Yaupon tea

A highly concentrated yaupon beverage was used in various rituals, including purification ceremonies,[5] by Yuchi,[6] Caddo,[7] Chickasaw,[8] Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Timucua, Chitimacha and other Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands.

[9][1] The preparation and protocols vary between tribes and ceremonial grounds; a prominent ingredient is the roasted leaves and stems of Ilex vomitoria.

[5] These observations led to the association of the drink with vomiting, and also to its modern scientific name, even though the yaupon leaf has no inherent emetic properties.

[10][1] According to the USDA, "modern chemical analysis of yaupon has found no emetic or toxic compounds, and caffeine concentrations are similar to many commercially marketed teas.

"[5] Yaupon tea was adopted by European colonists (initially the Spanish in Florida) as early as the 17th century, who drank it as a normal caffeinated beverage.

[5] Ilex vomitoria leaves contain active ingredients such as caffeine, theobromine, ursolic acid, and theophylline, just like the related yerba mate and guayusa hollies.

[17] A study by the University of Florida of the yaupon cultivar "Nana" found that the plant contained as much antioxidant potential as blueberries.

[16][18] According to the ethnohistorical record, the yaupon leaves and branches used for the "beloved drink" were traditionally picked as close to the time of its planned consumption as possible.

[23] Archaeologists have demonstrated the use of various kinds of "beloved drink" among Native American groups stretching back far into antiquity, possibly dating to Late Archaic times (8000 to 1000 BCE).

During the Hopewell period (100 BCE to 500 CE), the shell cups known from later black drink rituals become common in high-status burials along with mortuary pottery and engraved stone and copper tablets.

[25] During the Mississippian culture period (800–1600 CE), the presence of items associated with the black drink ceremony had spread over most of the south, with many examples from the cities of Cahokia, Etowah, Spiro, and Moundville.

[26] Archaeologists working at Cahokia, the largest Mississippian culture settlement located near the modern city of St. Louis, found distinctive and relatively rare pottery beakers dating from 1050 to 1250 CE.

The surfaces of the unfired vessels was incised with motifs representing water and the underworld and resemble the whelk shells known to have been used for the consumption of the beverage during historic times.

Three main species of marine shells have been identified as being used as cups for the black drink, lightning whelk, emperor helmet, and the horse conch.

The center columnella, which runs longitudinally down the shell, would be removed, and the rough edges sanded down to make a dipper-like cup.

In the archaeological record columnella pendants are usually found in conjunction with bi-lobed arrows, stone maces, earspools, and necklace beads (all of which are motifs identified with the falcon dancer/warrior/chunkey player mythological figure).

[32] The study "reveals widespread use of two different caffeinated plants, cacao and holly, as the basis for drinks used in communal, ritual gatherings" by "at least A.D.

Freshwater shells from Texas and Arkansas have been recovered from Pueblo Bonito, which have been used as possible evidence for the trade of Ilex vomitoria from the east.

[13] The removal of tribes to areas outside the natural range of Ilex vomitoria has been partially responsible for a decline in the preparation of the black drink among present Native Americans.

[36] Among the tribes of the Muscogee Creek confederacy, yaupon was consumed in ceremonial purification rites as well as in highly formal meetings.

In 1678 a bedridden cacica (a female chief) was given permission to brew and consume cacina in her house, on the condition that no one else could be present while she did so.

[39] The Timucua use of yaupon tea was also discussed by French explorers to Florida, who explained how it was used in purification ceremonies as an emetic by the men, with the tribal chief drinking first, and then the warriors.

After European contact with tribes in what is today the Southeastern United States, colonists began using the roasted leaves of the yaupon holly to make a tea similar to the Native beverage for daily drinking (not for ritual use).

It was first discussed by the 16th century Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in his La relación who writes of its use in ritual purification ceremonies:[13] They [Natives] drink there another thing that they make from the leaves of trees like that of the holly oak.... And that which they have drunk, they throw up, which they do very easily and without any shame.

[42][43] Yaupon was also drunk by the Spanish, as a French writer states "The Spaniards make great use of it over all Florida: it is even their ordinary drink.

[13] Yaupon tea was not just popular in the North American South, it was also traded and drunk in Europe, including in Paris and London.

It was at this time that the Scottish botanist William Aiton gave yaupon its controversial scientific name, Ilex vomitoria.

[13] [44][45] These small firms market yaupon tea as an organic, locally sourced, ethically harvested and environmentally conscious caffeinated drink.

[13][45] According to Folch "much of the yaupon sold by U.S.-based companies is organic—it is a popular hedge partly because it is endemic and requires no fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides and little to no watering—and is foraged or grown in small plots (even in Central Florida’s backyards).

[46] According to BBC reporter Matt Stirn, yaupon tea brews as "a yellow to dark-orange elixir with a fruity and earthy aroma and a smooth flavour with malty tones" and its "ratio of stimulating xanthines such as caffeine, theobromine and theophylline release slowly into the body, providing a jitter-free mental clarity and an ease to the stomach.