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Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea. It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea. It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year drought or regular floods though it does best in a situation where it gets regular rainfall. You may have some in your own yard used as a hedge plant. I have several large trees on my place. It spreads underground by suckers and will take over an area if you do nothing to contain it. It is very strong once it forms a thicket. I have driven across a yaupon thicket in a seismic buggy and been in a situation where none of the tires were touching the ground as I drove because I was crossing a thick tangle of yaupon that supported the vehicle. Caffeine levels are lower than coffee beans (40-60 mg versus >150 mg I think). Yaupon does also have theobromines, vasodilators, that are supposed to help it prevent the caffeine crash. I have some leaves dried and drink it make a tea occasionally when I want a boost but not a cup of coffee level boost. It tastes great and is easy to prepare at home. [0]https://yauponbrothers.com/blogs/news/is-yaupon-better-than-coffee-yes https://yauponbrothers.com/blogs/news/is-yaupon-better-than-... There are other sources of information about yaupon holly. It is proposed that the British naturalist who discovered Native Americans using it in their own ceremonies and drinking it casually decided to name it ilex vomitoria not because it was dangerous or poisonous to consume but because since it grew wild in the colonies, it could be a serious competitor to English tea so he used the name to make it less attractive.

sriacha 2y ago
There are so many interesting native plants that provide alternatives to our extremely rigid globalized food systems. Also to note Ilex vomitoria is in the same genus as yerba mate, Ilex paraguariensis.
- jfarina 2y ago
  Can you rebrand a species? Drinking vomitoria sounds less than appetizing.
  - WrongAssumption 2y ago
    Yes you can. See Patagonian Toothfish -> Chilean Seabass.
    - soperj 2y ago
      Or Chinese Gooseberry -> Kiwi Fruit.
      - ghc 2y ago
        To be fair, a lot of Asian ingredients have picked up such weird English translations that they could use a rebrand. Case in point: "Prickly pear ash" is an amazingly unappetizing translation of the spice's proper name, sanshō or sancho.
        doodlebugging 2y ago
        Is that prickly ash? Like a toothache tree with all the sharp spikes on the trunk? It looks like sancho is the berry produced by the tree. The leaves look similar to our toothache tree or Hercules Club as some call it. I know that the bark here in NAmerica has been used as a local anesthetic for a long time. It produces a tingly, numbing sensation when it becomes wet. I have used the bark to numb gums or throat pain. I never tried the berries. My tree here died in the last drought. It was a birdshit variety since it was growing along the fence. The seed was dropped by a bird as it rested on the fence and I got a tree as a result! Gotta wait for the next one I guess.
        ghc 2y ago
        Different tree, same genus. I'm not sure if all species (of 250+) in the genus have edible fruit, but the berries of several Asian species are harvested for spices, including Sichuan Peppercorns, which are made from the dried berries. I would bet that the flavor (citrusy, with a numbing effect) is similar among all the species, but varies in strength and pungency. I'm not sure if I would bet that any species is safe to eat, however.
- doodlebugging 2y ago
  I enjoy checking all the native plants growing on my place. I discovered another yesterday that I would love to eradicate since it really takes over quickly. It's in the geranium family Geraniaceae, and is one of the most ancient cultivated plants around. Its use was so common that it has spread from the Mediterranean area where it is native to most every other inhabited place. People ate it and fed it to their animals and it was used as a medicine so they had multiple reasons to carry some with them as they migrated across the landscape. Redstem Stork's Bill [0]https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47687-Erodium-cicutarium https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47687-Erodium-cicutarium Supposed to taste like a parsley. I ate some yesterday and agree that it is close to parsley with a slightly more sharp flavor if you just eat the leaves and stems. I tried some of the seed pods and that was a no-go. They would need to be cooked to be edible since they are hard and fibrous raw. I haven't tried the root yet. It's unlikely that I will ever eat my way out of this invasive infestation but I will add some to the salad to see whether my wife notices.
diob 2y ago
Maybe I’m just too deep into coffee at this point, but unless yaupon has different origins, processes, or varietals, I don’t really see folks in the specialty coffee world making the switch. That said, it is interesting, and I’d definitely give it a try. Some people do drink coffee just for the caffeine—but those folks aren’t usually worried about beans or brew methods. They’re just as likely to grab an energy drink or whatever’s convenient. But for a lot of us, coffee’s more than that. There’s a whole culture around it, and I don’t see that going away anytime soon. Then again, I'm deep into coffee, so I'm probably biased.
- doodlebugging 2y ago
  I agree that there is no likelihood that coffee snobs are gonna jump to yaupon tea. I mentioned this really just to point out that there is a native plant here in North America that produces caffeine so if one day we wake up and supplies of the real beans are short or interrupted for long periods we will have something totally free to brew up for a caffeine hit. If you're out camping in an area where yaupon grows wild you can always grab a few leaves, wash them and dry them until they're brown, crush them and boil some tea water. No need for a late night cup of coffee that could keep you too wired to rest when you can enjoy a simple cup of yaupon tea that won't leave you wired. I drink a lot of coffee too. I enjoy the flavor and hanging around without a cup of coffee feels strange. Sometimes I just add some boiling water to the dust in the coffee cup, stir it up and see what happens. I've certainly had worse at more gas stations than I care to remember.
fellowniusmonk 2y ago
The naming of yaupon really ticks me off, of all the things that should get a scientific rename it's yaupon, clearly it was a successful marketing effort by the Empire, er, by the British to knock out a delicious and ubiquitous competitor.
- doodlebugging 2y ago
  I can see the guy now as the realization that this native plant could undermine the British East India tea trade if people came to enjoy yaupon tea. It probably didn't take any convincing to get him to assign such an uninviting name to the plant and in doing so, save one of the British Empire's main trade items. It was definitely a chickenshit move on his part though.
nkozyra 2y ago
> Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea The problem isn't getting caffeine, though. You can buy a tub of 200mg caffeine pills for $3. People like coffee. Substituting coffee isn't just a matter of caffeine for drinkers.
- doodlebugging 2y ago
  I agree. You can get your caffeine boost from a pill if that floats your boat. I too love coffee and for a variety of reasons. I was only mentioning that there is a native plant that produces caffeine and has a pleasant taste so that it could serve as a caffeine (or tea) substitute in the event that supplies of real coffee became unreliable for any reason. I drink lots of coffee and various teas.
- chasil 2y ago
  As the article states, the taste is complex beyond our understanding. "When it comes to taste, coffee is amazingly complex. A single cup may contain up to 1,200 volatile compounds. Yet what you perceive in a cup depends on many things besides the plant’s genome: the environment in which it grew, the weather, the roast, the water used for brewing. Even the color of the cup matters. White makes coffee seem more intense, while clear glass makes it seem sweeter."
  - thousand_nights 2y ago
    tbh i drink a coffee in the morning every day, no sugar, i think it tastes objectively terrible, like bitter dirt, but it's hijacked my reward pathway in the same way that nicotine or ethanol does, that it makes me enjoy the taste somehow
    - chrislongss 2y ago
      Just out of interest: do you notice any difference at all between different brands of coffee? I am with on the idea that coffee tastes awful, but despite that I still prefer certain brands that taste subjectively better.
CommieBobDole 2y ago
I always thought it was called that because it was used by native Americans to make 'black drink' which they consumed ceremonially, tending to vomit afterwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea
MarkusWandel 2y ago
Does it taste better than Yerba Mate? That is definitely an "acquired taste" and while you can get used to it and even like it as much as tea, I don't think it can hold a candle to coffee.

sriacha 2y ago

There are so many interesting native plants that provide alternatives to our extremely rigid globalized food systems. Also to note Ilex vomitoria is in the same genus as yerba mate, Ilex paraguariensis.

jfarina 2y ago
Can you rebrand a species? Drinking vomitoria sounds less than appetizing.
- WrongAssumption 2y ago
  Yes you can. See Patagonian Toothfish -> Chilean Seabass.
  - soperj 2y ago
    Or Chinese Gooseberry -> Kiwi Fruit.
    - ghc 2y ago
      To be fair, a lot of Asian ingredients have picked up such weird English translations that they could use a rebrand. Case in point: "Prickly pear ash" is an amazingly unappetizing translation of the spice's proper name, sanshō or sancho.
      - doodlebugging 2y ago
        Is that prickly ash? Like a toothache tree with all the sharp spikes on the trunk? It looks like sancho is the berry produced by the tree. The leaves look similar to our toothache tree or Hercules Club as some call it. I know that the bark here in NAmerica has been used as a local anesthetic for a long time. It produces a tingly, numbing sensation when it becomes wet. I have used the bark to numb gums or throat pain. I never tried the berries. My tree here died in the last drought. It was a birdshit variety since it was growing along the fence. The seed was dropped by a bird as it rested on the fence and I got a tree as a result! Gotta wait for the next one I guess.
        ghc 2y ago
        Different tree, same genus. I'm not sure if all species (of 250+) in the genus have edible fruit, but the berries of several Asian species are harvested for spices, including Sichuan Peppercorns, which are made from the dried berries. I would bet that the flavor (citrusy, with a numbing effect) is similar among all the species, but varies in strength and pungency. I'm not sure if I would bet that any species is safe to eat, however.
doodlebugging 2y ago
I enjoy checking all the native plants growing on my place. I discovered another yesterday that I would love to eradicate since it really takes over quickly. It's in the geranium family Geraniaceae, and is one of the most ancient cultivated plants around. Its use was so common that it has spread from the Mediterranean area where it is native to most every other inhabited place. People ate it and fed it to their animals and it was used as a medicine so they had multiple reasons to carry some with them as they migrated across the landscape. Redstem Stork's Bill [0]https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47687-Erodium-cicutarium https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47687-Erodium-cicutarium Supposed to taste like a parsley. I ate some yesterday and agree that it is close to parsley with a slightly more sharp flavor if you just eat the leaves and stems. I tried some of the seed pods and that was a no-go. They would need to be cooked to be edible since they are hard and fibrous raw. I haven't tried the root yet. It's unlikely that I will ever eat my way out of this invasive infestation but I will add some to the salad to see whether my wife notices.

diob 2y ago

Maybe I’m just too deep into coffee at this point, but unless yaupon has different origins, processes, or varietals, I don’t really see folks in the specialty coffee world making the switch. That said, it is interesting, and I’d definitely give it a try. Some people do drink coffee just for the caffeine—but those folks aren’t usually worried about beans or brew methods. They’re just as likely to grab an energy drink or whatever’s convenient. But for a lot of us, coffee’s more than that. There’s a whole culture around it, and I don’t see that going away anytime soon. Then again, I'm deep into coffee, so I'm probably biased.

doodlebugging 2y ago
I agree that there is no likelihood that coffee snobs are gonna jump to yaupon tea. I mentioned this really just to point out that there is a native plant here in North America that produces caffeine so if one day we wake up and supplies of the real beans are short or interrupted for long periods we will have something totally free to brew up for a caffeine hit. If you're out camping in an area where yaupon grows wild you can always grab a few leaves, wash them and dry them until they're brown, crush them and boil some tea water. No need for a late night cup of coffee that could keep you too wired to rest when you can enjoy a simple cup of yaupon tea that won't leave you wired. I drink a lot of coffee too. I enjoy the flavor and hanging around without a cup of coffee feels strange. Sometimes I just add some boiling water to the dust in the coffee cup, stir it up and see what happens. I've certainly had worse at more gas stations than I care to remember.

fellowniusmonk 2y ago

The naming of yaupon really ticks me off, of all the things that should get a scientific rename it's yaupon, clearly it was a successful marketing effort by the Empire, er, by the British to knock out a delicious and ubiquitous competitor.

doodlebugging 2y ago
I can see the guy now as the realization that this native plant could undermine the British East India tea trade if people came to enjoy yaupon tea. It probably didn't take any convincing to get him to assign such an uninviting name to the plant and in doing so, save one of the British Empire's main trade items. It was definitely a chickenshit move on his part though.

nkozyra 2y ago

> Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea The problem isn't getting caffeine, though. You can buy a tub of 200mg caffeine pills for $3. People like coffee. Substituting coffee isn't just a matter of caffeine for drinkers.

doodlebugging 2y ago
I agree. You can get your caffeine boost from a pill if that floats your boat. I too love coffee and for a variety of reasons. I was only mentioning that there is a native plant that produces caffeine and has a pleasant taste so that it could serve as a caffeine (or tea) substitute in the event that supplies of real coffee became unreliable for any reason. I drink lots of coffee and various teas.
chasil 2y ago
As the article states, the taste is complex beyond our understanding. "When it comes to taste, coffee is amazingly complex. A single cup may contain up to 1,200 volatile compounds. Yet what you perceive in a cup depends on many things besides the plant’s genome: the environment in which it grew, the weather, the roast, the water used for brewing. Even the color of the cup matters. White makes coffee seem more intense, while clear glass makes it seem sweeter."
- thousand_nights 2y ago
  tbh i drink a coffee in the morning every day, no sugar, i think it tastes objectively terrible, like bitter dirt, but it's hijacked my reward pathway in the same way that nicotine or ethanol does, that it makes me enjoy the taste somehow
  - chrislongss 2y ago
    Just out of interest: do you notice any difference at all between different brands of coffee? I am with on the idea that coffee tastes awful, but despite that I still prefer certain brands that taste subjectively better.

CommieBobDole 2y ago

I always thought it was called that because it was used by native Americans to make 'black drink' which they consumed ceremonially, tending to vomit afterwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea

MarkusWandel 2y ago

Does it taste better than Yerba Mate? That is definitely an "acquired taste" and while you can get used to it and even like it as much as tea, I don't think it can hold a candle to coffee.