New Healthy Tea

June 25, 2009

A few steps outside your home you could one day find a daily dose of caffeine and a small dose of wellness. Ages ago, people brewed a beverage from the leaves of a yaupon holly tree. University of Florida researchers say it could prove a tasty and healthy drink in modern times, too.

Matthew Palumbo/UF Ecologist: “What people perhaps have growing in their backyard is not only something that is producing caffeine, but it’s also a form of a medicine, at least a preventative medicine, in that it’s producing these antioxidants.”

This particular holly is the only native U.S. plant that produces significant amounts of caffeine and researchers say the tea-like beverage it produces is the first of its kind in this country.

Matthew Palumbo/UF Ecologist: “Yaupon holly has antioxidants that are comparable to green tea, Asian green tea, which are among the highest concentration of antioxidants that you find in anything people are consuming.”

So, holly’s not just for decorating your Christmas tree; this caffeine-filled drink and its antioxidants can help protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer. At the University of Florida, I’m Merissa Richmond.