A Dream Fulfilled: Ecuador's Energy Tea, Guayusa

A long time ago, I met an Ecuadorian man from Tena, Ecuador, whose dream was to make guayusa tea available to the world.  He carried around small bottles of the tea in both powdered and concentrated-liquid forms -- guayusa (gwah-YOO-sah) harvested by indigenous workers in the jungle and processed in the jungle-gateway town of Tena.

Our first meeting took place at a conference in Quito, in 2001.

The bi-lingual salesman explained to me that guayusa was made from tree leaves grown in the Amazon basin, and had long been available as a beverage only by brewing the leaves in boiled water.  He described its many therapeutic benefits -- aiding in energy, digestion and much more.

I liked guayusa and brought back home to the U.S. many of the small bottles.  For years I started my day with sweetened guayusa tea.

I made a contact in Europe for the salesman -- the head of a company that distributes health products around the world.

But the salesman never followed up, stopped answering email and I never heard from him again.  Two years ago in Quito, I met another man who had known him.  He said the salesman had died around the time I lost contact with him.

The idea of making guayusa available to the world was too good to die.

When I lived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2011 through 2012, I discovered that guayusa was being processed, and the tea bags of the new product were now available in a health food store less than half a mile from my apartment.  I started consuming guayusa again.

When I moved to Quito, in 2013, I found that guayusa was available only in the antiguo form of harvested, dried leaves sold inexpensively at Spanish-language mom 'n pop stores, primarily in Centro Histórico.  For a while, I bought the dried leaves at such places, boiled them at home, and made and drank the tea.

But it got cumbersome eventually, and I stopped using guayusa.

Recently (2015), however, I discovered that guayusa is available in forms that are new for the product in Quito.

A couple of months ago, I found guayusa tea bags in boxes sold at MegaMaxi under the Runa brand.

The box says... "Energizante Natural con Antioxidantes... Guayusa Amazónica" -- Natural Energizer with Antioxidants ... Guayusa of the Amazon.

Then, in August, I found "Guayusa Fresh" in the ice-tea section of MegaMaxi... small-Snapple-size plastic bottles of ready-to-drink guayusa tea.  "Bebida Refrescante ... Naturalmente delicioso y saludable" -- Refreshing Beverage ... Naturally delicious and healthful.

The salesman's dream -- that this Amazon energy tea would one day become widely available to the modern world -- has been realized.

cccmedia in Quito