Name: Yaupon.
Age: Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) is North America’s only native caffeinated plant. It was long used by Indigenous people pre-colonisation.
Appearance: A variety of holly, evergreen, can grow to 10m tall, mostly found in the southern US …
Wait, Ilex vomitoria, you say? Sounds sick! (Old meaning.) A misconception, from an observation by European settlers that consumption was followed by vomiting in certain ceremonies. Actually, Native Americans may have used an infusion made from the leaves as a laxative.
Same kind of idea, different end. Anyway, why have I never heard of it? The Europeans brought their tastes and habits with them, including good old tea.
Oh yeah, I don’t remember learning about any Boston Yaupon Party. Exactly. The Sons of Liberty chucked all that tea in the sea to protest against the unpopular Tea Act of 1773, which gave the East India Company a sweet deal selling tea from China and increased tensions between Britain and American colonists.
I think of it as more of a coffee place, but did America have a taste for tea back then? It did, and it didn’t grow its own, so people turned to alternatives, so-called “liberty teas”, including yaupon …
Like freedom fries. “Liber-teas” would’ve been better. Anyway, come independence tea imports resumed, and the yaupon pot went on the back burner, so to speak.
And now history is repeating itself? Exactly. As with coffee, the US grows hardly any tea, but it imports hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth from India and China. And …
And Trump’s tariffs! Correct. Tea now carries its highest tariff rates since that Tea Act of 1773.
Bad news for America’s tea lovers. Trump’s proposed tariffs on Brazil threaten to hit US coffee prices too. So bad news for America’s caffeine lovers all round.
If only there were a homegrown, tariff-free alternative. As Christine Folch, an infusion enthusiast and cultural anthropologist at Duke University, told the Washington Post: “Maybe this is yaupon’s moment in the sun.”
Sick! (New meaning.) What is the process for yaupon tea? Similar. Dry leaves are chopped and roasted to create green and black varieties.
What does it taste of? Bryon White, co-founder and CEO of Yaupon Brothers American Tea Company, told Martha Stewart’s website it tastes a lot like regular tea, but less bitter due to less tannin. “I would describe the flavour as ‘earthy’ or ‘grassy’.”
Mmmm, earthy, grassy … “But in a very pleasant, mild way,” he added.
Do say: “Myga!”
Eh? Duh! Make yaupon great again.
Don’t say: “Phew, he’s dropped the tariff. Make mine a builder’s, milk two sugars, ta.”