California Lilacs, Ceanothus sp.
My hunt for a caffeine free English tea substitute
“You need to drink less caffeine."
That’s my doctor, some eight years ago, telling me that my consistently upset stomach was due to my daily dozen cups of English tea.
You’d forgive me for that, probably. I was looking after my child of several months who was prone to waking up in the night.
“OK, I’ll cut down on the caffeine.”
So fast forward to splitting headaches from caffeine withdrawal after latching onto so called “decaff” tea, and then through to my food forest awakening in the middle of the COVID-19 nightmare.
Whilst flicking through the excellently conversational “Plants for a Future” by Ken Fern, I came across the following excerpt:
“The dried leaves, harvested when the plant is in flower, make a very acceptable tea substitute that is free from caffeine.”
I decided that I had to obtain some of this New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus Americanus) and ended up with an expensive wait for some seed from across the pond.
I dutifully followed the instructions that came with the much anticipated seed (“soak, cold stratify for one to three months”) and managed to germinate all of one seedling.
This seedling is just over two years old now, and stands at perhaps the height of my outstretched hand. Typing this out has made me realise that pound for pound, I paid more for this single sapling than the equivalent amount of gold. The sacrifices we make.
The Ceanothus species is generally known to be a nitrogen fixer which you not guess from the two year height. In hindsight, I have only myself to blame for forcing this poor thing to grow in the damp paper bag that is the British climate. The New Jersey Tea tree really needs a dry rocky/sandy plain and I have a suspicion that my closest dry plain is a plane ride away.
Lately I’ve been despairing of ever getting my caffeine-free New Jersey Tea hit, but I hit rock bottom and bounced back after reading about cultures using Dasiphora fruticosa syn. P. fruticosa (Shrubby Cinquefoil) leaves as a tea substitute. Trust the British to want a tea substitute wherever they went - some stereotypes are truly well deserved. This got me thinking that there are many English tea substitutes out there and that I should stop being pinning all my hopes on the forlorn potted New Jersey Tree in my cold frame.
Expanding my mind, I decided to look at the Ceanothus species (sometimes known as the California Lilacs - yet again one of those frustrating things where a particular common species name has swallowed up the genus name) that thrive in the British suburbs. The Royal Horticulture Society have bestowed a few the Award of Merit.
I always think of the Award of Merit as good sign that they will put up with a fair amount of neglect, but I don’t think that’s the main aim.
In a calculated mood to destroy me and other plant enthusiasts, the ornamental gardening industry have thrown their hands in the air and decided to delete the species name when listing particular Ceanothus plants but leave in the cultivar name. You’ll get names like Ceanothus ‘Skylark’ which is really Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. “Skylark” or Ceanothus ‘Concha’ which is really Ceanothus azureus var. 'Concha'.
Casting my net even further, I had a hunch that basically any Ceanothus species was an acceptable tea substitute. It’s a hunch that is basically driven by want, as in “I want these British climate adapted Ceanothus to yield me a nice harvest of caffeine free tea leaves).
Apparently the genus is pretty promiscuous with a multitude of unidentified hybrids. That blasé naming attitude might have a rational history after all, and I can just picture a bunch of tea-starved British colonists looking at an increasingly appetising shrubby plant that looks almost like the one they were shown how to use..
And then I stumbled onto a veritable ethnobotanical treasure trove.
This treasure is entitled “Native Peoples’ Relationship to the California Chaparral”. A chaparral is a shrubland plant community that was harmoniously managed by the Native Peoples to maximise useful and sustainable plant growth through intelligent slow burns. The Authors, M. Kat Anderson and Jon E. Keeley, give quite a long list of Native American uses for Ceanothus, which is an important constituent of the California Chaparral.
The Konkow soaked generic Ceanothus seeds before scorching them to remove any bitter saponins. The Konkow then pounded the seeds into a flour and, after sifting, ate it plain, mixed with acorn mush, meat and other foods.
Any Ceanothus were harvested for basketry materials in a typical Native People’s household, but C. cuneatus was prized as the strongest and used to make cooking pots, bath tubs and more. C. cuneatus was also used to create shade ramadas to to shield women from the sun as they ground down their acorns.
As well as baskets, any Ceanothus twigs tied together as sweeping brooms.
What a wonderful wealth of uses the California Lilac had.
For a brief time I forgot about my original desire for a caffeine-free hit, and then I hit upon an article published six days before the first UK COVID-19 lock down,
“There are several species of Ceanothus found across the entire United States, most include a secondary name of Jersey tea. This name comes from Native American tribes who taught the early settlers to use the dried leaves of inland ceanothus for a medicinal drink.”
You can imagine my strong sense of déjà vu.
At least my hunch was correct!
Final Thoughts
Next year, I will get a hold of some popular and cheap Ceanothus shrubs and experiment with their dried leaves for tea.
If you are lucky enough to live where C. americanus is endemic, please try to dry some leaves and make some tea from it. I would love to know what it tastes like and whether it is comparable to English tea.
As usual, I encourage you to consider growing some type of Ceanothus, if just for the beautiful blooms. I will be doing so soon, either planting out my C. americanus to do or die, or a more suitable Ceanothus.
Until next time.
References
“Native Peoples’ Relationship to the California Chaparral” with a multitude of uses for Ceanothus, but no mention of Ceanothus tea!
Tea from Ceanothus cuneatus
Published 6 days before the first UK COVID-19 lockdown, a modern reference that the early North American settlers were not discerning with which Ceanothus leaves are used as an English tea substitute
C. americanus was found to contain a previously unknown ceanothetric acid that makes it effective against oral pathogens
An account of how a Ceanothus hybrid was made
Most Californian Lilacs are nitrogen fixers