Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 140 posts

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#61

Post by nkozyra »

doodlebugging wrote: post #24

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea. It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year drought or regular floods though it does best in a situation where it gets regular rainfall. You may have some in your own yard used as a hedge plant. I have several large trees on my place. It spreads underground by suckers and will take over an area if you do…

> Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea

The problem isn't getting caffeine, though. You can buy a tub of 200mg caffeine pills for $3. People like coffee. Substituting coffee isn't just a matter of caffeine for drinkers.

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#63

Post by connicpu »

Henchman21 wrote: post #62

The world is addicted to stimulants. It is very disheartening.

Some people just like the flavor, personally I drink a cup of decaf every evening. Of course, a LOT are addicted to caffeine. The most normalized addiction in the world ahead of alcohol and nicotine, although those are becoming more stigmatized over time.

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#64

Post by Kirby64 »

chongli wrote: post #58
ifellover wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. As an avid home coffee roaster, this is interesting to learn. I find that decaf also really struggles to “crack” when roasting, and emits way less smoke. I guess that’s because there’s perhaps nothing left to really crack anymore?

This makes sense! The coffee has expanded a lot from the decaf process so it's not going to expand as much during roasting, hence no "crack" (which is really the same kind of process as popcorn popping)! The reduced smoke may be due to the removal of the skins and residual dried fruit which would have been washed away along with the caffeine, whereas I would expect a natural process coffee to produce a lot more smoke…

Less-so that it has expanded from the decaf process, and more-so that the additional porosity leads to the 'crack' you get from reaching that critical temperature is much less violent, since there's essentially already many micro-fractures in the bean. Think of it like attempting to burst a pipe with a leak in it, vs. a pipe that is sealed. The leak will bleed off pressure, so you need much more flow (in coffee roasting, this would be power from heat) to get the same build up and explosion.

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#65

Post by doodlebugging »

nkozyra wrote: post #61
doodlebugging wrote: post #24

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea. It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year drought or regular floods though it does best in a situation where it gets regular rainfall. You may have some in your own yard used as a hedge plant. I have several large trees on my place. It spreads underground by suckers and will take over an area if you do…

> Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea The problem isn't getting caffeine, though. You can buy a tub of 200mg caffeine pills for $3. People like coffee. Substituting coffee isn't just a matter of caffeine for drinkers.

I agree. You can get your caffeine boost from a pill if that floats your boat. I too love coffee and for a variety of reasons. I was only mentioning that there is a native plant that produces caffeine and has a pleasant taste so that it could serve as a caffeine (or tea) substitute in the event that supplies of real coffee became unreliable for any reason.

I drink lots of coffee and various teas.

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#66

Post by doodlebugging »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #60
doodlebugging wrote: post #24

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea. It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year drought or regular floods though it does best in a situation where it gets regular rainfall. You may have some in your own yard used as a hedge plant. I have several large trees on my place. It spreads underground by suckers and will take over an area if you do…

The naming of yaupon really ticks me off, of all the things that should get a scientific rename it's yaupon, clearly it was a successful marketing effort by the Empire, er, by the British to knock out a delicious and ubiquitous competitor.

I can see the guy now as the realization that this native plant could undermine the British East India tea trade if people came to enjoy yaupon tea. It probably didn't take any convincing to get him to assign such an uninviting name to the plant and in doing so, save one of the British Empire's main trade items.

It was definitely a chickenshit move on his part though.

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#67

Post by garciasn »

delecti wrote: post #35
garciasn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the chocolate type and how much you're eating. Milk chocolate has very low levels (~2mg per 28oz), but dark chocolate is ~15mg per 28oz. Coffee, at 24oz, would be around 275mg, depending. I find it hard to believe that some folks would feel the caffeine in chocolate unless they ate an entire dark chocolate bar in one sitting, but I suppose it's possible.

I think that 28oz of dark chocolate, whether weight or volume, would be a ludicrous amount to eat in one sitting. A chocolate bar is about 1.5 oz (and 1 fluid ounce of water weighs 1 ounce, at least to a rough approximation), so to eat 28 you'd need to eat nearly 20 chocolate bars. For that matter 24oz is rather a lot of coffee to drink at once. I brew my daily coffee with 200g of water, or only about 7 floz.

While I realize I'm an outlier, I do NOT consider 24oz of coffee a lot, nor does anyone I know--that's literally a standard coffee cup at a coffee shop these days. At a minimum, I'm drinking 3 pots (~180oz) of coffee a day, with my usual being 3-4x that amount.

So; with that said, while I believe that eating 28oz of chocolate is a lot, I guess it could happen :-)

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#68

Post by histriosum »

Henchman21 wrote: post #62

The world is addicted to stimulants. It is very disheartening.

I personally love the taste of coffee. If decaffeinated were able to achieve the same flavors, I'd be quite happy with it. Unfortunately, it doesn't taste at all the same.

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#69

Post by Kirby64 »

garciasn wrote: post #15
recursive wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I knew a woman who couldn't eat chocolate because she found the amount of caffeine to be too high. I think the causality went the other way in that case. I've been roughly caffeine free at certain intervals. Never felt anything from chocolate.

Depends on the chocolate type and how much you're eating. Milk chocolate has very low levels (~2mg per 28oz), but dark chocolate is ~15mg per 28oz. Coffee, at 24oz, would be around 275mg, depending. I find it hard to believe that some folks would feel the caffeine in chocolate unless they ate an entire dark chocolate bar in one sitting, but I suppose it's possible.

You might want to double-check your figures.

Ghiradelli claims their dark chocolate has 20mg per oz and their milk chocolate has 6 mg per ounce. [1]

That would mean eating a standard 3.5oz/100g chocolate bar would have 70mg of caffeine for dark, or 21mg for milk.

While 3.5oz is a lot in a sitting, 70mg is equivalent to a smallish cup of coffee.

[1] https://www.ghirardelli.com/product-faqs#:~:text=Dark%20choc...

Re: Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

#70

Post by doodlebugging »

diob wrote: post #46
doodlebugging wrote: post #24

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea. It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year drought or regular floods though it does best in a situation where it gets regular rainfall. You may have some in your own yard used as a hedge plant. I have several large trees on my place. It spreads underground by suckers and will take over an area if you do…

Maybe I’m just too deep into coffee at this point, but unless yaupon has different origins, processes, or varietals, I don’t really see folks in the specialty coffee world making the switch. That said, it is interesting, and I’d definitely give it a try. Some people do drink coffee just for the caffeine—but those folks aren’t usually worried about beans or brew methods. They’re just as likely to grab an energy drink…

I agree that there is no likelihood that coffee snobs are gonna jump to yaupon tea. I mentioned this really just to point out that there is a native plant here in North America that produces caffeine so if one day we wake up and supplies of the real beans are short or interrupted for long periods we will have something totally free to brew up for a caffeine hit. If you're out camping in an area where yaupon grows wild you can always grab a few leaves, wash them and dry them until they're brown, crush them and boil some tea water. No need for a late night cup of coffee that could keep you too wired to rest when you can enjoy a simple cup of yaupon tea that won't leave you wired.

I drink a lot of coffee too. I enjoy the flavor and hanging around without a cup of coffee feels strange. Sometimes I just add some boiling water to the dust in the coffee cup, stir it up and see what happens. I've certainly had worse at more gas stations than I care to remember.

Post reply on HN