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A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

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Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#21

Post by Baeocystin »

moultano wrote: post #4

This reminds me of the paw paw (not to be confused with the papaya which Australians call pawpaw) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/th... It's a fruit that seems tropical, a close relative of the custard apple or sitaphal that tastes like a pina colada. Yet it grows natively all over the eastern US. It's so common that in many places it's every third tree in the forest. I grew up in peak pawpa…

Pawpaws have very inconsistent harvests, don't ship well at all, and have a very short ready to eat -> overripe time.

They are also, like you note, absolutely delicious. I have two trees in my backyard. (You need two for them to pollinate and bear fruit.) But there are practical reasons why you don't see them for sale very often.

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#22

Post by taneq »

themodelplumber wrote: post #19

It's funny to read about "a caffeinated drink called x" when I just slice & dice Jet Alert tabs into whatever mix I'm having. There are mornings when 30mg is enough to push my intuition to extreme levels, and there are days when 100mg does nothing until I find the right song on the radio. I am using caffeine and ibuprofen as experimental tools to fight depression and keeping logs on how things go. So far it's amazing…

How long have you been doing this? I was drinking a ton of coffee every day (4-6 cups of strong drip coffee) for the last 2-3 years. It helped a lot with my motivation and general energy levels. Recently (in the last year or so) I started getting some pretty significant mood swings, I'd basically feel horrible every week for Monday/Tuesday. I also had some alarming blood pressure measurements (up to 150/110 or something) which finally prompted me to quit the coffee. Not only did that reduce my blood pressure down to 136/90 but the mood swings and general funk have pretty much gone too.

I still think coffee is great for short sprints / crunch time, but I don't think I'll go back to ongoing high levels of use.

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#23

Post by novia »

moultano wrote: post #4

This reminds me of the paw paw (not to be confused with the papaya which Australians call pawpaw) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/th... It's a fruit that seems tropical, a close relative of the custard apple or sitaphal that tastes like a pina colada. Yet it grows natively all over the eastern US. It's so common that in many places it's every third tree in the forest. I grew up in peak pawpa…

I ate a paw paw once, and since then I've been trying to find a definitely identified paw paw tree so I can recognize them in the wild. The fruit was so delicious and the seeds were really interesting and unique. If any of you are willing to show me a paw paw tree in person, please shoot me an email.

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#25

Post by tytytytytytytyt »

tyingq wrote: post #24

Postum[1] might be the opposite. Coffee for Mormons that didn't want to break the rules. I tried it, and it was awful. But ask any Mormon you know, and they usually at least know what it is. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum

You might like roasted barley. It's not awesome, but it's not bad, either.

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#26

Post by ggambetta »

"Mate", not "maté". I guess it's cool to add random accents to foreign words to make them look more exotic, but this changes the pronunciation of the word and in fact turns into a different one.

"Mate" refers to "yerba mate" (as in the article) or even the gourd used to consume it; it's also a common abbreviation of "jaque mate", "checkmate". "Maté", on the other hand, means "I killed".

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#27

Post by ppseafield »

QML wrote: post #16
innocentoldguy wrote: post #13

I have tried youpon tea at a cafe before and even purchased it here: https://lostpinesyaupontea.com . I like Yerba Mate quite well, so I wouldn’t say youpon in better, but I would say I like it equally well. It’s definitely worth a try.

How does it taste?

It tastes a lot like an earthy, grassy tea (Camellia sinensis). It's pretty good.

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#28

Post by moultano »

Baeocystin wrote: post #21
moultano wrote: post #4

This reminds me of the paw paw (not to be confused with the papaya which Australians call pawpaw) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/th... It's a fruit that seems tropical, a close relative of the custard apple or sitaphal that tastes like a pina colada. Yet it grows natively all over the eastern US. It's so common that in many places it's every third tree in the forest. I grew up in peak pawpa…

Pawpaws have very inconsistent harvests, don't ship well at all, and have a very short ready to eat -> overripe time. They are also, like you note, absolutely delicious. I have two trees in my backyard. (You need two for them to pollinate and bear fruit.) But there are practical reasons why you don't see them for sale very often.

I get why they aren't in supermarkets but it's so sad that they've dropped out of food culture almost entirely. They're so abundant in the woods around Cincinnati that they are hard to miss. I remember seeing one on the ground while camping as a kid, but had no idea what it was and neither did anyone around me.

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#29

Post by grzm »

ggambetta wrote: post #26

"Mate", not "maté". I guess it's cool to add random accents to foreign words to make them look more exotic, but this changes the pronunciation of the word and in fact turns into a different one. "Mate" refers to "yerba mate" (as in the article) or even the gourd used to consume it; it's also a common abbreviation of "jaque mate", "checkmate". "Maté", on the other hand, means "I killed".

For what it's worth, Wikipedia includes this explanation:

> "In English, "mate" is occasionally written "maté", to distinguish it from other meanings of the word mate, although this spelling is not used in Spanish or Portuguese."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerba_mate

A similar example is "résumé", so as to not be confused with "resume".

Going further down the Wikipedia hole, here's a page describing use of diacritics in English, which includes a subsection on "Accent-addition and accent-removal":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical...

Re: A Forgotten Drink That Caffeinated North America for Centuries

#30

Post by [deleted] »

tytytytytytytyt wrote: post #25
tyingq wrote: post #24

Postum[1] might be the opposite. Coffee for Mormons that didn't want to break the rules. I tried it, and it was awful. But ask any Mormon you know, and they usually at least know what it is. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum

You might like roasted barley. It's not awesome, but it's not bad, either.

[deleted]
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