Pinging since this was certainly of interest to THIS prepper...
The Elizabeth Warren types will likely go for yaupon but camellia is a common plant throughout many parts of the United States and the tea camellia is but one variety of hundreds.
Very interesting! Wikipedia says it also has Theobromine.
I guess I’m going to have to plant some of this in the garden when we move next year and ‘experiment’ a little bit.
I’d already planned on growing some tea.
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Just last night I was reding up on frankincense. It too is a hardy tree. It not only grows, but seems to thrive, in the most inhospitable of environments.
And within the past two years or so, they’ve discovered some interesting medical abilities, like killing certain cancers.
It’s amazing some of the things that have been lost to history. Only to be rediscovered and shown that the ancients knew a few things.
FRiends... this statement from the article is pure 100% crap:
” led to its Latin name, Ilex vomitoria — a misnomer, because yaupon is not an emetic”
I can tell you with 100% certainty that it IS an EMETIC. We told the kids that it was at Scout Camp one summer... one of the problem kids, Will, just had to try it. He threw up everything but his toenails and I’m not really sure that was not included somewhere.
I don’t know where this author is getting information but it is wrong on this point.
We have the crap all over the place. It is true, it does love to suffer. It also burns EXPLOSIVELY! Do not allow it to grow up around your house. In the fires of 2011 here in SE Texas it was mostly responsible for the ladder fires and flames more than 100’ high. The first time I burned a pile of it I wished I had never set a match to it. It EXPLODED! Apparently it contains a lot of WAX of some sort.
The deer eat it when they are hard up but that is all I have ever seen give it a shot.
Yaupon grows wild on the outer banks. Back in the early part of the 20th century each OBX town had its own baseball team.
When the town of Kinnakeet played away games, the home crowd would chant:”Kinnakeeters yaupon eaters!”
Wow, what a massive hate-fest for yaupon tea on this thread.
Must threaten some entrenched faction.
I think I’ll try it now.
Native Americans used the leaves and stems to brew a tea, commonly thought to be called asi or black drink for male-only purification and unity rituals. The ceremony included vomiting, and Europeans incorrectly believed that it was Ilex vomitoria that caused it (hence the Latin name). The active ingredients, like those of the related yerba mate and guayusa, are actually caffeine and theobromine, and the vomiting either was learned or resulted from the great quantities in which they drank the beverage coupled with fasting. Others believe the Europeans improperly assumed the black drink to be the tea made from Ilex vomitoria when it was likely an entirely different drink made from various roots and herbs and did have emetic properties.