Though new to some tea drinkers, Yaupon is steeped in history | Hacker News Reader

Though new to some tea drinkers, Yaupon is steeped in history

texasmonthly.com

62 pointsKaibeezy31 comments

For point of reference there was an article about yaupon posted here a few years ago - A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries (atlasobscura.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16713733 - that got a lot of comments, but most were about pawpaw and yerba mate. Seemed OK to bring it up again with this newer article.

LOL at "More than a thousand years after Indigenous Texans..."

"They were Texan, they just didn't know it yet!"

No different than saying “Native American.” People often refer to indigenous people by the colonizers name for where they live.

Well to be fair america is also pulling double duty as the continent and the offhand for a specific country , I feel like that makes it a little less weird.

Pretty sure the colonizers also named the continent.

Sounds interesting, other Native North American teas that might interest people:

Pine Needle Tea - ("infinitely preferably to any tea from the Indies" - Ben Franklin)

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius)

Mormon Tea (Ephedra viridis)

Although what makes Yaupon interesting is unlike those, it is caffeinated like "real" tea is. These ones aren't (although some like Mormon tea may have other effects).

True, I'm not sure what the source is but they all seem to have stimulant properties in my experience.

Pine needle tea is pretty good, though don't forget to wash the needles off first.

It's pretty good for you too. My old college roommate had a saying: "Pine needle tea, free vitamin C!".

Pine/spruce beer used to be popular in Colonial America too. They noted it prevented scurvy, but they didn't know why of course.

I love unusual teas like these.

Brewed yaupon can be more accurately called a tisane, since "tea" describes the infusion of the camellia sinensis plant.

This is a restrictive definition of the word 'tea' that is far from universal. Generally in common English usage 'tea' refers to any beverage that is a botanical infusion or plant used to make it. Saying this isn't tea is like saying that you can't call soy milk "milk" because it doesn't come from a cow.

It's good to question who benefits from this kind of insistence that other teas are not 'tea.'

> Saying this isn't tea is like saying that you can't call soy milk "milk" because it doesn't come from a cow.

Correct, soy and other plant based "milks" are not milk, a dairy beverage. There is nothing wrong with their taste or flavor, they're just not milks. So too with tea which similarly only refers to the camellia sinensis plant. There is nothing wrong with tisanes, but they are not tea.

If it looks like milk, tastes like milk and quacks like milk...

Odd that nobody ever complains about peanut butter not being dairy based.

  - Leberkäse
  - head cheese
  - milkweed
  - hair cream
  - tanning butter

True tea from the camellia sinensis plant contains caffeine. Immediately knowing whether your plant brew contains caffeine or not is one very useful benefit of using language carefully (tea vs tisane). Although yaupon contains caffeine, so would be better described as a caffeinated tisane.

A simple reason to protect the word "tea" is that there is is an enormous variety, market, and culture of true tea cultivation, preparation, and consumption that just does not work with tisanes. Using tisane interchangeably with tea does a disservice to the enormous culture behind camellia sinensis.

I don't see anything wrong with being precise with language.

I love Yaupon. I found it was an easy swap when I looked for a sustainable replacement for my coffee habit.

I was excited to try a "tea" that's native to North America, but unfortunately Yaupon reliably gave me bad headaches. Not sure what it is about it that does that and I'm no stranger to caffeine- I went back to reliable ol' Yerba Mate.

Its really wild to hear that because Mate and Yaupon/Cassina are very similar plants. I'm curious Do you get headaches from "regular" tea, coffee, or chocolate?

Coffee, yes, but rarely. Black tea just makes me nauseous so I don't drink it. Others, no.

I didn't realize that this existed, look forward to trying it.

What I knew is what's typically called tea comes from one tree of two main varieties. I don't count 'herbal teas' which are other infusions. Plus yerba mate, and now Yaupon.

Wondering if there were any others, I found this page[0] with a short (complete?) listing of plants containing caffeine.

[0] https://www.goviter.com/blogs/viter-energy-blog/plants-aroun...

> The shrubs are yaupon (pronounced “yo-pawn”) holly, the only substantially caffeinated plant native to North America.

Anyone drink winterberry tea? It's tempting to me since it's everywhere, but I haven't been able to find much in the way of a history of traditional use or information about safety.

As the park workers would say, you can eat anything at least once.

Most sites recommend against eating it. https://extension.umn.edu/trees-and-shrubs/winterberry

And to think I just cut down 2 branches of yaupon from my front yard last weekend. There's plenty more though. (And it does grow quite prolifically.)

I let it grow as interior fencing. It provides a nice environment for wild dewberries as well. And, of course, it is a never-ending fight to keep it from taking over the entire ranch. Love/hate.

I love my yaupon holly trees. They draw so many cool perching birds into my yard to feast on the berries.

Is this available in Germany? I can't seem to find it.

Probably verboten because of similarity with Stechpalme/Ilex, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europ%C3%A4ische_Stechpalme or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilex_aquifolium

Also, why should it be known here, as it seems to have been 'rediscovered' only rather recently in the US?

Incoming Yaupon tea shops!

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