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A New Day for Yaupon Tea You may not spend much time thinking about tea. Two UCF brothers want to change that.   Like "A New Day for Yaupon Tea" on FacebookTweet "A New Day for Yaupon Tea" on Twitter By Gene Kruckemyer ’73 Sit back, relax, and enjoy a sip of tea from the only caffeinated plant native to North America — an antioxidant-laden, jitterfree drink that’s been consumed for more than 10,000 years. Its name is yaupon [pronounced yoh-pon], and while popular in the distant past, it became known more as an ornamental rather than a food source in the...

I buy local and support small, independent businesses when possible, even when I travel. Unfortunately, my tea addiction hasn’t allowed that, at least until recently.

Usually, I use this space to groan about local politics and unmitigated growth. But this month, I've been given the green light to shamelessly plug my business--Yay!  So, I'll start with two questions. 1. Do you drink tea? 2. Do you know where your tea comes from? If you do drink tea, you aren't alone. 157 million Americans drink tea every day, and 99.9% of that tea is imported from overseas; mostly from Asia. The reason so much tea, (and I'm talking about the tea plant, camellia sinensis.), is imported, is because it's nearly impossible to grow quality tea in the continental...

For the better part of the past year, Abianne Falla, a founding member of the American Yaupon Association and co-founder of Cat Spring Yaupon, has been working with the Yaupon Brothers and other members of the AYA to help achieve GRAS, (Generally Recognized As Safe), status from the FDA. This is no easy task, and an important component of the case for Yaupon is that it was utilized outside of native ceremonial usage prior to 1958.  Yaupon was indeed available through trade. We can see evidence of Yaupon in the market from the 18th century journals of John Lawson, and...