Comment by doodlebugging

Comment by doodlebugging 2 days ago

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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 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-...

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.

nkozyra 2 days 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.

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  • chasil 2 days 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."

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    • thousand_nights a day 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

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      • GuB-42 a day ago

        Maybe there is that, but it can also just be an acquired test.

        No one likes bitterness initially, the ability to taste bitterness is essentially a poison detector, but it may still trigger with substances that are safe, at least at the dosage you are taking them. As you age, you get to recognize these safe cases with your other senses and override your poison detector, which lets you appreciate the taste.

        Herbal tea, tonic water, grapefruit juice, etc... All bitter, and most people dislike them initially, but after a while some will appreciate, and people don't drink them for the psychoactive effect.

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      • chasil a day ago

        Try adding cocoa powder, no sugar. Add the powder first, coffee liquid afterwards to minimize clumping.

        The cocoa itself is quite good for you, dissolving it will cool the coffee, and it will deepen the flavor.

        I should try cinnamon with this.

        Edit: dutch-process cocoa powder uses sodium hydroxide to reduce acidity of cocoa. Non-"dutched" cocoa is much more healthy, but alas acidic.

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        • zdragnar a day ago

          Personally, cinnamon and coffee can be a good combination, though it can get old too.

          Cacao nibs and cocoa in general taste worse to me than coffee does, alone or with coffee. They belong in chocolate and nothing else (served to me, anyway).

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      • chrislongss a day 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.

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  • spookie 2 days ago

    Yeah, pretty much. I drink tea from time to time, but I still prefer coffee. I don't know, feels more earthy or fuller? I also like the smell better.

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    • squircle 2 days ago

      You might enjoy roasted dandelion root tea. The taste is about as earthy as it gets. Also, as a bitter herb it's great for digestion.

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      • Loughla a day ago

        It tastes nothing like coffee though. It tastes like other things that kind of taste like coffee, like chicory. They taste sort of like coffee and dandelion sort of tastes like them, so it's a little too removed.

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  • doodlebugging 2 days 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.

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diob 2 days 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.

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  • doodlebugging 2 days 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.

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sriacha 2 days 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.

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  • doodlebugging 2 days 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

    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.

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  • jfarina 2 days ago

    Can you rebrand a species? Drinking vomitoria sounds less than appetizing.

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    • hombre_fatal 2 days ago

      Oilseed rape / rapeseed became canola. Anything is possible.

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    • WrongAssumption 2 days ago

      Yes you can. See Patagonian Toothfish -> Chilean Seabass.

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      • soperj 2 days ago

        Or Chinese Gooseberry -> Kiwi Fruit.

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fellowniusmonk 2 days 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.

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  • doodlebugging 2 days 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.

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MarkusWandel 2 days 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.

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