It is North America's only known native caffeinated plant and once threatened the British East India Company. So why has the world forgotten about it? (Yaupon tea)

bbc ^ | 2/24/2021

[mylife]

What if you were surrounded by tea and didn’t know it? In an age where tea is the most consumed drink on the planet after water and is expected to become an $81.6bn global industry by 2026, the possibility of living among an endless supply of ready-to-be-picked, wild tea might seem like a far-fetched dream. But across large swaths of the southern United States, such a reality exists.

For those who know what to look for, what was once the most widely consumed caffeinated beverage in the Americas comes from a plant growing in plain sight, ignored by most, but deeply rooted deep in history and intrigue.

Yaupon (pronounced yō-pon), is a holly bush indigenous to the south-east United States and happens to be North America's only known native caffeinated plant. Once called "cassina" by the native Timucua tribe that lived in southern Georgia and northern Florida, and dubbed "black drink" by Spanish explorers (because of the tea’s dark hue), yaupon’s native environment spans the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Florida and along the Gulf of Mexico all the way to West Texas.

The leaves yield a yellow to dark-orange elixir with a fruity and earthy aroma and a smooth flavour with malty tones

According to research conducted by Dr William Merrill of the Smithsonian Institution, the shrub was consumed by almost every Native American tribe who lived among it. When picked, roasted and boiled, the leaves yield a yellow to dark-orange elixir with a fruity and earthy aroma and a smooth flavour with malty tones. As if orchestrated specifically for the mind and body, yaupon leaves' perfect ratio of stimulating xanthines such as caffeine, theobromine and theophylline release slowly into the body, providing a jitter-free mental clarity and an ease to the stomach.

[mylife]

Who knew we had our own tea? WTF gives with The Boston Tea Party? And how did we end up with Sanka and Folgers crystals?

[mylife]

A very interesting article, why didn’t Euell Gibbons tip us off years ago?

[mylife]

[Jewbacca]

I am going to take this home and plant it in Israel

[riverrunner]

I like harvesting wild foods if I Lived in the south I would harvest this.

[HighSierra5]

I’ve got a large Mormon tea plant growing on the hill by my boulder field that I make tea out of. It has ephedrine in it. Good for colds.

[mylife]

By the mid-1800s, yaupon’s popularity in the US further declined as it became associated with poor, rural communities who could not afford to import traditional Chinese tea. The plant's intimate connection to Native American communities also diminished, as tribes were either wiped out or relocated to regions where yaupon didn’t grow. While yaupon ceremonies have persisted within some Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, and the beverage maintained popularity along isolated coastal areas in North Carolina, the tea became largely forgotten in the United States by the 1860s where it grew incognito for nearly 150 years.

[mylife]

ephedrine? are you high?? :)

[moovova]

And...if kudzu contained THC...the South would rise again.

[mylife]

It may work, but isn’t that cultural misappropriation?

[riverrunner]

I like harvesting wild foods if I Lived in the south I would harvest this.

[Red Badger]

I’d check with the Ministry of Agriculture first...................

[Dusty Road]

A very common plant out here in West TX.

[Jewbacca]

Well the flour tortilla was invented for Passover.

This is payment.

[mylife]

I had all these miserable Hollys around my home in Tx that I finally had pulled out.
This would have been better.
Next I’ll find our there is a Red Tip Photina that you can eat or smoke.

[mylife]

Touche!

[Theoria]

It hasn't been forgotten.

[newfreep]

h/t "Office Space"...

[mylife]

That’s a Matzo you schmuck!! ;)

[mylife]

The history here is fascinating, we fight with the Brits over tea from across the seas, have a revolution, start trade with Africa and the ME to buy coffee...