Inside the Drawer

Green vs. Roasted Yaupon: What Roasting Really Changes (and What It Doesn't)

Does roasting Yaupon lower its caffeine? New University of Georgia research has answers. Here's how green and roasted Yaupon compare in your cup.

4 min read

The Tea Drawer Fire Roasted Yaupon loose leaf tea, a roasted Yaupon holly tea
In this post
  1. First, a quick refresher on Yaupon
  2. What the University of Georgia study looked at
  3. Finding #1Roasting doesn't cook off the caffeine
  4. Finding #2Roasting changes almost everything else
  5. Finding #3Young leaves are where the action is
  6. So which Yaupon should you choose?
  7. A good week to raise a cup
  8. Sources

If you've ever stood in front of our shelf trying to choose between Green, Everyday and Fire Roasted Yaupon, you're not alone! It's the question we hear most. And it usually comes with a follow-up: "Does roasting cook off the caffeine?"

Good news: we finally have some real science to point to. A research team at the University of Georgia recently looked at exactly what happens to Yaupon leaves when you roast them. The answer surprised even us.

First, a quick refresher on Yaupon

Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) is a holly that grows wild across the American Southeast, and it's the only caffeinated plant native to North America. Indigenous peoples brewed it for centuries, often roasting the leaves over a fire before boiling them. Our Fire Roasted Yaupon is inspired by that tradition, which the Timucua people of Florida practiced for thousands of years.

Today you'll mostly find Yaupon sold two ways: green (dried, unroasted leaves) and roasted (leaves toasted until they turn deep and toasty). We also make a medium roast, Everyday Yaupon, that sits right in between.

The Tea Drawer Green Yaupon, an unroasted loose leaf Yaupon holly tea

What the University of Georgia study looked at

The study comes from Ben Long and colleagues in Jeffrey Bennetzen's genetics lab at UGA. They asked two simple questions:

  1. How does a leaf's age change its chemistry?
  2. What does roasting do to it?

To find out, they measured caffeine, theobromine (the gentle stimulant also found in chocolate), theacrine and a chlorogenic acid called 3-CQA in leaves at different stages of growth. Chlorogenic acids are a family of polyphenols, the same group of plant compounds coffee is famous for. Then they roasted leaves at 140°C (about 285°F) for 50 minutes and compared them with unroasted leaves.

The work was first posted as a preprint in 2025, and a journal version is listed in Applied Food Research in 2026.

Finding #1Roasting doesn't cook off the caffeine

Here's the headline. In this study, roasting did not significantly change the levels of caffeine, theobromine or 3-CQA.

So if you've been reaching for green Yaupon because you assumed it packed more of a kick, or avoiding roasted because you thought it had more, the research suggests the difference is smaller than you'd think. Your choice can come down to flavor and mood!

Finding #2Roasting changes almost everything else

This is the fun part. While the stimulants held steady, roasting significantly shifted around 100 other compounds the researchers detected, with some rising as much as 135-fold.

The study doesn't map each of those compounds to a specific taste. Still, it helps explain what you notice in the cup: green Yaupon tends to taste fresh, grassy and gently sweet, while roasted Yaupon goes bold, nutty and smoky. Same leaf, very different personality.

Finding #3Young leaves are where the action is

The researchers also found that caffeine, theobromine and 3-CQA were highest in young leaves near the tip of the stem and dropped off in older leaves further down. The highest caffeine they measured was about 0.57% of the leaf's dry weight, in young leaves. Many mature leaf samples had no detectable methylxanthines at all (that's the caffeine and theobromine family).

That lines up with a separate 2025 study from Zhejiang A&F University, published in Plants, which found spring leaves had the highest levels of polyphenols, flavonoids and caffeine, plus the strongest antioxidant activity in lab tests. Fresh growth, it turns out, is packed with good stuff.

One caveat worth keeping in mind: these are early lab studies on leaf chemistry, not studies on what happens in your body when you drink a cup. They tell us what's in the leaf, which is a great place to start.

So which Yaupon should you choose?

Since the research suggests roasting doesn't change the caffeine much, go with your taste buds:

Green Yaupon tea from The Tea DrawerEveryday Yaupon medium roast tea from The Tea DrawerFire Roasted Yaupon tea from The Tea Drawer
  • Green Yaupon if you love green tea. Sweet, earthy and light. Lovely in the afternoon or as a cold brew.
  • Everyday Yaupon if you want a little of both. Our medium roast is smooth, easygoing and made for daily sipping.
  • Fire Roasted Yaupon if you're a coffee person or crave something cozy as the days get shorter. Bold, smoky and great with a splash of milk.

Whichever you pick, Yaupon has no tannins, so it's very hard to over-steep. Use water just off the boil, steep for 5 to 10 minutes, and re-steep up to three times.

A good week to raise a cup

The timing on this one feels special. On November 1, the UGA team is dedicating a nursery of 249 Yaupon plants, most collected from the wild, on ancestral Muskogee and Cherokee lands. November is also Native American Heritage Month, a good moment to remember that the people who first roasted these leaves knew what they were doing long before any lab confirmed it.

A steaming cup of herbal tea on a stack of books, a cozy fall tea moment
Photo by Elena Kloppenburg on Unsplash

We source our Yaupon from wild harvests in Florida and Texas, grown under a regenerative model that treats this native holly as a sustainable crop. Curious which roast is yours? Browse our Yaupon teas and try a side-by-side tasting at home. We'd love to hear which one wins!

Sources

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