Lost Pines Yaupon Tea

Lighter and more vegetal – more grassy, maybe – than this company’s other yaupon, it’s got a ‘brisk’ sort of taste. I’m not sure if the caffeine content is higher than that of other yaupons I’ve tried, but there’s definitely more bitterness, which gives it the sensation of being stronger.

The dry leaf smells like caramel gone a bit off. The brew smells and tastes like autumn leaves – not much holly flavour is detectable compared to lighter-processed yaupons I’ve tried. The odd caramel-like scent does not translate to the taste of the brewed yaupon.

While the leaves float on the surface of the water to begin with, after absorbing sufficient fluid they uniformly sink to the bottom of the cup, making this very suitable for grandpa-style brewing.

This is a very strange tea. I’m supposed to be cutting back on caffeine, so technically this isn’t an acceptable option…but I had to give it a try.

It brews up greenish gold and has a mellow grassy taste to it. Not like green tea grassy, more like the way the high desert smells around March – there’s a dusty back note and a little bit of what I’d almost call alkalinity; it reminds me of sitting on a cold, barren hill huddled underneath a scrubby little juniper at about 8am.

It’s woody and strange, but not bad. I’m not sure if I like it, but I’ll have no issues drinking this cup down…it’ll take a few more cups to determine if I’ll re-stock it, though.

The dry leaf smells roasty sweet, like hojicha candy. It also tastes mildly sweet and roasted. It kind of also tastes like a jujube tea that I have tried before. The last half of the cup is very slightly astringent.

This is not very boldly flavored. It is interesting and different. I would drink this tea again and will finish the 1 oz packet that I purchased, but I do not think I will purchase more of it. It just doesn’t have anything that really stands out about it.

Sipdown (710)!

Dark nutty, sour grassy oily mouthfeel buttery weirdness. If it’s not clear from my descriptors, I don’t like this tisane. I’m lowering my current rating of 51 to something more inline with my current feelings, and I’m just thankful I’m done with this tea now.

Yaupon is nasty.

Drinking a lukewarm mug of this currently – the temperature is doing it no favours. It’s kind of a roasted but still very sour and buttery grassy tasting profile. Something about it is actually, weirdly, reminding me of rancid butter!? I’m really struggling to finish this off, and I’m having that moment where (looking at my current rating of 75) I can only think “How did I ever enjoy this!?”…

So, for that reason, I’m finally lowering my rating…

Not a dark enough roast – still had that sour grassy note to it that I hate in yaupon. I mean, muched improved from the normal processing style; and drinkable. Your goal, as a tea, shouldn’t just be to taste “drinkable” though. It should be enjoyable, and not the sort of “just trying to finish this off” sort of experience I’m having with this…

My morning commute tea; made in a tea press.

It’s been a while since I last had this tea, but I wanted to revisit since I was DEFINITELY in need of that caffeine bump this morning and wasn’t really feeling a lot of my sweeter/fruitier yaupon/mate/guayusa options. This tasted pretty nice; still had a bit of that sour edge to it that I don’t love in yaupon teas all that much. The roasty characteristics are so nice though so I think I can largely forgive that grassy sourness. I want a darker roast, though…

Is there a “darkest roast” version of this!?

Hot cuppa enjoyed on the way home from a shift.

I don’t think I like this as much as I did when I first tried it; pretty sure it was reading as especially tasty then because it was the first time I had tried yaupon and not hated it so I was overly excited about it. I still think it’s good, and it’s definitely a pleasant version of yaupon that I can still enjoy, but that grassy sour quality seems stronger/more noticeable and is pulling me out of that place of enjoyment. Still pretty roasty and pleasant in its own right, though.

I am going to lower my rating down from the 83 it was sitting at, though.

Last tea left to try out of my November Sipsby subscription box!

I wasn’t thrilled to see this one in my box if I’m being completely honest; I haven’t had wide exposure to Yaupon tea before (in fact I don’t think I’ve had a straight one) but I’ve tried a few yaupon blends and I’ve yet to actually enjoy one. Most notably, the yaupon blend that DAVIDsTEA carries may actually be my least favourite tea currently sold by them and I very memorably described the taste of it as being similar “to the smell of a gerbil’s scent glands”. So, eww…

I was actually really pleasantly surprised by the one! Maybe it’s because it is a darker roast and that obviously affects flavour a lot but I though this one was actually super enjoyable! It has a very lovely roastyness similar to roasted yerba mate, with some nuttier undertones as well. Quite smooth as well; no astringency or bitterness from over roasting! Only aspect I didn’t love was that there was still a bit of a sharp/sour grassyness in the body of the sip but I mean it was still like 99% better than any flavour I’ve ever gotten from an unroasted Yaupon blend.

So yeah, this is something that’s actually drinkable and enjoyable for me! It was a really nice discovery for me, if nothing else. Also good to know that Yaupon isn’t something I hate in all forms.

Here’s Hoping Teabox – Round Six – Tea #34
I sipped this one a number of days ago but forgot to write a tasting note. I expected this to be like guayusa but either I used too many leaves or the water was too hot, resulting in a bitter brew. Definitely try this one, teaboxers, but treat it like a green tea with cooler water! It’s my fault though and not the tea.

I picked up a bag of this at the Houston Tea Festival last weekend. It reminds me of yellow tea, or maybe nettle leaf with more of a caffeine kick. This light roast is toasty, grassy, and tastes like sweet hay. A bit of a nutty caramel aftertaste at the end too. I think there might be too much caffeine for me, but I might try blending this with nettle, hojicha, or maybe cinnamon.

Remember how I somewhat recently reviewed a Roasted Yaupon? In that post I talked about the coolness that is the plant Ilex vomitoria, and I hinted at how in my next review of a Yaupon I would talk about the coolness that is its cultural history. Well I am finally getting around to it! Yaupon is an old drink, known as Asi or Black Drink, many Native American tribes used it as part of a purification ritual or before meetings (turns out caffeine makes for an alert brain) and it was slurped out of elegantly carved shells. But why, you might ask, is there vomit in its name…well, it was used in a purification ritual that sometimes (but not always) meant time to barf. It is up to a bit of historic debate as to whether or not other emetic herbs were added to the Asi or if the vomiting came from the huge amounts that were drunk, either way drinking a cup here and there luckily won’t make you hug the ivory throne (yay!) I think the most fascinating to me thing is several of the tribes that used Asi did not live in its native area and had to have it imported.

Really I could go on…a lot…Yaupon is a fascinating plant with a diverse history, I highly recommend at the very least reading the Wikipedia article on it. Since last look was at Lost Pines Yaupon Tea’s Dark Roast, now it is time for their Light Roast Yaupon Tea! Without the strong toasty notes of the previous Yaupon, this one I can really smell the greenness of the plant, which is pretty fun. Strong notes of holly leaves, boxwood leaves, hemp, spinach, hay, and turnip greens. It has a sharpness to it, sharp and green with underlying faintly sweet hint of fresh growth.

The aroma of the wet leaves (that are so fun to watch floating on top of the liquid) is sharp and subtly sweet, with notes of cut grass, holly leaves, boxwood leaves and spinach. There is also a distinct hint of turnip root and parsnip at the finish which I find immensely entertaining. The liquid has a real herbaceous tone to it, with sharp notes of hops and thyme mixed with hemp, spinach, and parsnip roots. It has a very delicate sweetness at the finish, but mostly the notes are green and fresh.

Yaupon is a strange tasting plant, that is something I will definitely say about it. Strange does not mean bad though, it just means describing this cup is kinda hard, it starts with an herbaceous sharpness, akin to holly leaves (which totally makes sense) and hops, with a slight bitterness like hops. This moves to cut grass and resinous sap with crushed boxwood, hemp, and spinach. The finish is sweet and uncannily like cooked parsnip and turnip roots, this lingers for quite some time. I find that if you let the cup cool most of the hop like bitterness fades and it is crisp, green, and slightly sweet.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/12/lost-pines-yaupon-tea-light-roast.html

Instead of my usual ‘here is what I have been up to today’ intro, I am going to dive straight into the tea, with a bit of history and botany! I am finally looking at some Yaupon, but before I do I want to talk about what it actually is. Ilex vomitoria, a member of the Holly family that also has Yerba Mate and Guayusa, however this version is fancy because it is the only native source of caffeine in the states. Grown in the South, this beautiful shrub shows up quite frequently growing wild and as ornamentation, in fact living in Georgia we used to grow the stuff. Sadly I was a youngin’ and was unaware of its use as a tea, though I can certainly say the smell of it is immensely familiar. Now before I go much farther, let’s take a look at that name, vomitoria…usually when a plant has something along that line in its name it means you will become best friends with your toilet (looking at you Russula emetica) but in this case, it was a misunderstanding. Used as one of the ingredients in Asi (or Black Drink) a ritual drink by the men of several Native American tribes that causes a lot of vomiting, it was assumed that the Yaupon was the cause of this, but clearly that is not the case.

Since I have two different Yaupons to review, I will save the history lesson (which is all sorts of awesome) for the next one, but now that you know what the plant is, that means it is time to taste the Lost Pines Yaupon Tea Dark Roast Yaupon Tea! The aroma of the finely chopped up leaves is something else, it blends cooked spinach, hemp, toast, holly leaves, olive leaves, boxwood leaves, bark, green beans…it is a complex pile of notes! It blends green leafy almost herbaceous tones with sweet roasted ones. I know this smell, recognized it immediately, but it was odd to smell it roasted, odd and comforting.

Brewing time! The aroma of the wet leaves (which float on the top of my brewing apparatus, which amuses me) is a blend of toasted sweetness and herbaceous green. Notes of cooked spinach and hemp blend with artichoke and holly leaves. It has a sharp quality, green and slightly resinous. The liquid sans leaves is a blend of toasted grains, dry fluffy loam, wet hay, and a touch of spinach…and lots of hemp. Fresh hemp twine with that distinct sharpness and earthiness.

I found the taste of this brew incredibly hard to describe, it has an acrid bitterness that is not necessarily unpleasant (like eating an unripe persimmon, THAT is unpleasant) it is very sharp without being mouth drying…after thinking and sipping, I realized I was actually tasting caffeine, I know this because when I was in school I just took caffeine supplements, and that taste lingered in my memory. After that initial acrid sharpness (that also reminds me of chewing on European holly leaves, I was a weird kid that needed to taste everything, this is also why I became obsessed with plant based toxicology) it fades to sweetness, blending herbaceous green notes, honey, cooked spinach, and distinct toasted barley. Yaupon is one of the more strange tasting herbal brews I have sipped, I can see how this was a ceremonial drink at one point…it has an unusual taste blended with a kick to the face of caffeine, I imagine drinking a ton of this in a ceremonial environment being quite the fascinating experience.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/11/lost-pines-yaupon-tea-dark-roast-yaupon.html