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Your new cuppa? leaves from the South American Guayusa holly tree -- high in caffeine, amino acids, anti-oxidants, and marketing potential.[/caption]
Listen. Can you hear the probiotic, anti-oxidant, fad-mongers rolling out one new must-try, herbal panacea after another? The process is continual now, because the more we look at common plants, the more goodness we discover. In a world where Yew tree bark goes from being a waste product of the forestry industry to the source of Paclitaxel, a potentially powerful anti-cancer drug, any plant that isn't under the microscope for close re-examination only has to wait it's turn.
So, move over green coffee bean extract, here comes holly -- you know the stuff -- red berries, spiky, green leaves -- long used in many Western countries to make wreathes, and other decoration for the Christmas season -- holly is quietly being reinvented, and reinterpreted, on the basis of a growing appreciation (at least in the Northern hemisphere) of it's chemical, and commercial, properties. There are lots of varieties of holly; bushes, shrubs, and trees -- nearly all contain xanthines, such as caffeine,. The toxicity in English holly is due to high amounts of Theobromine, a caffeine-like, xanthine compound, which acts as a stimulant when it's present in small quantities, such as in chocolate.
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Click image to enlarge.[/caption]
The big three known caffeinated holly trees are:
It has to be said that this isn't news to South Americans. Mate is a traditional, and very popular, hot beverage in parts of subtropical South America, such as northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, southern Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Guayusa is just as common a drink among Ecuadorans, and the same would probably be true with yaupon among aboriginal peoples in subtropical North America, if Europeans hadn't, you know, wiped out most of the First Nations cultures.
The Ecuadoran cup of tea, guayusa, is not only loaded with caffeine, but also contains the stimulant theobromine, common to chocolate, and contains L-theanine, a glutamic acid analog found in green tea that may aid in stress reduction. Guayusa also contains all the essential amino acids humans need, and has a “high antioxidant activity,” with about twice the ORAC antioxidant values (58μM per gram), as commercial green teas (28-29μM per gram).
The same Wikipedia entry where most of the above paragraph was ripped from, adds that there's been little research into the medical benefits of guayusa, but one study has shown that ingesting guayusa helped reduce hyperglycemia and other side-effects of Type 1 diabetes in an animal model.
Hard to find comparable numbers, but the state laboratory of the Canton of Basel, Switzerland, has this handy PDF (in English) breaking down the caffeine content in coffee. In their tabular data, they don't explicitly specify whether they're analyzing arabica or robusta beans. "Instant" generally means robusta, and "espresso" means dark-roasted, but also generally dark-roasted arabica.
The Basel state lab says "the caffeine content of raw coffee (Arabica type) is 0.8-2.5%, and may be as high as 4.0% for Robusta varieties." Wikipedia lists the caffeine content in guayusa at 2.90-3.28% by dry weight.
Basel says an 80 ml cup of espresso contains 70-80 mg of caffeine; 125 ml cup of filter coffee -- 60-100 mg of caffeine; a heaped teaspoon of instant, only 50-60 mg of caffeine.
One poster on this page wrote:
this energyfiend page says there's 90 mg of caffeine in an 8 fl. oz. cup of guayusa tea -- way more than green tea. Runa, a bottled Guayusa Tea, says on it's FAQ, each 14 fl. oz. (414 ml) bottle it contains 90 mg of caffeine. This Google search has Google top-lining the stat of 95 mg of caffeine per 8 fl. oz. (237 ml).
An incidental fact these searches turn up is one Arabica-pushers like Starbucks don't want coffee drinkers to know -- that the cheaper robusta beans (what your parent coffee was made from) has, on average, twice the caffeine content as arabica beans, and of course, the darker the roast the more caffeine gets burned off -- but I digress.
Basically guayusa is comparable to, or betters the caffeine content in arabica coffee, plus it contains all the essential amino acids the human body can't make, but need to make proteins, and it has anti-oxidants coming out it's wazoo, plus other cool stuff to boot. So it's only a matter of time before we start seeing newspaper, and magazine articles -- and blog posts -- extolling the health benefits of the new "wonder drink" from South America. You've been warned.
Your new cuppa? leaves from the South American Guayusa holly tree -- high in caffeine, amino acids, anti-oxidants, and marketing potential.[/caption]Listen. Can you hear the probiotic, anti-oxidant, fad-mongers rolling out one new must-try, herbal panacea after another? The process is continual now, because the more we look at common plants, the more goodness we discover. In a world where Yew tree bark goes from being a waste product of the forestry industry to the source of Paclitaxel, a potentially powerful anti-cancer drug, any plant that isn't under the microscope for close re-examination only has to wait it's turn.
So, move over green coffee bean extract, here comes holly -- you know the stuff -- red berries, spiky, green leaves -- long used in many Western countries to make wreathes, and other decoration for the Christmas season -- holly is quietly being reinvented, and reinterpreted, on the basis of a growing appreciation (at least in the Northern hemisphere) of it's chemical, and commercial, properties. There are lots of varieties of holly; bushes, shrubs, and trees -- nearly all contain xanthines, such as caffeine,. The toxicity in English holly is due to high amounts of Theobromine, a caffeine-like, xanthine compound, which acts as a stimulant when it's present in small quantities, such as in chocolate.
The hollies which can give coffee a run for it's money
[caption id="attachment_6368" align="alignright" width="181"]
Click image to enlarge.[/caption]The big three known caffeinated holly trees are:
- Ilex Guayusa: Holly tree native to the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest. The caffeine is contained in the leaves, which are dried and brewed like tea.
- Ilex paraguariensis: Better known as yerba mate. Mate is very popular across subtropical Latin America. Western coffee houses commonly offer it now as a caffeinated tea beverage.
- Ilex vomitoria: also known as yaupon holly. Native to subtropical, Southwestern North America. Native peoples used to make a caffeinated tea called asi or black drink. It is commercially available as a tea.
It has to be said that this isn't news to South Americans. Mate is a traditional, and very popular, hot beverage in parts of subtropical South America, such as northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, southern Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Guayusa is just as common a drink among Ecuadorans, and the same would probably be true with yaupon among aboriginal peoples in subtropical North America, if Europeans hadn't, you know, wiped out most of the First Nations cultures.
Guayusa leafs coffee in the dust
The Ecuadoran cup of tea, guayusa, is not only loaded with caffeine, but also contains the stimulant theobromine, common to chocolate, and contains L-theanine, a glutamic acid analog found in green tea that may aid in stress reduction. Guayusa also contains all the essential amino acids humans need, and has a “high antioxidant activity,” with about twice the ORAC antioxidant values (58μM per gram), as commercial green teas (28-29μM per gram).
The same Wikipedia entry where most of the above paragraph was ripped from, adds that there's been little research into the medical benefits of guayusa, but one study has shown that ingesting guayusa helped reduce hyperglycemia and other side-effects of Type 1 diabetes in an animal model.
Comparing caffeine between beans and leaves: Apples, and oranges
Hard to find comparable numbers, but the state laboratory of the Canton of Basel, Switzerland, has this handy PDF (in English) breaking down the caffeine content in coffee. In their tabular data, they don't explicitly specify whether they're analyzing arabica or robusta beans. "Instant" generally means robusta, and "espresso" means dark-roasted, but also generally dark-roasted arabica.
The Basel state lab says "the caffeine content of raw coffee (Arabica type) is 0.8-2.5%, and may be as high as 4.0% for Robusta varieties." Wikipedia lists the caffeine content in guayusa at 2.90-3.28% by dry weight.
Basel says an 80 ml cup of espresso contains 70-80 mg of caffeine; 125 ml cup of filter coffee -- 60-100 mg of caffeine; a heaped teaspoon of instant, only 50-60 mg of caffeine.
One poster on this page wrote:
"A cup of straight guayusa contains about 90 mg of caffeine per cup, which is about (or less than) a cup of coffee but also lower than some cups of matcha [green tea]."
this energyfiend page says there's 90 mg of caffeine in an 8 fl. oz. cup of guayusa tea -- way more than green tea. Runa, a bottled Guayusa Tea, says on it's FAQ, each 14 fl. oz. (414 ml) bottle it contains 90 mg of caffeine. This Google search has Google top-lining the stat of 95 mg of caffeine per 8 fl. oz. (237 ml).
An incidental fact these searches turn up is one Arabica-pushers like Starbucks don't want coffee drinkers to know -- that the cheaper robusta beans (what your parent coffee was made from) has, on average, twice the caffeine content as arabica beans, and of course, the darker the roast the more caffeine gets burned off -- but I digress.
Basically guayusa is comparable to, or betters the caffeine content in arabica coffee, plus it contains all the essential amino acids the human body can't make, but need to make proteins, and it has anti-oxidants coming out it's wazoo, plus other cool stuff to boot. So it's only a matter of time before we start seeing newspaper, and magazine articles -- and blog posts -- extolling the health benefits of the new "wonder drink" from South America. You've been warned.
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