
A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries - DoreenMichele
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-yaupon-tea-cassina
======
moultano
This reminds me of the paw paw (not to be confused with the papaya which
Australians call pawpaw)
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/th...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/this-
once-obscure-fruit-is-on-its-way-to-becoming-pawpaw-pawpular) It's a fruit
that seems tropical, a close relative of the custard apple or sitaphal that
tastes like a pina colada. Yet it grows natively all over the eastern US. It's
so common that in many places it's every third tree in the forest.

I grew up in peak pawpaw country (Cincinnati), got a thorough outdoors
education via boy scouts, and never learned about the existence of this
incredible plant. Nobody knows about it! The day after I learned about it, I
could walk a few feet into the woods in a park in the middle of the city,
shake a tree and come out with tropical tasting fruit, and yet people walk by
this tree every day oblivious. Mind-boggling.

~~~
Baeocystin
Pawpaws have very inconsistent harvests, don't ship well at all, and have a
very short ready to eat -> overripe time.

They are also, like you note, absolutely delicious. I have two trees in my
backyard. (You need two for them to pollinate and bear fruit.) But there are
practical reasons why you don't see them for sale very often.

~~~
jonah
There are a number of active PawPaw breeding programs working to improve the
fruit's production, size, and suitability for shipping. Some of the named
varieties are even more incredible tasting than the standard wild ones.

Kentucky State:

[http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/](http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/)

[http://kysu.edu/academics/cafsss/pawpaw/](http://kysu.edu/academics/cafsss/pawpaw/)

[http://ppserver.pawpaw.kysu.edu/KSUstory.htm](http://ppserver.pawpaw.kysu.edu/KSUstory.htm)

Purdue:

[https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/nexus/Asimina_triloba_ne...](https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/nexus/Asimina_triloba_nex.html)

(I grew up around the trees and my father now grows and sells Pawpaw trees
commercially.)

~~~
Baeocystin
That makes me very happy to hear, and I wish your father the best of luck in
making our native fruit better known.

Does he sell to individuals? Or if not, do you know of a nursery where I could
buy one of the improved cultivars? I wouldn't mind planting one or two more.
:)

~~~
jonah
Thanks!

He does. Here's his site:
[http://blossomnursery.com/](http://blossomnursery.com/) I'm not sure if it's
the right time of year for transplanting, but he should be able to tell you if
you contact him.

~~~
Baeocystin
Thanks for the link! It looks like web ordering isn't working, but I see
contact info, so I'm going to give it a shot. Some great pics, too. Cheers!

------
ppierald
Go nearly anywhere in Argentina and you will find mate. People walk around
with a thermos of hot water and sip all day. It is a shared cultural
experience too like saying hello. You see a friend, greet them, then offer
them some mate.

Our SF-based company has an office in Mendoza, Argentina. You will not find
baristas and coffee (though Starbucks just opened there), but plenty of mate
for everyone. Due to this connection, we have plenty of supplies for mate in
the office, but it is still not as commonly adopted here as coffee.

~~~
VVyattPrentice
Very interesting. I drank mate with friends from Buenos Aires when I was a
teen. We would drink it the traditional way, namely out of a small dried gourd
with a metal straw. Are you saying that mate (pronounced mah-teh like a
southerner saying "my tea" fwiw -- not an Australian addressing a friend) is
not commercialized in Argentina? As in, people offer their personal mate and
there are not "mate shops" that would equate to "coffee shops"(think third
wave USA)? Or that they prefer Mate to coffee, hence there are no "coffee
shops" while there may or may not be "mate shops"?

I guess I like the idea that mate is so personal than you wouldn't go to a
commercial shop for their blendbut ratherwould share your homebrew with a
friend on a park bench.

~~~
dmd76
Mendocino here (live in the US but visit Mendoza every few years). There are
plenty of places one can go for coffee, but American-style coffee shops are
not nearly as popular. Mate shops aren't a thing, but it isn't homebrew in the
sense that people don't grow their favorite varieties of yerba mate plants in
the back yard. You get a bag of yerba at the supermarket, have a thermos with
hot water, and a gourd & bombilla. People drink it with friends, but, like
coffee, it's also something they drink throughout the day by themselves while
working, studying, etc.

~~~
VVyattPrentice
Is there anything akinto different flavours? Or brand differences?

Is it like people and cigarettes? Like Brand X is your brand ornate and you'd
rather die than have to drink brand Y?

Is there such a thing like a sommelier for mate? Maybe like wine: "I detect
notes of lavender...."

This is incredibly interesting!

------
ggambetta
"Mate", not "maté". I guess it's cool to add random accents to foreign words
to make them look more exotic, but this changes the pronunciation of the word
and in fact turns into a different one.

"Mate" refers to "yerba mate" (as in the article) or even the gourd used to
consume it; it's also a common abbreviation of "jaque mate", "checkmate".
"Maté", on the other hand, means "I killed".

~~~
grzm
For what it's worth, Wikipedia includes this explanation:

> _" In English, "mate" is occasionally written "maté", to distinguish it from
> other meanings of the word mate, although this spelling is not used in
> Spanish or Portuguese."_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate)

A similar example is "résumé", so as to not be confused with "resume".

Going further down the Wikipedia hole, here's a page describing use of
diacritics in English, which includes a subsection on "Accent-addition and
accent-removal":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical_marks#Accent-
addition_and_accent-removal)

~~~
kgwgk
“résumé” is not really a similar example, because that is the actual spelling
of the word in French. Edit: but according to your link sometimes only the
latter accent is kept in English.

~~~
grzm
Yeah, it varies depending on your dictionary or stylebook. For example, MW
lists:

> _" résumé ... variants: or resume or less commonly resumé"_

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resume](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/resume)

------
barking
I love both coffee and tea. Both caffeine drinks yet they taste nothing like
one another. If it's a drink to have with food it has to be tea. For a waker
upper it's coffee. At other times it's a toss up. I'd love to try this cassina
be a while before we see it in Europe I'd imagine

~~~
masklinn
> I'd love to try this cassina be a while before we see it in Europe I'd
> imagine

Since it's a dried leaf similar to tea or mate you can probably get it shipped
from the US, though I expect the postage will be somewhat expensive.

Look for "yaupon" or "yaupon tea" as, as the article notes that's how it's
called/marketed these days.

~~~
barking
Thanks I just found a UK site selling it
[https://www.ancientpurity.com/yaupon-tea-green-
leaf-113g-loo...](https://www.ancientpurity.com/yaupon-tea-green-
leaf-113g-loose-leaf)

Not cheap though but it's just for curiousity sake

~~~
Jaruzel
Bookmarked! Thanks very much :)

~~~
LostPinesYaupon
Or try ours. We harvest our own. That company resells someone elses ;)

[https://lostpinesyaupontea.com](https://lostpinesyaupontea.com)

~~~
barking
Fair dues to you for finding this thread, you guys are on the ball

Actually I came across your (very nice) site first but you don't ship outside
N. America unfortunately.

~~~
LostPinesYaupon
Thanks for the compliment. We do ship outside of N. America and you should
have been able to select that as an option. I'm going to have to go take a
look see.. I just sent a package to Denmark and Germany.

~~~
barking
Fair enough, then I think you need to change the text on your shipping &
Returns tab.

------
philg_jr
Another obscure-ish tea that is seems to be gaining popularity is guayusa
(mostly being pushed under the brand Runa). It is another holly from warm
regions, I think from rainforests in South America. I'm a big fan of the
moderate caffeine content and the ability to steep it for long periods to get
more caffeine out of it, without it getting bitter. It is amazing as a
summer/warm weather high-caffeine iced tea. You can buy in loose tea form by
the pound from Amazon for about $20.

~~~
LostPinesYaupon
Guayusa is great. We're pretty jealous of the size of their leaves compared to
yaupon leaves. Yaupon, guayusa and yerba mate are all in the Ilex genus,
they're the three known caffeinated hollies (or more accurately the three
known hollies with appreciable levels of caffeine)

~~~
enraged_camel
Hey, you guys are in Austin right? Is your Chote Ave location a store? If so,
I'm planning to stop by later today to buy some yaupon. :)

~~~
LostPinesYaupon
Naw, that's our house. Sure seems to help with SEO though! Our yaupon is in
the Wheatsville Co-op on Guadalupe near campus, and the S. Lamar store. We
also do four farmers markets on the weekends (Downtown, HOPE, Mueller and
Lakeline)

------
innocentoldguy
I have tried youpon tea at a cafe before and even purchased it here:
[https://lostpinesyaupontea.com](https://lostpinesyaupontea.com). I like Yerba
Mate quite well, so I wouldn’t say youpon in better, but I would say I like it
equally well. It’s definitely worth a try.

~~~
greenwireless
These people are great - I have ordered a bunch of yaupon from them, both
light and dark. The light roast is more of a green tea flavor, while the dark
roast is closer to a black tea or even coffee. The best part about yaupon is
the buzz, though. It's a strong boost like coffee but without the jitters and
crash that coffee can cause. It's a more lucid, feel-good stimulant with a
flavor that's hard to describe. Much less bitter than coffee or even tea, it
has an earthy, smokey taste that resembles yerba mate a little bit but resists
easy classification. Highly recommended.

~~~
LostPinesYaupon
Many thanks! It's nice to stumble into a love fest :)

------
Pfhreak
First line of the article: Yaupon tea, a botanical cousin to yerba maté, is
now almost unknown.

~~~
anotheryou
and the one line about its taste: "people [prefer] it over maté in a blind
taste test" (but it's similar)

~~~
cstanton
A few months ago, I was in Austin and met two youpon cold brew makers selling
at the farmers markets. Really delicious and smooth. The plant grew wild on
many of the hikes I took.

~~~
hellojason
Do you recall which market you went to? I’m curious to try some.

~~~
LostPinesYaupon
He's talking about Local Leaf. They're at the Mueller Farmers Market on
Sundays from 10am-2pm. They're super nice and chatty. They cold brew theres to
the caffeine strength of coffee. Come check us out too, Lost Pines Yaupon Tea
([http://lostpinesyaupontea.com](http://lostpinesyaupontea.com)), we're also
at that market. We also do the Downtown (sat 9-1), Lakeline (sat 9-1) and HOPE
(sun 11-3) markets. We sell loose leaf, tea bags and brewed tea. Ours is
pretty different than Local Leaf. It's closer to green tea in caffeine and
tastes a lot like (delicious) iced tea.

~~~
Artistry121
I never thought I'd see a vendor of Yaupon at my regular farmer's market(HOPE)
on HN!

------
dalacv
i tried yerba mate in an an automatic drip coffee maker with some cream and
sugar and i was blown away by the energy i got from it. there was no caffeine
crash. it was a sustained energy. it takes a while to kick in so u gotta drink
it first thing in morning. u can find some popular bags of it on amazon. it
has to be the loose leaf stuff, not the individual bags. i think i tried
Taragui Yerba Mate Con Palo. but there are other brands that are just as good.

i spent a while in argentina and they drink it down there with the gourds.
it's interesting. we would be in a meeting and someone would start passing
around a gourd and each person would drink from the same gourd during a
business meeting. that person would refill it with hot water from a thermos
and pass it to the next guy.

~~~
wunderlust
Yerba mate[0] has 2 stimulants aside from caffeine: theophylline and
theobromine. Perhaps they interact in such a way as to stabilize the effect of
the caffeine.

[0]
[http://nativayerbamate.com/health.html](http://nativayerbamate.com/health.html)
(Nativa sells yerba mate so possible bias)

~~~
clubMate
I tried Mate once in the form of Club Mate, a popular alternative drink in
Germany. It triggered migraine headache, so i wont drink it again. I just
looked up Theobromine on Wikipedia which states that high dosis may cause
headache. I think this is an explanation for why i got headaches from it.

------
chris_wot
Holy crap, they are right! The OED does mistakenly define _yaupon_ as having
emetic properties!

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/yaupon](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/yaupon)

How does one get the OED fix such an obvious error?

~~~
firethief
It's just a little outdated; that used to be the main use of the plant. Now
people have found you can "microdose" it for different effects from profuse
vomiting.

~~~
chris_wot
The article says that numerous studies show it doesn’t do this.

------
cratermoon
Texas company that sells it:
[https://www.catspringtea.com/](https://www.catspringtea.com/)

------
threepipeproblm
This Maine company recently started selling Yaupon. No affiliation.
[https://www.surthrival.com/products/yaupon-
tea](https://www.surthrival.com/products/yaupon-tea)

------
dwighttk
I bought some from a random site[1] that turned up when I searched duckduckgo
for "cassina tea" because Amazon didn't return any results for cassina. Lots
for yaupon, but that came farther down the article.

[1][https://wildsouthtea.com/pages/about-
cassina](https://wildsouthtea.com/pages/about-cassina)

------
tyingq
Postum[1] might be the opposite. Coffee for Mormons that didn't want to break
the rules. I tried it, and it was awful. But ask any Mormon you know, and they
usually at least know what it is.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum)

~~~
tytytytytytytyt
You might like roasted barley. It's not awesome, but it's not bad, either.

~~~
jaipilot747
Mugicha, tea made from roasted barley is thoroughly awesome too. Very easy to
finish a liter of cold mugicha unconsciously while I'm in the zone.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley_tea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley_tea)

------
smazga
I drink Yerba Mate every day, and when I heard about yaupon, definitely had to
try it.

Unroasted, it's very grassy, but refreshing. The roasted variety I got tasted
quite similar to mate. It's really good.

The biggest problem I have is that I can get a kilo of mate for $9, but 2 Oz
of yaupon is in the $15-$20 range.

~~~
NoGravitas
Where I live, yaupon is free (pick from ornamental bushes in front yard, or
around practically any office building).

~~~
Jtsummers
Around here I'd be hesitant to do that. Too many pesticides and other things
sprayed on or around that stuff (particularly around office buildings with
commercial groundskeepers). From personal yards, maybe since there you can
control it better.

------
mmanfrin
I love yerba mate. My family traveled to Argentina when I was a kid and I
remember we were delayed for about 4 hours before our flight back home late in
the night. I kept making myself yerba mate teas while the lounge had the movie
Screamers playing on an old CRT tv. It was foundationally terrifying to a
deeply-wired and awake 10 year old kid.

As a teenager I found a seller selling it on Amazon in bulk, I bought 3 kilos
of it and my friends all joked that I was buying 'kilos from South America',
but that tea lasted me years.

As an adult I found that brewing it in a drip coffee maker seemed to pull out
more of the chemicals that woke you up and I had a period of my college years
where my grades shot up from how productive I got.

~~~
dalacv
I didn't find that drinking it from a gourd quite had the same effect as
brewing it in an automatic drip coffee maker. The first time I tried this, I
drank a few cups at around noon. That night I found myself wide awake at 3 am.

------
swah
I live in Porto Alegre and.. most days I prefer the aeropress to the mate,
though. Mate is a mild taste drink.

------
roflc0ptic
The (probably apocryphal) story I heard in botany class was that men competed
to see who could chug the most hot tea before vomiting. Going to school in
Tallahassee, FL, it was heartwarming to imagine that even 500 years ago, men
were sitting around shouting “chug, chug, chug!” At each other

~~~
jerf
I can't link to this very nicely, but when I visited Ambras Castle in
Innsbruck, Austria, they had a chair that they could put some booze into, and
it doesn't release until you've drunk your way out of it. Use browser search
for "certain amount" in [http://www.notabletravels.com/ambras-castle-
innsbruck-austri...](http://www.notabletravels.com/ambras-castle-innsbruck-
austria/) .

------
nopassion
Reminds me of CCC and all the Club Mate you can handle before dying from a
caffeine overdose. ;)

~~~
dalacv
relevant: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xywxm7/how-a-
germ...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xywxm7/how-a-german-soda-
became-hackers-fuel-of-choice)

------
8bitsrule
Interesting, today's info-conjunction between coffee-cancer in Cali, and raves
for Cassina (never on my radar on decades). Just sayin.

------
baxtr
I stopped drinking coffee a month ago due to some minor circulation problems.
I do miss the taste and still get tempted from time to time, but I have to say
that I’ve never felt more awake

------
realPubkey
I hate these clickbait-titles.

~~~
fenomas
I don't find it clickbait-ey at all. The whole point of the article is that
the drink is forgotten - ergo putting its name in the headline wouldn't convey
any information.

Clickbait would be if the article was about a drink we're all familiar with,
and the title refused to tell us which one.

~~~
tom_mellior
> I don't find it clickbait-ey at all.

Let's consider two alternatives:

    
    
        (a) A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries
        (b) Yaupon tea: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries
    

Would anybody be better off if they had chosen (b) instead of (a)? Yes,
potential readers would have more information of what to expect and hence a
better basis for choosing whether to click.

Would anybody be worse off if they had chosen (b) instead of (a)? Yes,
Atlasobscura would get fewer clicks and hence less advertising money for yet
another one of their Wikipedia copy and paste jobs.

In other words, it's clickbait.

------
themodelplumber
It's funny to read about "a caffeinated drink called x" when I just slice &
dice Jet Alert tabs into whatever mix I'm having. There are mornings when 30mg
is enough to push my intuition to extreme levels, and there are days when
100mg does nothing until I find the right song on the radio. I am using
caffeine and ibuprofen as experimental tools to fight depression and keeping
logs on how things go. So far it's amazing how well they work. Wish I had
known back when I had chronic severe depression. No medical advice here btw,
keep your own logs...

~~~
taneq
How long have you been doing this? I was drinking a ton of coffee every day
(4-6 cups of strong drip coffee) for the last 2-3 years. It helped a lot with
my motivation and general energy levels. Recently (in the last year or so) I
started getting some pretty significant mood swings, I'd basically feel
horrible every week for Monday/Tuesday. I also had some alarming blood
pressure measurements (up to 150/110 or something) which finally prompted me
to quit the coffee. Not only did that reduce my blood pressure down to 136/90
but the mood swings and general funk have pretty much gone too.

I still think coffee is great for short sprints / crunch time, but I don't
think I'll go back to ongoing high levels of use.

~~~
nnq
> mood swings

Friendly advice: drop the sugar first. It's really really hard, I know...

Caffeine is most likely to mess up your mood when you also consume sugar, or
alcohol. That's why green tea for example works much better: it's disgusting
to oversweeten it, to mix it with sweets, or to have it immediately before or
after a pint or two ;)

Coffee otoh can even be delicious in combo with fries, ice-cream and beer.
Hence I only have it in the morning when I'm not tempted to mix it in such
disastrous combinations.

~~~
taneq
I eat very little sugary stuff. Plenty of booze on the weekends, which I'd
originally suspected as the cause of the mood problems. Cutting the alcohol
didn't change things significantly, though, while cutting the caffeine gave me
two weeks of feeling awful (and I mean seriously bad), followed by a
significant improvement in both mood and energy.

(Would have posted this last night but I hit the rate limiter, heh.)

