[HN Gopher] Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save...
___________________________________________________________________
Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from
extinction
Author : derbOac
Score : 147 points
Date : 2025-04-02 10:25 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| dbetteridge wrote:
| https://youtu.be/iGL7LtgC_0I?si=V8vXK4QzF_lAfRjB
|
| James Hoffman did an interesting episode on this bean a few years
| ago, very cool the work being done.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| What puzzles me about the reported birth of coffee is that I
| wouldn't expect that just eating the cherries would give you that
| much of a caffeine kick to be noticeable. Yes, there's a little
| bit of caffeine in them, but far more in the "beans" (seeds).
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| We're probably used to higher levels of caffeine now, but if we
| weren't, maybe chewing the berries would give a noticeable
| boost.
|
| Kinda like ok you can eat a poppy but then there's a reason
| morphine exists. (Sorry for the stupid analogy ;)
| zdragnar wrote:
| Tea also has noticeably less caffeine than coffee, yet it has
| been treated as an energizing drink since it was first
| discovered.
|
| When you don't have any adrenal stimulants in your diet at all,
| even a small amount is noticable.
|
| Caffeine also has a metabolic half life of roughly 5 hours in
| the body, if I remember correctly. A few berries might not do
| much, but surely a handful will be enough.
| jessekv wrote:
| Tea leaves usually have more caffeine than coffee beans, but
| tea itself is usually more diluted than coffee.
|
| If you want a jolt, make a matcha shot with the same mass of
| matcha as you would normally do for coffee ;)
| fashion-at-cost wrote:
| Or a traditional Mate
| rwyinuse wrote:
| Somehow caffeine from Mate feels different though. To me
| coffee gives a fast spike and then comedown, while Mate's
| effect is more balanced, and lasts longer. And I don't
| think it's just caffeine content, because tea is nothing
| like that for me.
|
| For staying productive for hours, nothing beats Mate for
| me (except stimulant medication).
| Projectiboga wrote:
| Tea bushes use an entirely different metabolic pathway to
| produce caffeine than coffee bushes.
|
| Here is an article that further describes how we believe
| caffeine synthesis evolved in multiple land plant lineages.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/content/113/38/10613
|
| Caffeine synthesis involves several enzymes, but the enzyme
| family (called the SABATH family) involved in the final
| stages of its synthesis can trace its origins back to the
| first land plants. These first enzymes are thought to have
| been very promiscuous (capable of having activity with
| several molecules), partially contributing to how caffeine
| synthesis managed to evolve independently multiple times
| throughout the evolutionary history of land plants.
| hermitShell wrote:
| This is why I routinely wean myself from coffee by drinking
| tea on most holiday weekends. I feel it helps me to
| dissociate less while I should be present with family, plus
| when I return to work I have much less residual caffeine and
| can hit peak productivity, crank out some code. Props to devs
| who don't rely on drugs!
| iteria wrote:
| If you truly detox from caffeine even extremely small amounts
| will be noticeable. I knew a woman who couldn't eat chocolate
| because she found the amount of caffeine to be too high. I
| didn't even know there was caffeine in chocolate.
| recursive wrote:
| > I knew a woman who couldn't eat chocolate because she found
| the amount of caffeine to be too high.
|
| I think the causality went the other way in that case. I've
| been roughly caffeine free at certain intervals. Never felt
| anything from chocolate.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I went almost caffeine free at one point. I once got a good
| buzz from 300g of 90% chocolate.
|
| I say "almost" caffeine free because I still regularly ate
| chocolate. So I still had a little tolerance. Yet the
| difference between 50g of milk chocolate and 300g of 90%
| was very noticeable.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Not judging but to me 300 grams of chocolate, dark or
| otherwise, is an outright obscene amount
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Go ahead and judge. It was an obscene amount.
| garciasn wrote:
| Depends on the chocolate type and how much you're eating.
| Milk chocolate has very low levels (~2mg per 28oz), but
| dark chocolate is ~15mg per 28oz. Coffee, at 24oz, would be
| around 275mg, depending.
|
| I find it hard to believe that some folks would feel the
| caffeine in chocolate unless they ate an entire dark
| chocolate bar in one sitting, but I suppose it's possible.
| delecti wrote:
| I think that 28oz of dark chocolate, whether weight or
| volume, would be a ludicrous amount to eat in one
| sitting. A chocolate bar is about 1.5 oz (and 1 fluid
| ounce of water weighs 1 ounce, at least to a rough
| approximation), so to eat 28 you'd need to eat nearly 20
| chocolate bars.
|
| For that matter 24oz is rather a lot of coffee to drink
| at once. I brew my daily coffee with 200g of water, or
| only about 7 floz.
| garciasn wrote:
| While I realize I'm an outlier, I do NOT consider 24oz of
| coffee a lot, nor does anyone I know--that's literally a
| standard coffee cup at a coffee shop these days. At a
| minimum, I'm drinking 3 pots (~180oz) of coffee a day,
| with my usual being 3-4x that amount.
|
| So; with that said, while I believe that eating 28oz of
| chocolate is a lot, I guess it could happen :-)
| recursive wrote:
| HN is crazy for outliers. We have the lady who gets wired
| off a chocolate bar, and the guy who drinks over a gallon
| per day.
|
| But anyway, I've been to a coffee shop or two, and I've
| never seen a "standard cup" as anything other than 12
| ounces.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| You might want to double-check your figures.
|
| Ghiradelli claims their dark chocolate has 20mg per oz
| and their milk chocolate has 6 mg per ounce. [1]
|
| That would mean eating a standard 3.5oz/100g chocolate
| bar would have 70mg of caffeine for dark, or 21mg for
| milk.
|
| While 3.5oz is a lot in a sitting, 70mg is equivalent to
| a smallish cup of coffee.
|
| [1] https://www.ghirardelli.com/product-
| faqs#:~:text=Dark%20choc...
| gruez wrote:
| >If you truly detox from caffeine even extremely small
| amounts will be noticeable.
|
| Maybe for a subset of people. Otherwise kids will be getting
| crazy jitters the first time they eat chocolate (presumably
| before they ever drank coffee/tea), which obviously doesn't
| happen.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I recall preferring lighter chocolate as a kid. Maybe we're
| accidentally providing kids with a slowly ramping caffeine
| tolerance, haha.
| pzs wrote:
| They call the cherries cascara, and I have come across them in
| some specialty coffee shops packaged just like the beans. You
| can pour hot (not boiling) water over them and prepare a tea-
| like infusion. It tastes sweet-ish without adding anything
| else. It gives a pretty noticeable kick to me when I drink it,
| even though I am a regular coffee drinker. I think it is worth
| a try, if you haven't done so yet.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I wouldn 't expect that just eating the cherries would give
| you that much of a caffeine kick to be noticeable_
|
| If you're paying attention to your body and you're not addicted
| to stimulants, then a small kick of caffeine would absolutely
| be noticeable.
| djha-skin wrote:
| Caffeine production is likely difficult in the face of a drier
| climate. Caffeine is present in the plant as a pesticide. Insects
| are a much bigger problem in wet climates over dry.
|
| Having grown up in a wet climate (Chicago) but now living in a
| dry one (Utah) I can say that finding a droubt tolerant species
| which concerns itself with pesticide production may be difficult.
| The same water which coffee relies on is the same stuff pests
| rely on to reproduce. My mother was from Utah, and she always
| lamented at the small size of her flowers growing up in Chicago.
| They are much larger in Utah because they can get big without
| insects eating them.
|
| (I say all this as a point of interest, but I don't drink coffee
| myself.)
| mortos wrote:
| That's interesting, it's something I haven't really thought
| about.
|
| There is some desire for less caffeine as it adds bitterness.
| Eugenioides, a parent species to arabica the commonly
| cultivated species, inherently has less caffeine and is said to
| have a remarkably sweet cup. It's had some attention in barista
| competitions in the last few years.
| klausa wrote:
| Eugenioides is sweet in a way that no other coffee I ever had
| is sweet.
|
| You sometimes see "sweet" as an axis of flavor of coffee, or
| as a tasting note on a bag of fancy beans; but eugenioides is
| very different.
|
| It's _the_ dominant note in that cup, and it is much less
| fruity or floral, it's just... sweet. You taste the
| sweetness, and then the rest of the "typical" coffee notes
| come in the background, but much less pronounced than usual.
|
| I've seen people describe it as a "cereal-like", and while I
| don't think I fully agree with that description, I do get
| where they're coming from.
|
| If you're a coffee person and ever see a bag of it on offer
| (and can afford it), I definitely recommend grabbing it --
| it's really, really unique (and quite rare!).
|
| (And I do not think this is in any way related to the
| caffeine content -- otherwise most of decafs would be very
| sweet, and they obviously aren't).
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| When you say sweet, is that because the coffee has more
| sugar, or are there just other compounds?
|
| I guess what I'm asking is what's the difference between
| what you're describing and making a regular good cup of
| coffee and adding a teaspoon of sugar?
| klausa wrote:
| It's the "other stuff"/flavor compounds, definitely.
|
| I don't think brewed coffee contains any meaningful
| amounts of sugar?
|
| Coffee (filter/brewed, not espresso) is ~98.5% water by
| weight, even if the Eugenioides species has more sugar in
| the beans than Arabica (it might! literally no idea here)
| -- if the difference would be "just" down to the sugar
| levels, I don't think it would be noticeable at the
| dilution levels we're talking about.
|
| The difference in the natural sweetness vs adding sugar
| is an interesting question, honestly!
|
| Sugar is usually added to coffee to hide/mask/round out
| the bitterness; whether naturally occurring or from
| overly developed roast. But it also masks/drowns out
| other notes, too. You'll get less bitterness, but less of
| the acidity, the floralness, of all the other subtleties
| that can make coffee great -- you'll get _sugar_
| sweetness (and it's a very different kind of sweetness
| than coffee can naturally have!), and less of everything
| else.
|
| Eugenioides is different because it just doesn't have
| that baseline note of bitter/hashness _at all_, _and_ it
| 's naturally pretty sweet.
|
| Instead of sugar, I think the "magic berries" (I never
| tried!) that mess with your bitterness perception might
| work better? I'm actually now curious to try it out...
| foenix wrote:
| > My mother was from Utah, and she always lamented at the small
| size of her flowers growing up in Chicago. They are much larger
| in Utah because they can get big without insects eating them.
|
| Counter-anecdote from a Utah local: every time we travel to a
| "wet" area (any travel but Arizona / Nevada) we always find the
| climate to be more verdant and flowery. Perhaps ecosystems are
| more multi-faceted in nature.
|
| Counter-counter-anecdote: Our Roses _love_ the weather here.
| jofer wrote:
| Just moved to Utah (wife's job was relocated here) a couple
| of years ago after many decades in the southeast and midwest.
| Some stuff grows like crazy here, some stuff doesn't.
|
| Nothing in the continental US competes with the gulf coast
| when it comes to sheer masses of flowering vegetation.
| Everything is green and most of it flowers. Everywhere you
| look, there's actually really neat and beautiful plants. But
| most of it is what folks think of as "weeds". Non native
| stuff in yards (what people think of as "flowers") often
| struggles. E.g. yapon is native and is often an ornamental
| and it'll grow like crazy, or even worse, try planting some
| Mexican petunias... I love those things, but they are a
| purple swarm that will swallow everything.
|
| But plant your daffodils, and while they'll grow, they get
| overpowered and outspread by everything native. A lot of
| common ornamentals can't take the fully saturated then dry
| cycles and clay soils, too. Then there are the bugs.
| Everything gets eaten by something. So so so so so many bugs.
|
| But in Utah, those common ornamentals absolutely thrive _if_
| they get water. When you irrigate here, things grow like
| crazy. Flowers are huge and there are basically no bugs here
| at all. (I don't count box alder beetles or brine flies as
| "lots of bugs".)
|
| But native vegetation can survive the actual climate here,
| while most ornamentals can't without extra water.
| chongli wrote:
| As a daily coffee drinker I wouldn't mind less caffeine in
| coffee. I drink coffee for its flavour (and have tried dozens
| of different coffees from many different roasters). I have
| tried some decafs but they just taste different and generally
| much flatter. They also behave very strangely in my espresso
| machine, requiring a much finer grind to sustain brewing
| pressure. From my limited understanding of decaf processes,
| they all remove more than just caffeine, so the effect on
| flavour is unavoidable.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| The biggest reason decaf brews, tastes, and grinds so
| different is the processing essentially causes the beans to
| expands (so you can extract the caffeine out of the center of
| the very dense, green coffee) and then you need to dehydrate
| them back to the proper moisture content for roasting. You
| take a green coffee that is previously extremely dense and
| non-porous, and make it much much more porous. This leads to
| roasting difficulities and brittleness when grinding which
| seems to lead to fines.
|
| I'd agree, less caffeine in the bean without decaffinating
| would lead to a better tasting coffee (if you want the lesser
| caffeine).
| ifellover wrote:
| Huh. As an avid home coffee roaster, this is interesting to
| learn. I find that decaf also really struggles to "crack"
| when roasting, and emits way less smoke. I guess that's
| because there's perhaps nothing left to really crack
| anymore?
| chongli wrote:
| This makes sense! The coffee has expanded a lot from the
| decaf process so it's not going to expand as much during
| roasting, hence no "crack" (which is really the same kind
| of process as popcorn popping)! The reduced smoke may be
| due to the removal of the skins and residual dried fruit
| which would have been washed away along with the
| caffeine, whereas I would expect a natural process coffee
| to produce a lot more smoke (compared to the most common
| washed process coffee).
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Less-so that it has expanded from the decaf process, and
| more-so that the additional porosity leads to the 'crack'
| you get from reaching that critical temperature is much
| less violent, since there's essentially already many
| micro-fractures in the bean. Think of it like attempting
| to burst a pipe with a leak in it, vs. a pipe that is
| sealed. The leak will bleed off pressure, so you need
| much more flow (in coffee roasting, this would be power
| from heat) to get the same build up and explosion.
| wil421 wrote:
| Google says Chicago has 45 days of full sun while Salt Lake
| City has 222 days. I think sun has much more to do with it than
| insects.
|
| It's the same reason Alaska can grow freakishly big produce in
| a short season. There's not much darkness during the growing
| season.
| tomrod wrote:
| Not that this applies to you, but coffee is definitely one of
| the things the Utah-based religions and metacultures should
| reconsider. Both coffee and tea are extraordinarily healthy
| compared to their more commonly preferred soda/diet sodas, and
| much more satisfying. Further, they already allow tea in
| subculture rulesets like Korea (one can speak with former
| proselytizers that sold the ideas in the region if doubt is
| one's initial thoughts). Most trace back their current
| adherence to cultural baggage of the same diet notions that led
| to Seventh day Adventists's diets, Wheaties, Kellogg Cereals,
| etc. Some great articles in _Dialogue_ for the Utah-metaculture
| based curious. It 's clear that the health advice banning
| coffee is a remnant of earlier times and currently operates as
| a shibboleth and token of obedience without merit.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| > It's clear that the health advice banning coffee is a
| remnant of earlier times and currently operates as a
| shibboleth and token of obedience without merit.
|
| How is what you're describing any different than most tenants
| of faith-based institutions?
| tomrod wrote:
| Solely that it is the one relevant to the current
| conversation regarding Utah and (dis)affinity for coffee.
| djha-skin wrote:
| It was given as a revelation from God[1]. This is not some
| doctrine that came about from a philospher. It came from the
| top.
|
| The same revelation discouraged tobacco use, the problems of
| which wasn't understood until much later. I assume the same
| will happen with caffeine, tannins, and other coffee/tea
| things.
|
| 1: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-
| test...
| tomrod wrote:
| I would argue that this isn't a good forum to discuss the
| relative merits of outsourcing one's morality to a
| corporation, nor the merits of closing oneself off to
| examination of belief in light of conflicting reality,
| hence the respectful circumspect language earlier.
|
| Regarding your comment here, it would be accurate to say it
| is currently enshrined by a small group of Utah-based
| religions and metacultures as divine and potentially even
| protective, and no one else really cares if said adherents
| drink or don't drink coffee. What isn't in doubt is that
| coffee and tea are healthier than soda, and that said Utah-
| based religious schisms allow Koreans and other East Asian
| areas to drink tea (along with South Americans to drink
| Yerba Mate) in contravention to their doctrine, so any
| alleged health benefits from adherence clearly isn't the
| focus and outward manifestation of obedience is the goal
| for the malleable rule.
|
| Other groups that have health codes that have a good
| physical basis:
|
| - Seventh-day Adventism, ~22 million, Vegetarianism
| encouraged, no alcohol, tobacco, or caffeine
|
| - Islam, ~2 billion (Sunni + Shia), No pork or alcohol;
| fasting during Ramadan; ritual slaughter
|
| - Judaism, ~15 million, No pork or shellfish; no mixing
| meat/dairy; specific slaughter methods Holiness, cultural
| cohesion, obedience to God's law
|
| - Sikhism, ~26 million, No alcohol, tobacco, or drugs;
| vegetarianism in some sects; uncut hair (kesh)
|
| - Rastafarianism, ~1 million, Vegetarian or vegan, no
| alcohol, processed foods, or salt; often no caffeine
|
| - Jainism, ~4-5 million, Strict vegetarianism, often no
| root vegetables, no alcohol
|
| - Hare Krishna (ISKCON), ~1 million+, No meat, eggs, fish,
| onions, garlic, or caffeine; food must be offered to
| Krishna
|
| - Baha'i Faith, ~5-8 million, Abstain from alcohol; annual
| 19-day fast (sunrise to sunset)
|
| - Brighamite Mormonism (LDS), ~3-5 million (regular
| attending), abstain from coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco; no
| longer adhering to low meat consumption or beer
| (encouraged, not considered a strong drink, circa 1825
| liquors like whiskey were considered ills, wasn't until
| Prohibition in the 1930s that Brighamites added alcohol to
| banned list, and the 1960s/1970s entrenched through
| gatekeeping entrance for secret rituals, causing some
| ritual center managers to not be able to get their annual
| renewal)
| Straw wrote:
| Current models don't predict the climate overall getting drier
| with climate change- in fact average rainfall goes up slightly.
|
| Some areas will get drier, others (like the Sahara and Sahale
| for example) have and will get wetter.
| jddj wrote:
| > finding a droubt tolerant species which concerns itself with
| pesticide production may be difficult
|
| Tobacco, no?
| jessekv wrote:
| > In Asia and Australia, people tend to prefer tea.
|
| Maybe, but Taiwan and Australia have some of the best coffee
| these days.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| As an Australian i thought that was weird since we clearly
| favor coffee and have a very proud coffee culture so i looked
| it up.
|
| Turns out that statement is completely false. We drink more
| coffee than tea which matches my anecdotal experience.
|
| https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1399769/australia-regular...
| diob wrote:
| Yeah, given you bump into a different coffee shop every 100ft
| in Melbourne, I'd be surprised if tea was winning.
| sampullman wrote:
| Not to mention Vietnam and Indonesia, which are the second and
| third largest coffee producers in the world.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Robusta is doing just fine...
| https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2024/08/coffee-is-threa...
| jtbayly wrote:
| If, as the article says, you like instant coffee, then great.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Vietnam seems to like it, fine. Pretty popular in France and
| Germany, too. If you have ever had Bustelo, then you've had
| it.
| 6177c40f wrote:
| Robusta is great if you don't go with the low quality stuff.
| Good quality Vietnamese Robusta is very enjoyable (and much
| higher in caffeine than Arabica, which I think is a nice
| bonus).
|
| There's also the possibility of hybridizing Robusta and
| Arabica to get the best traits of both. A few hybrid
| varieties, such as Catimor, have existed on the market for a
| while. AFAIK Catimor has some of the hardiness of its parent
| Robusta.
|
| As always, you'll have the best experience if you buy whole
| beans and grind them yourself (or at least find a supermarket
| that lets you grind beans fresh). No instant coffee that
| currently exists will be able to compete with that.
| chris_va wrote:
| It is amazing how inefficient water use seems to be in plants.
|
| Dry biomass growth is ~1kg/m^2/year, wet maybe 4-5x that. But
| they see ~1m of rainfall, so 1000kg/m^2/year of water. The roots
| fail to take up some, but the rest seems to be ~99% lost due to
| transpiration (some of which is necessary for heat stress and/or
| pump up nutrients).
|
| Maybe after C4 rice we can get C4/CAM coffee?
| foundart wrote:
| Transpiration by plants, especially in large forested areas
| like the Amazon, plays an important role in creating future
| rainfall
| briandear wrote:
| Coffee crop failures have been around as long as there have been
| coffee crops, this idea that current coffee could go extinct is
| silly. Ideal locations for growing coffee can change and evolve
| over time, but an extinction event? C'mon. If that were to
| happen, there would be any people left to care.
|
| Literally everything is blamed on climate change these days. Too
| much snow? Climate change. Too little snow? Also climate change.
|
| A few years ago I was climbing Mont Blanc and the rockfall due to
| a warmer winter was blamed on climate change, then a few years
| later: near-record snow. It's taking on religious overtones:
| rather than things happening because it's God's will -- now it's
| "climate."
|
| I am not denying that the climate changes, I am only calling out
| that literally every mishap in the natural world is being blamed
| on it. There is a lot of money in that business.
| jpalawaga wrote:
| So you're not denying climate change, just the effects of it.
| I'm not sure that's any better.
|
| We call it climate change because warmer weather produces
| higher variance in weather patterns--you're adding entropy into
| the system. Overall warmer, but more rain (and mud/rockslides),
| more wind, more lightning, etc etc.
| rmah wrote:
| As I read it, he's not denying the effects either. He's just
| saying that not _everything_ bad that happens wrt climate and
| weather is due to "climate change". Sometimes, it's just
| variations, which have always happened.
| ars wrote:
| These days _everything_ is blamed on climate change. And
| when people point out natural variation, they get bashed.
|
| A recent example is the CA fires, there is zero evidence
| linking them to climate change - they did a study and found
| no effect - which of course was reported as "climate change
| to blame".
| inetknght wrote:
| > _there is zero evidence linking them to climate change
| - they did a study and found no effect_
|
| Can you point to this study? Or at least point to this
| "they" to whom you're referring?
| siffin wrote:
| What are you talking about? The burden is on you to
| explain how manipulating the chemical makeup of the
| atmosphere DOESN'T have a direct impact, even at the
| tiniest levels (1ppm).
|
| At the levels we're at now, CO2e imbalances definitely
| impact every single weather event on the planet to some
| degree, and you'd have to be delusional not to accept
| that.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Climate change doesn't mean it only gets warmer, it means you
| get more extreme weather outcomes. Your anecdotes are a good
| example of climate change in action.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| You don't need an "extinction event" to hurt coffee production
| so much that drinking it (especially Arabica) becomes an
| expensive luxury due to lack of supply. Crops that are grown
| only in particular parts of the world will suffer the most from
| localized unusual weather patterns, as there won't be
| production from elsewhere to compensate.
|
| Also, it takes some time to move production elsewhere. And if
| climate change continues to get worse, you can't really trust
| any place to have a consistent climate.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| 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.
| sriacha wrote:
| 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.
| jfarina wrote:
| Can you rebrand a species? Drinking vomitoria sounds less
| than appetizing.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Yes you can. See Patagonian Toothfish -> Chilean Seabass.
| soperj wrote:
| Or Chinese Gooseberry -> Kiwi Fruit.
| ghc wrote:
| To be fair, a lot of Asian ingredients have picked up
| such weird English translations that they could use a
| rebrand. Case in point: "Prickly pear ash" is an
| amazingly unappetizing translation of the spice's proper
| name, sansho or sancho.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Is that prickly ash? Like a toothache tree with all the
| sharp spikes on the trunk?
|
| It looks like sancho is the berry produced by the tree.
| The leaves look similar to our toothache tree or Hercules
| Club as some call it. I know that the bark here in
| NAmerica has been used as a local anesthetic for a long
| time. It produces a tingly, numbing sensation when it
| becomes wet. I have used the bark to numb gums or throat
| pain. I never tried the berries.
|
| My tree here died in the last drought. It was a birdshit
| variety since it was growing along the fence. The seed
| was dropped by a bird as it rested on the fence and I got
| a tree as a result! Gotta wait for the next one I guess.
| ghc wrote:
| Different tree, same genus. I'm not sure if all species
| (of 250+) in the genus have edible fruit, but the berries
| of several Asian species are harvested for spices,
| including Sichuan Peppercorns, which are made from the
| dried berries.
|
| I would bet that the flavor (citrusy, with a numbing
| effect) is similar among all the species, but varies in
| strength and pungency. I'm not sure if I would bet that
| any species is safe to eat, however.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I'll need to look into the ways the tree was used by
| Native Americans and early settlers. I have known about
| the use of the bark for decades but don't recall anything
| about other parts of the tree. Thanks for the
| information.
| jrapdx3 wrote:
| "Prickly ash" is an ingredient in Chinese cuisine,
| particularly Szechuan cooking. We buy it in quantity at
| Asian groceries where it's pretty inexpensive.
|
| In the US it's known as "Szechuan peppercorn". Preparing
| it for use requires carefully inspecting a handful for
| stems and thorns (which can be quite big), pan toasting
| and crushing/grinding to a coarse powder.
|
| As pointed out in the sister comment, the spice has a
| mild numbing effect which counters the heat of chilis.
| Adding a little to hot dishes makes the flavor more
| complex and enjoyable.
|
| For people who like to cook it's an ingredient worth
| experimenting with across culinary boundaries.
| ghc wrote:
| Part of the problem with the English translations is this
| ambiguity. Sansho comes from a different species
| (Zanthoxylum piperitum) of the same genus, native to
| Japan and Korea. The flavor is different, but
| reminiscent. I keep both sansho and red Sichuan
| peppercorns for use in different dishes.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Oilseed rape / rapeseed became canola. Anything is
| possible.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| 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.
| diob wrote:
| 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.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| 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.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| 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.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| 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.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > 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.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| 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.
| chasil wrote:
| 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."
| thousand_nights wrote:
| 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
| chrislongss wrote:
| 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.
| spookie wrote:
| 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.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Try loose leaf tea, specifically roasted oolong, black
| teas, or pu erh. r/tea has a good wiki on which reputable
| vendors to buy from [0].
|
| [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/wiki/vendors/page_01
| squircle wrote:
| 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.
| Loughla wrote:
| 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.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| I always thought it was called that because it was used by
| native Americans to make 'black drink' which they consumed
| ceremonially, tending to vomit afterwards.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| 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.
| awaymazdacx5 wrote:
| Caffeine mgs for various brewed extracts can be lower than a cup
| of coffee. Even decaf still contains <.002mg, remain static over
| the designated beverage half-life. For third-wave, light roast
| blooms, containing more acid, the caffeine content is punctuated.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| The world is addicted to stimulants. It is very disheartening.
| connicpu wrote:
| Some people just like the flavor, personally I drink a cup of
| decaf every evening. Of course, a LOT are addicted to caffeine.
| The most normalized addiction in the world ahead of alcohol and
| nicotine, although those are becoming more stigmatized over
| time.
| histriosum wrote:
| I personally love the taste of coffee. If decaffeinated were
| able to achieve the same flavors, I'd be quite happy with it.
| Unfortunately, it doesn't taste at all the same.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| I will not consume caffeine and tbh the rest of you need to
| slow down. Modern life runs on stimulants and caffeine is a
| whip at the back of the worker. I know this forum doesn't
| give a damn about worker's rights, but I do, and man I am
| _tired of all this_.
| histriosum wrote:
| Your personal choice is fine for you. My personal choice is
| to enjoy a cup or two of coffee per day, because I love the
| way it tastes, not because I want or need the caffeine. I
| currently don't have regular employment, as I am attempting
| a career change, but my coffee consumption doesn't change
| when I'm on a job.
|
| With respect, I think your worldview needs to widen out a
| bit. Just because there are lots of worker exploitation
| issues going on the world doesn't mean that everything fits
| in that lens. Some of us like coffee, and that doesn't mean
| it's because we like or accept a "whip at the back".
| Henchman21 wrote:
| We can agree to disagree
| inetknght wrote:
| I also care about workers' rights.
|
| Stimulants are a problem, but I do not see stimulants as
| detrimental to workers' rights.
|
| I see stimulants as a problem for healthcare though. I know
| people who have heart problems that are exacerbated by
| stimulants. But that's not a problem for everyone -- just
| as diabetes or heart disease are prevalent, nor a problem
| for everyone, and nor are they detrimental to workers'
| rights.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| When I heard the tale of how the coffee break came to be
| -- created so workers wouldn't need an afternoon break --
| I find myself unable to separate the coffee from that
| fact. It was a tool used by Capitalists to keep the
| workers _working_. Now its so prevalent that no one can
| see the original causes.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I find myself unable to separate the coffee from that
| fact_
|
| Well at least you admit it.
|
| > _Now its so prevalent that no one can see the original
| causes._
|
| I know plenty of people who drink coffee without taking a
| break to do so. I know plenty of people who drink coffee
| and are more productive outside of work than people who
| do not drink coffee at all. I know plenty of employers
| who do _not_ provide coffee breaks nor free coffee.
|
| Moreover, if drinking coffee makes someone pleasant to be
| around while not-drinking coffee makes that same person
| un-pleasant to be around, then perhaps the productivity
| benefits and original causes aren't so important anymore.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Fair points. I do admit it! I expect no one to jump
| onboard from this community. I may be unreasonable --
| wouldn't be the first time I have been accused of such,
| nor would it be the first time I agreed.
|
| It is a real problem IMO. So many of us are perpetually
| exhausted. Unable to sleep. Jittery and fidgety. And as
| you say: _unpleasant to be around when withdrawing!_
|
| These are the hallmarks of this addiction. To me the
| thing that is important NOW is getting people to see how
| deeply this has hurt humanity. But then, I also agreed
| with the premise of the Unabomber's manifesto -- while
| disagreeing wildly with his decisions on how to
| counteract what he saw.
|
| This is a hill I am probably willing to die on.
|
| Edited to add: I appreciate the conversation and not just
| a downvote, thank you
| vmwareuser-020 wrote:
| Liberica, which is already popularized in Malaysia, is another
| type of coffee that's resistant to heat and droughts.
|
| I'm introducing some plants to a rural community in Panama that
| had its Robusta crops ruined by the harsh summers we've
| experienced over the past couple of years.
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