It’s not really food, but I made yaupon tea tonight. For those who don’t know, yaupon holly is a small evergreen tree that grows all over the south. It’s super common, and also the only plant native to the US with caffeine.
Most recipes for this tea call for just knocking off as many leaves as you can and roasting them right away. I decided that I might as well try treating it like actual tea — I picked a handful of young, fresh leaves yesterday, then bruised them and let them oxidize. I then let them dry out at room temperature. So, it’s almost like a black tea.
It’s absolutely
delicious — it’s very floral and complex. It’s not bitter at all (though it has a slight bit of the sort of astringency you get in some teas), and it’s very smooth. It’s like an excellent actual tea, but it’s
different in some way. It doesn’t exactly have the same sorts of flavors as normal tea, but it’s still really nice. It reminds me a bit of some oolong teas I’ve had. I’m about to try making a second steeping to see how it is.