We Mate · Manifesto

We are three. One Argentinian and two Spaniards. We live in Amsterdam, but none of us was born here. None of us was planning to start a beverage company.

It happened because the three of us had been looking for the same thing, from different angles.

Martín spent five years in Europe trying to find real mate and never finding it. What supermarkets sold under the name "yerba mate" was extract in disguise made of syrup and sugar. At some point he stopped looking and started building. By the time the three of us crossed paths in Amsterdam, he was already making We Mate on his own.

Fernando and Alberto hated coffee. They just didn't like it and never had. And whenever they tried other energy drinks or canned caffeine, they felt poisoned. They knew they wanted something else. They didn't know what.

When the three of us came together in Amsterdam, the pieces fit fast. The answer Martín already had half-built was real mate, whole leaf, brewed, the way you actually drink it. Fernando and Alberto saw the project and recognised exactly what they had been looking for without knowing how to name it. Once he understood the full picture, Alberto didn't say "what a nice idea". He opened a spreadsheet and spent a Saturday answering whether this worked as a business or not.

That's We Mate before We Mate existed. Three people asking the same questions out loud, from different angles, and deciding not to keep them to themselves.

It's how people see things when they don't settle. People who train because they care how they feel. Who eat well because they care how they think. Who look after their people when they come home tired. Who, when something doesn't add up, don't keep quiet: they ask, they dig, they try, they change.

It's how people see things when they share. Who pass the can the way you pass the mate, before anyone has to ask for it. Training, eating well, looking after yourself: none of it happens on your own.

And it's how people see things when they refuse the shortcut. The formulas that replace the plant with an imitation. The retouched images that promise the impossible. The gurus selling you three minutes a day. The products that say one thing on the label and are another inside. You already know how it goes: effort doesn't come ready-made.