Our Raw Material

The first fragile yerba buds to emerge in the Spring. These tiny leaves and the growing meristem produce a beverage of delicate, complex, and sophisticated taste. The Complete Leaf Company intends to execute a complete paradigm shift in the cultivation, harvest, and production of yerba maté by focusing on these tiny tips of the plant:


A side view of the buds. Complete leaf will use the buds up to the first leaf that bends away from the axis of the stem:


The crown of a principal branch of the plant. Upon its second flush, the branch opens up into a crown of roughly fifty buds, all appropriate for harvest to make Budset Yerba:


Shown below is a simple contrast between the raw material of our competitors and that of Complete Leaf Budset Yerba. An important point, not clearly depicted below, is that material for conventional yerba includes branches up to the diameter of a thumb and leaves up to 12 inches long, whereas our buds will be no longer than an inch with between 7-10 tiny leaves packed into the bud:


The photograph below shows the stark contrast in color, texture, and, ultimately, in taste between the mature leaves of the plant and the growing bud:


Another shot of an emerging bud in the late Spring:


The following photo, taken in early Spring demonstrates a classic characteristic of tropical plants, the reddish color upon sprouting that signifies that the tender buds have yet to produce chlorophyll:


A view from above a bud showing the tight concentric circles of new leaf formation:


Bringing to yerba a strict regimen of classification will enable the production of a beverage of such quality as to be able to compete successfully with green tea. University studies in Brazil show that the points of the branches, the buds, produce a beverage much smoother and less bitter than products derived from branches and old leathery leaves.