although the sun is setting, and the company is getting ready to close for the day, the machines in the upper part of the factory are still in full motion. Winter is the main season for harvesting Mate, and during the period, the machines run non-stop from Monday morning to Friday evening, with the production line working in shifts.
A truck with 6000kg of Mate leaves arrives in the factory in the evening from the organic certified forests in Parana.
Half of these leaves will be used for the 2019 production of Meta Mate 23.
As it processes thousands of kilos of Mate per day, records are kept for every batch of mate that arrives.
The Mate leaves which were cut earlier in the day are still moist from the morning dew
The Mate is placed on a conveyer belt to rapidly be exposed to flames to stop the oxidation process (sapeco)
The Mate leaves begin to enter the drying machine at 10pm that night and will spend the night going through a 5 layer air drying process that lasts about 5-6 hours.
There are only 2 mate companies in the country that have such an extensive air drying machine with 5 layers. The supervisor on duty occasionally inspects the status of the mate at various steps of the drying process to make sure that everything is running smoothly.
At dawn the next day, the factory is very quiet when we came to see the 23 coming out of the drying machine. However, we were not the only ones there so early in the morning. Sergio is always at the company at 6.30am.
These days the dried mate is transported to a secondary factory for milling and packing. Sr. Nego oversees the end production of Meta Mate 23 and 42
Not only does this production serve for our organic certified Meta Mate 23, but it is also the mate that is used in the production of the Yuyo Mate Range.
For those of you who are curious about the history of Meta Mate 23, please refer to these older articles about this product.
23 Leafy Vacuum Packed Fresh Green mate Herb
Meta Pilgrimage – From the finest traditional hand work to the Mate Baron of Cotejipe