Meta Mate 1

Description

What´s with the number, you might wonder?  And more importantly, what’s in the package of this mate that resembles our popular 23 so closely?

Formerly known as the Hybrid Harvest, a delightful blend between Meta Mate 23 and Moonshine, Meta Mate 1 represents the unification of artisanal and industrial.  It is a fusion of highly crafted handwork with modern machines and state of the art technology, it is the # 1 of its kind.

As some of you might recall, the 2018 Hybrid Harvest was the continuation of an experiment that was started in 2012, the flavors added in the forest, with the final drying with by hot air and packed in half kilo boxes to preserve the taste.  The result was well received by Meta Materos around the world, a fresh leafy cut mate that was not too heavily smoked,  yet had the subtle notes of being passed over the fire.

In normal industrial mate, the leaves might be collected from mono-culture, or a plantation of trees and are then transported to the factory for handling. Sometimes, it can take up to 24 hours for this to occur.  With Meta Mate 1, the leaves are harvested from native forests and the oxidation process is stopped shortly after by carrying out the sapeco manually. The leaves are rapidly passed over the fire on location and then transported to Barao de Cotegipe, where they are dried by hot air, milled and vacuum packed.
Meta Mate 1 is about giving a chance to those who normally do not have one in more ways than one.  

The origins – Santa Ines
Last year, we were approached by Felipe, whose father-in-law had a huge piece of native forest that inhabited by lots of wildlife that he had sworn to preserve. However, financial and family pressures had put this in risk. In order to sustain his family, Felipe works as a clerk in the local jail and he was keen on engaging prisoners who were sentenced on long terms without a future perspective.   Supervised by the Family Gehm and Felipe, a selected convicts in a rehabilitation program were allowed to partake in this project and harvest the mate.

The Fabrication – Barao’s blessings.
We would not be where we are today if it were not for the partnership Barao Erva Mate Ltda. From helping us with our first big import, and vacuum packing our mates, since early on, they have been open to trying different experiments which has resulted in 1.
Thousands of kilos of mate run on various conveyor belts in this factory.  Yet, everything comes to a grinding halt when we arrive with our few hundred kilos that require separate special handling.