Farmers Establish Company to Cultivate Tea in America

Des Keller
Contributing Editor

On a small farm near Crescent City, Florida, Bryon and Kyle White are using drip irrigation and row-crop cultivation to raise a plant -- yaupon holly. It was a staple for tea in North America for centuries, but it was nearly lost to history.

Sitting on the ground amid several acres of young yaupon plants, Bryon White describes their business cultivating a plant that grows naturally in southern coastal areas from Virginia to Texas.

"This is North America's only caffeinated indigenous plant species," he says. The plants are started in a tissue culture and planted in the ground at about 8 inches tall. It takes two to three years before they are ready to harvest.

The leaves are harvested and dried on racks in a nearby building then crushed, processed and packaged for tea -- and historically popular tea at that. The company the Whites founded, Yaupon Brothers American Tea Co., has put more than 250,000 plants (their own cultivars) in the ground the past two years.

While those yaupon plants mature, the company has continued to harvest from plants growing naturally elsewhere. For instance, they have an agreement with the city of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, to selectively harvest yaupon leaves along municipal nature trails.

READING THE TEA LEAVES

Bryon White, a self-described plant nerd with a particular interest in native vegetation, had years ago taken note of the pretty plant growing across the street from his Florida house.

He would eventually come to read the academically defining "Black Drink, A Native American Tea," by Charles M. Hudson, a University of Georgia history professor. That would lead him to a joint study of the plant as tea by a team of researchers from the University of Florida and Texas A&M University.

That 2009 research paper outlined yaupon holly's value as a caffeinated source rich in antioxidants. Yaupon is similar to another product sometimes seen in the U.S.: yerba mate. Yerba mate is also a holly plant, one native to South America.

Sporting shiny oval green leaves and red berries (the female plants), yaupon (pronounced yoe pon) has been a popular ornamental shrub or tree for decades. However, knowledge of it as a source of tea nearly vanished. Indigenous people, however, have used yaupon for thousands of years as tea, medicine and in spiritual ceremonies.

European colonists and settlers continued drying the leaves and using yaupon for tea after their arrival here. The plant as tea continued until about 200 years ago, when imports of tea from Asia -- along with what may have been a smear campaign against yaupon -- caused the plant's popular use to fade.

The Whites, along with a handful of other entrepreneurs, have brought back yaupon as an American-grown alternative to caffeinated tea grown elsewhere.

HOW IT'S DONE

Yaupon Brothers American Tea Co. cultivates the plant in Alabama and Mississippi, as well as Florida and just recently expanded into Louisiana. The trees are planted 2 1/2 feet apart on centers with 10 feet between rows. Generally, the goal is to grow about 2,600 plants per acre.

The tree's natural resistance to bugs means the Whites generally don't have to use pest prevention. They do use ground barriers to suppress weed growth. Yaupon has a fibrous root system that sprouts "suckers," or new tiny trees, which is why natural yaupon often grows in thickets.

"We have to mow them down," White says of any sprouting suckers outside the rows.

Though the trees are nitrogen loving, the Whites are sparing in the use of fertilizer. Extra nutrients encourage the plant to put out new growth as opposed to new leaves. Most irrigation and fertilization takes place in the summer.

By the time a cultivated field of yaupon is in its fourth year, it can harvest 5,200 to 7,800 pounds per acre. In the third year -- the first year of harvest -- the yield is lower because the Whites "optimize bush architecture" to encourage more growth. They harvested their first cultivated yaupon crop in 2023 and their first harvest picked in the wild in 2012.

Once harvested, leaves can be either air-cured for four to seven days or roasted over an open flame to a smoke point. Yaupon Brothers does both, depending on the desired flavor profile of the end product. The leaves go from harvest to packaged tea within a week.

One advantage to yaupon as a crop: As evergreens in a southern climate, harvest can take place year-round depending on demand.

"When my brother and I realized what great tea this made from a plant growing naturally, we thought, 'This will make us instantly rich,'" White says. "Obviously, that didn't happen. We've spent 10 years learning how to propagate our own cultivars and creating a supply chain."

BUILDING A MARKET

The brothers knew they wanted to create their own brand as opposed to selling in bulk to other labels. "Bulk sales are not our business. The margins suck, and we can barely keep up with our sales right now," he continues.

They've also worked to give credit to natives who have long used this product. "We do honor and acknowledge the provenance of yaupon. This is an indigenous product," White says. This is reflected in the tea's packaging and the words on its website.

He estimates it costs up to $10,000 per acre to establish cultivated yaupon. That's necessary for the long term, as yaupon quality in the wild is "highly variable," and it grows more slowly.

About 30% of the company's sales are direct-to-consumer, mostly through its website. A package containing 16 tea bags (0.84 ounces) sells for $11.99 online.

The company also sells to Whole Foods, Walmart and several smaller or regional organic stores. In 2023, Whole Foods named yaupon tea as one of its top 10 food trends.

"It's been a big lift educating consumers about what yaupon is," White explains. "This gives us a remarkable opportunity to onshore an industry whose product has been imported from 7,000 miles away."

In an era marked by fervent cries of "Buy American," that seems like something to which we can all raise a cup of tea.

TEA WITH A HISTORY

The fact that yaupon has been used in the U.S. for tea the past 8,000 years seems to belie the notion it is a new trend.

The first Spanish colonists in Florida reportedly drank cassina -- as they called yaupon tea -- daily. The name cassina was likely derived from the extinct native Timucuan language. English settlers in North Carolina called it yaupon, the term used for the plant in the Catawba language.

Yaupon was initially exported to Europe as "Carolina tea" and "South Sea tea." In France, it was called "appalachine," likely a reference to the Apalachee people in what is now northwest Florida.

Then along came noted British botanist and horticulturist of Scottish origin William Aiton in the late 1700s. As the gardener to "His Majesty," Aiton is infamously credited with giving yaupon its scientific name: Ilex vomitoria. Ilex is the genus known as holly, while vomitoria translates to, well, what you might imagine.

Let's be clear: Yaupon tea does not make a person vomit. But, it may have been used in indigenous rituals where participants binged on yaupon tea (probably with other ingredients) to the point of becoming sick.

It is also possible that Aiton assigned that scientific name to yaupon as a favor to the East India Co., the British behemoth that held a monopoly on the tea trade from Asia in the 17th century. The company may well have seen yaupon as a threat to British-traded tea that grew in regions in America under the control of France and Spain.

Also, the wealthy plantation class in the colonies, then the United States, came to eschew yaupon in favor of more expensive imported tea. The easy access to and affordability of yaupon made it "declasse," according to Charles M. Hudson's book "Black Drink: A Native American Tea."

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-- For more information, visit https://yauponbrothers.com/…

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