User:Yerba Mate Tea Gourd

Yerba Mate Tea Gourd

There is a load of information on our website (www.yerbamateteagourd.com) regarding yerba mate tea and business matters... but if you want to know a little bit more about who we are as a company--then this is the forum for that. This is also the place to place your comments regarding our company and the website we run; so knock yourselves out!

"Quality, Value and Tradition" are the principles by which our company operates; to this I might add: "a Creative Outlook."

The Yerba Mate Tea Gourd is a family business; it grew from our desire to maintain close connection with one another... and to do something we loved--together. We are not career capitalists, graduates of prestigious business colleges; we are not a corporation growing a business dynasty. If this grows into a dynasty it will happen because of great love and support--nothing more.

The Owners:

I'm Karl; my wife is Marisa; and we have two children ages 5 years old and 10 years old (as of 2007.)

I was born in Los Angeles; raised on Summer vacations to beaches and other parts of the world, studied trumpet (in school and out) for some 30 odd years, graduated with a bachelors degree in creative writing from Cal State Northridge, have written several published short stories and two unpublished novels (Coral Pink, and Sunshine and Saturnalia; dealing with the out of control, cookie-cutter, tract home lifestyle... and emotional turmoil of love and the adventure tourism industry--respectively.) My travels have led me to Europe, Central, and South America--and I have lived in Los Angeles, Malibu, Santa Cruz, San Francisco and for brief periods in Baja California, New Mexico, and Seattle. I have worked as a musician, personal business owner, carpenter, construction worker, electrician, writer, bus driver, truck driver, tour operator, proofreader, bartender, busboy, waiter, cook, social worker... as well as on a million small odd jobs and personal endeavours too numerous and strange to mention. Being a worker of so many blue collar jobs has given me a great proletariat background. I tell you: if Howard Zinn were to review our business plan he would approve... as, in fact, our plans are much more human than economic. I am a self-proclaimed success; when success is defined as "having everything we need."

Marisa was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and lived in all parts of Argentina--from Entre Rios, La Pampa, to Ushuaia. After majoring in Sociology in Buenos Aires she expanded her life of travel... leaving by foot, train and bus through the Andes, the Inca trail, and eventually on through Central America and Mexico to the United States... where she continued on North until reaching Alaska--where she worked in the fishing industry. She has worked as horse-packing tour guide, waitress, hostess, interpreter, translator, social worker, seamstress, costume designer, manager, and actress. I am no doubt leaving out some things. She had no intentions of moving to the United States--but has lived here for over twenty years. She is, among all other things, the quintessential outspoken Argentinean beauty [if you haven't heard... the women there are famous.] She lived in Seattle, Washington for many yearsand; being very involved in the acting and alternative communities there.

After meeting Marisa in Seattle and getting married we decided to start our family and move to the country. Finding property too costly in the Seattle area we ended up in the Northern panhandle of Idaho--where we moved onto an unimproved wild acreage of forest with our 6-month old daughter. There was no phone and no water and no electricity. We lived in a tipi we sewed ourself and while living in the tipi we started construction of our straw bale home. Being a gentleman farmer and medieval house husband was, for me, all seemingly within easy grasp.

The Company in its Inception:

Some of you may know our parent company the "Straw Bale Trading Post". This business was founded upon the same principles as the "Yerba Mate Tea Gourd", but was named for our straw bale house within which we now live and work--also accompanied by a website having some information regarding "straw bale construction: the renewable resource building method" (www.strawbaletradingpost.com). The Straw Bale Trading Post now mainly covers our tipi making (giving way in most regards to our growing yerba mate tea business) but also includes ironwork and arrowheads, etc.

The website itself was first created one winter evening while sitting at our computer (propped up on a piece of plywood--in what is now our bathroom but was, at the time, only a corner in our unplastered house with straw falling down from the exposed bales and cold beating down from the ceiling which was, at the time, only 3/4" cedar boards with about 6-inches of snow on top.) The phone line for the internet came directly from the phone jack at the pedestal outside and wound its way through the snow to poke through the straw bale wall. Marisa was telling me then, as I recall, that I ought to be out splitting firewood instead of wasting my time on the internet. It was true enough--but after many fits and starts we have creatively carved out a little niche of the internet world and we're happy to have you dropping in to visit it! It's all jazz to me: a loose framework over which I create our own unique improvised creation--ever changing and evolving, unconstrained by classical thought, and with no fear of surprising folks by doing something completely different... at any time. It is also, to compare with another thing I love, a bit like surfing--wherin I am riding the wave (far greater than myself) and hoping to get a good long ride while having some fun along the way. There are ups and downs and wipe-outs, but the ride and the waiting and the planning and the scanning of the horizon for new waves all matter equally.

The Shipping Department:

Our kids are involved not only in the tipi making, but in the shipping department as well. You may notice some labels and stickers overzealously placed upon packages... and that would most likely be the work of my son. In the winter the shipping always strikes me as surreal--as our high volume of Christmas orders comes in over the internet from far away places like New York and Sweden, California, and Florida. We pack the orders (sometimes as soon as we receive them over the internet (all cozy in our highly-insulated straw bale house; wood stove burning) and then trundle them out to the Subaru and fill up the back. It is dark at 3:30 PM in winter and so chances are it is dark, and snowing, a blanket of squeaky cold white snow covering the ground. The trunks of our 100-ft larch tees, dusted white with snow, stand silently all around. It is peaceful here, especially in winter, and those dark winter afternoons may only have the shushing sound of the snow to character them... or the occasional and mysterious ghostlike whine and echo of the train wafting up from down the Kootenai river canyon; or occasionally a crow who decided to stay the winter sending out his gutteral and resounding marimba note; or a chorus of coyotes hunting elusive snowshoe hares--yipping and howling through the canyon.

I always wanted to make a video of these winter mail runs--as the surreality is wonderful. In the car the murmur of the engine and the glad sound of the radio [chances are there's National Public Radio speaking to me as I drive] make a great contrast to the completely white and cold world outside. Snow streams at us--snug inside the car--as if falling horizontally into the beams of the headlights; the dirt road is white with ice and snow--six inches of powder having fallen overnight, no-one having driven over it it sprays clouds of powder around the wheel wells; a cloud of powder follows the station wagon in the low pressure at the back hatch door and swirls over the back hatch window. I can see it in the rear view mirror. I turn on the wipers to wipe off the piles of snow and the wind blows it over the car and away.

On the highway, on what I call "good days", the plow has been unable to keep the snow off and it is covered white and icy; this is nice, as the snow tires, equipped with their nails to grip the ice, run smooth and pleasant, making little more than a faint squeaking sound, on the powder and ice. It is common to not see a soul on the road in winter. The snowbirds have gone. The tourists aren't out travelling. Business slows to a standstill. There is the occasional logging truck or "chip truck" loaded with sawdust that roars by; lights blaring out like supernovas in the darkness; sixteen to twenty threatening black wheels send clouds of snow and ice out in all directions around them; the roar of the diesel engines interrupts the peace completely--absolutely. As soon as the mirage has passed it is hard to imagine the truck was ever there: perhaps it was only a dream?... then over hills and through the woods to the post office we drive.

A few miles later we turn off the two lane highway and onto the "old road" where the small, one room post office stands waiting. In the summer it's just a short drive down the old road to the river: the cool canyon shaded by tall cedars is a perfect place to swim when it's hot--the water being neither too cool nor too warm. Bald eagles and osprey soar overhead; departing from their nests in the ponderosa pines which grow on the sunnier slopes on the mountain higher up. In winter however the river is covered in ice above the dam, the road is closed with drifts of snow, and the trees stand icy and cold--with no eagles to keep them company.

We relish the fact we have the best postmaster and post office anywhere: no lines; a lot of talk and sarcasm... and service. My helpers bring the packages in; my son likes to sit on the counter ("uppie uppie uppie," he yells!) while Roy and I shoot the breeze. It couldn't be better, as far as shipping experiences go, though in this remote outpost things don't get out until the next day if we get there after 1:30 PM. It wouldn't be any faster in the city--just faster living and not nearly as efficient: nor would it be as high in quality of life.

More later... for more info write us at: