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(From left) Founders of Project CommuniTea Crystal Stokes and Adam Weatherford
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Stokes pours tea using the gong fu cha style of brewing.
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During the yaupon iced tea and bar crawl, attendees are encouraged to post photos of their drinks to Instagram to be entered into a grand prize drawing.
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The Project CommuniTea tea dome, where tastings are held Monday through Friday
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A gong fu cha tea service
A Concord grape shrub topped with ube foam and sumac, an infused cachaca punch and a dark roast with honey and lemon-thyme syrup are just a few of the cool and caffeinated concoctions yaupon will find its way into this weekend.
From June 10-11, yaupon will be on drinkable display at participating cafes and bars during Project CommuniTea’s inaugural CommuniTea Bar & Iced Tea Crawl, intended to celebrate and showcase the versatility of the only indigenous caffeinated plant to grow in North America.
Perk, Stir Crazy Cafe, Sub Rosa Bakery and Blanchard’s Coffee on Morris Street will be serving nonalcoholic takes on the buzzy beverage, while Fuzzy Cactus, Laura Lee’s, The Jasper and Poe’s Pub plan to offer spiked versions, with each competing for the title of best iced tea and cocktail.
Abundant in the wild and native to the commonwealth, yaupon, pronounced yo-pon, is a flowering tree in the holly family. Its waxy, green, ovular leaves have been steeped into tea for centuries, and fifth-generation farmer Crystal Stokes and fellow Project CommuniTea founder Adam Weatherford are on a mission to grow, source and introduce locally grown and harvested yaupon to Richmond and beyond.
“It’s very rare that people know about it, maybe three or four people a year at markets,” says Stokes, the Black, queer and neurodivergent leader.
“Our goal is to educate people about our only naturally caffeinated plant that thrives right here in Virginia,” Stokes says. "Yaupon only needs sunshine, native soil and rainwater, and it’s super resilient — it can handle anything.”
Formerly operating Frank Community Farm — which cultivated opportunities for neurodiverse adults by offering work on the land — last year Stokes and Weatherford shifted their focus to growing yaupon and other herbs such as hibiscus, calendula and lemongrass for tea blends. At a small backyard farm in Henrico, home to a cozy tea dome where they hold tastings using gong fu cha-style brewing, the duo operate a mini compound dedicated to the flowering, incognito bush packed with potential. They also harvest yaupon on and around Knotts Island, about 100 miles east of Richmond.
“What we really loved doing over the pandemic was getting together and just having tea,” says Stokes, who has been a fan of the herbal blend and its meditative properties all her life. “Most people with autism and other disabilities, even mental illness, are isolated, so, yes, people who are disadvantaged need work, but they also need community, so that was when we decided we would [move on from Frank Community Farm and] just do tea and yaupon.”
Packed with five times more antioxidants than blueberries and boasting 30% less caffeine than coffee while producing a smoother energetic burst, yaupon has a sweet and mellow flavor that makes it the perfect canvas for the bounty of herbs blended with it in tea, and most importantly, it is incredibly sustainable.
“People are recognizing that climate change is real and we have to be self sufficient,” says Stokes, noting yaupon grows from Virginia all the way down to Texas, mainly on the coast. “You only need one tree — one tree, and you have a nice little caffeinated source.”
Lacking a need for fertilizers or excessive water, why has the hardy holly flown under the radar?
“It’s the history,” Stokes says matter-of-factly. “Natives used it for a long time. It was called the 'beloved tree' by the Cherokees, and they used yaupon as a daily drink, but also for ceremonial purposes. They also would get together as a community to make important decisions for a tribe, kind of like meeting at coffee shop.”
After the plant became a popular export, the British East India Company began to feel threatened by the trade of yaupon overseas; it was soon given the scientific name Ilex vomitoria and falsely documented that it made people sick. Between the fear-mongering and tea drinkers' desire to acquire a status symbol as more exotic teas from afar became the drink of choice, yaupon usage dwindled.
“They wanted to be seen as wealthy and would purchase the tea, rather than stuff grown locally,” Weatherford says. “It had a big impact on why [yaupon] lost its popularity, and it was kind of like that forever.”
Stokes and Weatherford have been growing yaupon since their days at Frank Community Farm, and in 2018 they joined the American Yaupon Association. While it was once seen as more of a novelty item, Stokes says yaupon’s popularity is on the rise, and Project CommuniTea has been contacted by beverage and hair care companies about using yaupon. They've also received emails from Germany, Africa, Spain and beyond requesting trees or seeds.
“Yaupon can be a million-dollar industry if we do what we can to get the word out there and get people to like it,” Stokes says.
Lacking the tannins often found in yerba mate, another caffeinated member of the holly family, the yaupon tea varieties sold by Project CommuniTea include green, medium and dark roasts, a smoked blend, lemon zinger, blue jasmine, and berry yaupon hops, with 80% of the ingredients grown on-site.
Monday through Friday they hold tastings in the tea dome, a calming space and official “no-phone zone," where guests can enjoy up to four tastings during the hour-and-a-half sessions. There are also more extensive tastings offered on select Tuesdays and Saturdays. The goal is to educate and engage in conversations about tea and yaupon, provide a safe space, and test out the concept of a full-fledged brick-and-mortar business.
“People think tea, you just put in hot water, and our big mission with doing all this is to introduce people to tea how it should be done,” Stokes says. “You can do so much with [yaupon], and it tastes so good. I’m excited to see what people come up with. There’s nothing like it.”
