What grows in northern Ontario that has caffeine in it?

so enough about all these wimpy herbal "teas."
don't get me wrong i love herbal tea, nothing like it for after-dinner-sippin', but in the morning i need something with a little KICK in it! some CAFFEINE! coffee (or good strong black tea)!
problem is coffee (and black tea) doesn't grow here (in northern Ontario), has to be shipped in! if you wanna stay local whats a guy to do? even the wounderful dandy-lion root cant help me here!
so wise permies, i ask you, what grows in Ontario (or at least the northern states) that I can make a good morning wake-me-up-cup from?

Yaupon Holly grows around here. It may be possible to establish it in a northern greenhouse. I've tried the tea. If you like the taste of dirty old socks, it may be of interest to you.

bumping this back to the top.

anyone know of any plants that have caffeine that can be grown in zone 5b/6a?
we dont get much rain (12 in average) but i wouldnt mind babying something if needed. imo the ability to produce caffeine onsite would great, as it is one thing a LOT of people can't [dont want to] live without.

seems most of the caffeine type plants grow best in the warmer climates.

There is a tea plantation in the US: Charleston Tea Plantation. There's nothing special about their climate and there could probably be plenty of tea plantations in the South. The thing preventing them from catching on here is the amount of human labor required out in the fields. I don't think tea has the same flavor when it is harvested by the equivalent of a riding lawn mower.

And if it grows in Charleston, you can probably grow it in a greenhouse in zone 5b/6a.

Not sure exactly what your weather looks like in Northern Ontario (other than cold), so this might not be an option for you...

I currently have a very healthy Sochi Tea plant growing at my house in western Oregon, we are a very wet zone 7.
So I would assume you would have no problem growing these in a greenhouse, or with some winter protection.

Here's where I got mine: One Green World

The problem with the tea bush in the greenhouse is the same as having a coffee or cacao tree there...you won't really get a significant amount of product from one or a few plants. I was planting tea in GA, where it grows readily outdoors, and had it figured out that I would need something like 15-20 good sized bushes to supply my daily dose. You only pick the young tips, regularly through the summer as it grows in flushes....sort of like clipping a hedge. Then you (for black tea) ferment and (for both green and black) dry these tips. You can see how it would shrink it down a lot.......

Mormon tea (ephedra) might be an option.

http://www.easybloom.com/plantlibrary/plant/mormon-tea

I find with caffeine I'm just borrowing energy from later in the day. When I have certain ferments like umeboshi plums, I get a nice energy kick without the coma that follows. Just sayin', maybe you need to question whether caffeine is really the thing you want, could be going to a lot of trouble for something that's less than ideal.

Renate Haeckler wrote:I find with caffeine I'm just borrowing energy from later in the day. When I have certain ferments like umeboshi plums, I get a nice energy kick without the coma that follows. Just sayin', maybe you need to question whether caffeine is really the thing you want, could be going to a lot of trouble for something that's less than ideal.

You take your reasonable, balanced, opinion and flaunt it some place where the addiction hasn't taken hold .

OP, Good luck, I'm way to new at this to offer caffeine advice, I hope you get it figured out.

i've certainly tried to guilt myself out of the coffee habit by imagining just how much area of a huge mountain it would take just to fufill my (unfortunately also unhealthy) consumption of coffee.

and it TOTALLY DIDNT WORK!
darn, i really love the morning coffee ritual.

not to mention the weird issues that coffee can have, as far as social consequences on marginalized people in other countries....

have had temporary success trying to change the ritual to one with a good strong chai, and it...sort of worked...till i fall back into the coffee habit.

my little coffee plant is certainly not going to do it, but i have been starting some kona beans i got from hawaii, and have a little struggling plant that may someday produce a handful of beans.

I've found that I like the smell of coffee, more than I like drinking it. I often have breakfast at the coffee shop. I bring it with me and only buy tea. I've hauled away hundreds of pounds of spent coffee to use as mulch. The van and garden both smell of free coffee.

I'm growing WITH caffeine. (:

Have to laugh.   Came looking for the same thing..
And I am getting the same reflective mirror, like er...... shoulld I be spending all this time thinking about how to grow caffein? Lol  
So here are my own suggestions to my own question ( and yours)  
How 'bout all those mushrooms in the woods? There must be something that won't kill you that has more kick than Chaga...

Once I went to a Chinese dr and he gave me a tonne of herbs. After 1 day I had Zero interest in coffee dripped it like a hot potato and didn't miss it at all. .... so what were all those herbs I can pronounce? ....hummmmmmm

My question to myself now is, why do you have a coffee habit? What's it giving beyond the stimulant...  
Of course DRINKING WATER will help me....hummm

So many hummms....

Ken Peavey wrote:If you like the taste of dirty old socks, it may be of interest to you.

Well, the species name is "I. Vomitoria", so I guess that's why.

I'm growing Chinese yellow horn.  It supposedly has caffeine, much hardier than yaupon and the leaf tastes alright but my plant is very small

Yaupon prepared well is very good, but in my experience its more like chocolate than coffee

My experience with addiction (relatively mild--it involves chocolate) I will share. I also did drink coffee at one time due to some social pressure, but for whatever reason it was easy to quit (maybe chocolate replaced it? anyway I knew it messed with my sleep.)

Any kind of self-prodding in a negative way seems to be a good way to ensure that an addictive pattern repeats itself. It seems to me we have to be kind to ourselves in a radical way in order to bring about change, by replacing prodding, sedating, stimulating, or any kind of forcing, with nurturing, nourishing, and sensitivity to the body's needs.

This seems a little odd. After all, why don't we replace a stimulant addiction with a more stimulating lifestyle? Why shouldn't it work?

We reach for stimulants because we are tired. Perpetually tired from trying to do too much too fast. If we slow down, a lot, then it is easier to de-addict from them. We have to practice self-restraint, do less, rest more so that our body/mind becomes fully recharged and we become more full, more inherently alive and energetic. Only when that happens can we tentatively--slowly--cautiously--go back to normal. It doesn't matter how long or how short this process takes, we have to see it to its conclusion. And then do it again whenever we feel a craving arise in us.

Then if we are still not energetic we can address some things to do with our health generally. Are we getting bad air or good air? Is our physical activity balanced? How is our food, are we eating enough? Circulation? &c.

For sedatives, it's more or less the opposite, though I never drank alcohol and tend not to feel an attraction to those types of medicines/drugs/whatever. But I have had poor sleep and it tends to be that finding something wholesome and emotionally nourishing to do throughout the day and especially into the evening is important. And most especially if you have had any intense physical activity that day. Again paradoxically, I've found that singing in the evening, even occasionally texting with a friend (but phone calls are always better of course!), tends to send me to bed in a good way and I feel better able to sleep for it.

So it is a radical way of leaning into the body's wisdom rather than pushing against it, in summary.

I might end up making a cider press post about this too, as I have more to say on the topic, and it involves spider webs...

I don't *need* the java hit, in the way that an addict needs a hit, but it certainly jump-starts my day. It's the punch in the face, and in the metabolism, that gets me rocking on task.

I suppose I could drink tea and punch myself in the face a few times to get the same effect (see: Fight Club). Not my first choice though. Open to options.