Buy Yaupon Tea

The drinking of yaupon goes back into the time of the ancients, before the cataloging of history and the arrival of Europeans in the New World. Yaupon, the only caffeinated plant native to North America and a relative of yerba mate and guayusa, is an inconspicuous little evergreen that grows along the coastal regions of the Southern United States and the Atlantic coast.

buy yaupon tea

Lost Pines Yaupon was founded in 2015 in Austin, Texas by three good friends Jason Ellis, Heidi Wachter and John Seibold. Years ago Jason went down an internet rabbit hole about a fascinating little plant, the yaupon holly.

• Yaupon hollies can live between 30 and 75 years."}},"@type": "Question","name": "What plants are similar to yaupon hollies?","acceptedAnswer": "@type": "Answer","text": "The yaupon holly is similar to many other hollies in its family.The Japanese holly is nearly identical to the yaupon holly but bears shiny black fruits as opposed to the red shade of the yaupon berries. Remember, all hollies present some level of toxicity.","@type": "Question","name": "Can you grow a yaupon holly indoors?","acceptedAnswer": "@type": "Answer","text": "You can grow a yaupon holly indoors, but more careful pruning will be necessary to control the spread. Also, if you have pets or young children, beware its berries are toxic to pets and humans."]}]}] .icon-garden-review-1fill:#b1dede.icon-garden-review-2fill:none;stroke:#01727a;stroke-linecap:round;stroke-linejoin:round > buttonbuttonThe Spruce The Spruce's Instagram The Spruce's TikTok The Spruce's Pinterest The Spruce's Facebook NewslettersClose search formOpen search formSearch DecorRoom Design

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Learn tips for creating your most beautiful home and garden ever.Subscribe The Spruce's Instagram The Spruce's TikTok The Spruce's Pinterest The Spruce's Facebook About UsNewsletterPress and MediaContact UsEditorial GuidelinesGardeningPlants & FlowersShrubsHow to Grow and Care for Yaupon HollyNative American evergreen shrub's short and tall varieties can live to 75 years

The yaupon holly is similar to many other hollies in its family.The Japanese holly is nearly identical to the yaupon holly but bears shiny black fruits as opposed to the red shade of the yaupon berries. Remember, all hollies present some level of toxicity.

The tea made from the leaves is fairly bland, but it does provide a kick of caffeine. Making tea from the leaves is easy to do with very few tools or resources needed. Read on to learn how to make yaupon tea from Holly leaves.

Before you begin foraging for yaupon holly leaves, just make sure to properly identify the plant and never eat the berries themselves, as they are poisonous. Always follow proper foraging etiquettes such as only taking as much as you need and leaving plenty for wildlife and others to forage.

Like many other hollies, yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) is an evergreen shrub or tree that is loved for the colorful berries it produces on the female plants. Yaupon is dioecious which means that male and female flowers are born on separate plants; male yaupon hollies do not produce berries. The berries can be red, orange, or even yellow, and birds and other wildlife will feed on them through the winter months.

Best suited for USDA hardiness zones 7a-9b, yaupon hollies should be planted in a spot where they'll receive full or partial sun. They are both drought and salt tolerant, meaning this plant can find a home in a variety of landscapes.

Plant your yaupon holly using the same techniques you'd use to plant any shrub or tree. Dig a hole that is at least one-and-a-half times as wide as the root ball but slightly shallower. Then remove any roots that are circling around the inside of the pot or around the trunk, and shave off the outer layer of the root ball using a sharp knife or shovel.

The leaves of the yaupon contain caffeine. In fact, the yaupon boasts the highest caffeine content of any plant native to North America. For centuries peoples indigenous to the Americas enjoyed yaupon holly tea on a daily basis, but it was also used ceremonially. One particular ritual involved consuming excessive amounts of tea in order to induce vomiting and diarrhea. The tea was brewed strongly and may have contained other plant material. Unfortunately for this delicious plant, the ritual was reported to interested botanists and their first impression of the drink stuck. Thus the alarming scientific name: Ilex vomitoria.

We hope this misnomer will not deter interested gardeners from making their own tea. According to a 2009 study by researchers from the University of Florida and Texan A&M, "yaupon is a viable caffeine alternative for North Americans living within its range on the southeastern coastal plain." (Palumbo, 2009). Yaupon holly tea is delicious, caffeinated, and anti-oxidant rich. Like tea and coffee, it is perfectly safe when brewed appropriately and consumed in moderation.

You can learn how to prepare this refreshing tea in our Yaupon Holly Tea tutorial. As always, practice extreme cautions when picking and consuming wild plants and fungi. It can be hard to positively identify yaupon holly. You might end up drinking something else!

In our opinion, the sweet/dairy addition significantly improved the flavor of all four teas. However, the clear winner as a potential coffee substitute was #4: cold-leached, oven-roasted acorn flour & yaupon tea w/ milk and stevia.

We detected subtle notes of sweet potatoes, nuts, and oat milk + roasted/smoky flavors + very mild but pleasant bitter notes of the yaupon tea balancing things out on the end. The underlying flavors were enhanced by the dairy and sweetener.

Combine chopped yaupon leaves and roasted acorn flour in sauce pan (or tea making device like an infuser). Pour near-boiling water over the ingredients, stir, and cover. Let steep 5 minutes, stirring a few times as the ingredients steep.

But due to yaupon's popularity historically as a Native American cultivated crop and currently as a hardy landscaping plant, yaupon can occur at higher elevations as far inland as the North Carolina mountains.

But contrary to its name, Ilex vomitoria is not emetic, at least the tea isn't, and there are numerous historical writings that reference the casual consumption of yaupon tea, or cassine, without mention of vomit.

According to anthropologist and ethnologist William C. Sturtevant, the Spaniards who founded St. Augustine, Florida, learned to drink yaupon tea from the Timucua Indians and they became addicted in the same way lots of us are addicted to coffee.

Unfortunately, though, yaupon's marketability seems to have been negatively affected by the vomit stigma. In a time when local, organic food is in such high demand, a product like yaupon should also be in high demand.

In a "blind" taste test conducted by Wainwright as part of her senior thesis research, yaupon was preferred over yerba mate even by frequent drinkers of the latter. One reason for the disregard of yaupon was revealed by her study. Although yaupon and yerba mate are equally high in caffeine and anti-oxidants, the scientific name of yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) caused participants to be leery of buying it, even though research indicates that yaupon is no more emetic than Ceylon tea, coffee, or cola drinks.

To air-dry yaupon leaves on the stem, hang the stems in a warm, dry area for a couple of weeks. Make sure you put something like a sheet pan underneath to catch the leaves that will inevitably fall from the stem.

Bringing back a long-forgotten herbal tea, this herbal tea blend is a combination of roasted yaupon, walnuts, cinnamon, and cloves. This warm earthy blend of spice and nut flavors will warm you from head to toe. Try this blend with a little maple syrup for a little extra coziness.

There is extensive writing and speculation on the ceremonial implications of yaupon consumption, how it varied between Indigenous groups, and its contemporary legacy, but much of this scholarship was written by colonizers and reveals more about Europeans rather than the Indigenous cultures who used yaupon for centuries. Courtney Lewis, associate professor of anthropology at the University of South Carolina and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, explains that even general information about the Indigenous use of yaupon primes the ritual for appropriation (much like the complicated ethics surrounding the burning of white sage, a practice sacred to the Indigenous communities along the western coast of the United States). 041b061a72