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.

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.

"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."

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/wiki/vendors/page_01

I drink lots of coffee and various teas.

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.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea

Also to note Ilex vomitoria is in the same genus as yerba mate, Ilex paraguariensis.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It was definitely a chickenshit move on his part though.

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.)

How is what you're describing any different than most tenants of faith-based institutions?

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

- Baháʼí 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)

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.

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.

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.

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).

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?

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...

It’s the same reason Alaska can grow freakishly big produce in a short season. There’s not much darkness during the growing season.

I'd agree, less caffeine in the bean without decaffinating would lead to a better tasting coffee (if you want the lesser caffeine).

Tobacco, no?

Some areas will get drier, others (like the Sahara and Sahale for example) have and will get wetter.

James Hoffman did an interesting episode on this bean a few years ago, very cool the work being done.

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.

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.

Maybe, but Taiwan and Australia have some of the best coffee these days.

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...

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.

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.

If you want a jolt, make a matcha shot with the same mass of matcha as you would normally do for coffee ;)

For staying productive for hours, nothing beats Maté for me (except stimulant medication).

Kinda like ok you can eat a poppy but then there’s a reason morphine exists. (Sorry for the stupid analogy ;)

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.

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.

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...

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.

So; with that said, while I believe that eating 28oz of chocolate is a lot, I guess it could happen :-)

That's not just an outlier, that's absurd. At 100mg caffeine per 8oz of coffee, that's over 6 grams of coffee per day, or more than 15 times the amount generally considered safe.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

Can you point to this study? Or at least point to this "they" to whom you're referring?

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.

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".

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.

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.

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

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?