Friends read success in tea leaves

By Farnoosh Torabi, Special to amNewYork | amSmallBusiness@gmail.com

July 30, 2007

Ariel Nelson, 24 (center), Noah Krinick, 23 (white shirt) and Tom Wollmann (black shirt) are co-founders of the Bombilla Gourd company which features Mate Tea, an all organic non-carbonated beverage recently introduced to the market. (Photo by RJ Mickelson / July 29, 2007)

After vacation, travelers typically return home relaxed and rejuvenated. Sometimes they bring back memorabilia maracas or tie-died sarongs, as well as loads of photos to upload on Facebook.

And if they're lucky, they can show off a new tan in the dead of winter.

But rarely do vacationers return inspired about a business idea, no less one that ends up on the competitive shelves of Whole Foods in one year's time.

Ariel Nelson, Tom Wollmann and Noah Krinick founded Bombilla (pronounced bomb-BEE-ya) & Gourd Maté Tea soon after returning from Argentina.

In 2005 the three friends fell in love with Argentina's popular community ritual of sipping maté, an energizing and healthy tea made from dried shrub tealeaves. "It keeps you awake throughout the entire day," said Nelson, 24.

The organic beverage debuted in February, and sales are expected to top $1.5 million by next June.

Bombilla & Gourd is available throughout the East Coast and as a far west as Chicago. They plan to spread west by fall.

The challenges included the existing oversupply of tea products and their lack of experience in the beverages industry, not to mention their young 20-something ages.

"The market right now is extremely saturated with white tea, black tea and green tea," said Nelson. "You couldn't get into a distribution channel with something already out there."

Maté, they thought, would be a refreshing alternative that boasted more health benefits than average tea. In fact, according to the Yerba Maté Association, maté has 90 percent more antioxidants than green tea.

That stat, coupled with their flavorful brews opened doors at health foods stores. "It took us only three months to get into Whole Foods," said Nelson.

Why there are fewer maté beverages at the local health food grocer is because, the founders say, it's tough to make this particular tea tasty.

"Many of the maté products on the market have a smokier taste," said Wollman. Instead the company uses unsmoked, pure leaf yerba maté brewed by EcoTeas, which harvests its teas at a Fair Trade family farm in Argentina. Their flavors include blueberry, peach and pomegranate.

They expect to break even in three to five years, drawing modest salaries along the way.

"We're a start-up company that has costs that are growing very fast," said Krinick. "We try to live cheaply." One, though they refused to say which, still lives with mom and dad.

Tea tradition
Sipping maté in Argentina is an ancient community tradition. The brewed tea is poured into a gourd (or maté) with the leaves inside.

It's sipped through a straw called a bombilla, which has a built-in filter to keep the leaves from traveling through the straw.

The maté is then shared and refilled with hot water. In Argentina, maté is consumed eight times more than coffee, according to the Yerba Maté Association.

Contact Farnoosh at amSmallBusiness@gmail.com.