Café Guaraní’s Paraguayan coffee alternative will kick your ass without the crash

Many people have heard the term yerba mate, whether by seeing the yellow, 15.5-ounce Guayakí cans in convenience stores or the tea bag options on menus at chic coffee shops. However, traditional yerba mate, which is as different from the canned version as homemade salsa is from Tostitos, has yet to breach the coffee-addicted American consciousness.

Axel Araujo, whose family opened Café Guaraní in April 2020, wants to change that. The Araujo family offers a variety of yerba mate in ways reminiscent of their home country, Paraguay. The tea carries a mystical lore in South America that dates back hundreds of years to the Guaraní people.

Enjoyed the traditional way, yerba mate has a strong caffeine content but contrasts with coffee in that it comes with no crash and no stomach grumbling acidity. Araujo recommends first-timers take it slow.

“I’ve seen people have a bad first experience because they drink too much too fast and they get a caffeine overdose,” Araujo says. “But there are a lot of people who love that. I have some guys who sit drinking it for hours and then get up stumbling.”

For a traditional yerba mate, Araujo fills an 8-ounce gourd about halfway with tea. He then inserts a bombilla, a specialized straw whose perforated tip filters out the tea leaves. A touch of cold water is added to soak the leaves for five minutes before filling the gourd with hot water. Café Guaraní also offers mate cocido, in which the tea leaves are caramelized with sugar, and a mate latte with steamed milk.

CAFÉ GUARANÍ, 111 Central Ave., Pacific Grove. 747-1551, cafeguarani.com