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.
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.
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).
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.
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 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?
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.
> 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.
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.
