Will yaupon replace coffee and tea in the U.S.?

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Long used by Indigenous groups across the Southern United States, yaupon is North America’s only native caffeinated plant. Known by many Indigenous and colonized names, including cassina, asi, Carolina tea and Christmas berry, the yaupon plant is a landrace, evergreen holly variety that can grow up to 30 feet tall, appearing from North Carolina to East Texas. But even as it grows right under their noses and in their backyards, most Americans have probably never heard about yaupon.

That may start to change. Thanks to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the modern-day yaupon industry is ready and waiting for the plant’s potential resurgence.

Two and a half centuries ago, yaupon became part of a political movement. The Townshend Revenue Acts, which taxed a variety of common imports in the 1770s and allowed the British Parliament to meddle with the free market, brought colonial unrest to a boiling point. In that era of political boycott, colonists turned to tea alternatives made with a variety of herbs, fruits and indigenous plants, including yaupon. These “liberty teas” proved perfectly acceptable substitutes, until the American Revolution ended, the global tea trade returned, and yaupon was suddenly out of style again.

Starting in April 2025, the Trump administration rolled out a slew of steep protective tariffs on nearly all goods imported to the United States, including tea, which carried its highest tariff rate since the Tea Act of 1773. Although modern-day America is usually considered a coffee-drinking nation, we also import hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tea each year, largely from countries such as China and India. The United States can’t grow tea to the scale it consumes.

Caption from article by KC Hysmith.