Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Just when you think the famous-person beverage space couldn’t get any more crowded, here comes Barron Trump with a yerba-mate brand. What connection does Donald Trump’s youngest son have to a centuries-old South American tea? Seemingly none, but that has never stopped a business major before.
According to documents filed in Florida in January, Barron is one of five directors of Sollos Yerba Mate, a company headquartered in Palm Beach a couple of blocks away from Mar-a-Lago. Per their LinkedIn pages, the brand’s founders, Spencer Bernstein and Stephen Hall, both attended Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach at the same time as Barron. The other two listed directors, Rudolfo Castello and Valentino Gomez, do not appear to have an internet presence.
So what’s the deal with Sollos? In a LinkedIn post from March, the guys behind the brand wrote that it was “designed to complement life in the ‘Sunshine State.’” They also explained the reasoning behind the name, writing, “‘SOL,’ meaning sun in Spanish, represents the sun rising and the beginning of the day. ‘LOS,’ which is ‘Sol’ spelled backwards, represents the sun setting at the end of the day. Together, SOLLOS captures the full cycle of the sun and that ‘It Begins Where It Ends™.’” Totally.
While that post said the brand was launching in April, an update from last week indicates that the release has been pushed back to May. When it does eventually come out, you (well, probably not you, but someone who saw Melania in theaters) will be able to buy Sollos in a 12-pack of its pineapple-coconut flavor.
While this is probably going over great in the White House, the most passionate yerba-mate fans are not into it. Over on the r/yerbamate sub-Reddit, the brand is already getting hate. “I have yet to have a taste, but already have a bad taste in mouth,” one user wrote in a post about the brand. “The gringos don’t understand shit from outside their country. Want to corrupt everything into a fast food model, without understanding the essence of anything,” wrote another.
On that note, I look forward to Tiffany Trump’s line of ready-to-drink hojicha.
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