Brewing the "Black Drink"

The well-known Southeastern Indian ritual beverage commonly known as the "Black Drink" or cassina, was brewed from the yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria), native to much of the Southeastern Coastal Plain, and (as I've noticed on my local hikes) super-abundant in the Pensacola area.  While I've tried the weak tea commonly brewed as a reproduction of the Black Drink, which contains a comparatively mild dose of caffeine (according to recent studies comparing it to commercial tea and coffee), I've always been intrigued to try the "real stuff" described in a wide range of historic documents, and which has the unfortunate association with ritual vomiting (hence the scientific name), though this is apparently incidental to the tea itself.  Since the yaupon holly is so easily obtained in the Pensacola area, I decided to give it a try using traditional techniques but somewhat more modern implements.

A few documentary quotes referring to preparation techniques are appropriate to insert here:

Jonathan Dickinson, 1699 (at the village of Ais [Jece]): “In one part of his house, where the fire was kept, was an Indian man, having a pot on the fire, wherein he was making a drink of the leaves of a shrub, (which we understood afterwards by the Spaniard, is called casseena) boiling the said leaves, after they had parched them in a pot; then with a gourd, having a long neck, and at the top of it a small hole, which the top of one’s finger could cover, and at the side of it a round hole of two inches diameter; they take the liquor out of the pot, and put it into a deep round bowl, which being almost filled, containeth nigh three gallons; with this gourd they brew the liquor, and make it froth very much; it looketh of a deep brown colour.  In the brewing of this liquor was this noise made, which we thought strange; for the pressing of the gourd gently down into the liquor, and the air which it contained, being forced out of the little hole at the top, occasioned a sound, and according to the time and motion given, would be various.  This drink when made and cool to sup, was in a shell first carried to the cassekey, who threw part of it on the ground, and the rest he drank up, and then would make a loud Hem; and afterwards the cup passed to the rest of the cassekey’s associates, as aforesaid; but no other man, woman or child must touch or taste of this sort of drink; of which they sat sipping, chattering, and smoaking tobacco, or some other herb instead thereof, for the most part of the day.”

Alonso de Leturiondo, 1700: “The normal drink of the Indians of these provinces, and also introduced among the Spaniards of the Presidio, is one that they call cassina [caçina], taking its name from a little tree by that name, which they toast in jars [hollas] on the fire, they break it up, and when it is well broken up, they pour water over it and let it boil, and then they strain it and drink it hot.  It is a very healthy drink, and medicinal, and does not have the defect of intoxication like pulque, tepache, and other beverages of New Spain.”

James Adair, 1775: “There is a species of tea, that grows spontaneously, and in great plenty, along the sea-coast of the two Carolinas, Georgia, and East and West-Florida, which we call Yopon, or Cuseena: The Indians transplant, and are extremely fond of it; they drink it on certain stated occasions, and in their most religious solemnities, with awful invocations: but the women, and children, and those who have not successfully accompanied their holy ark, pro Aris et Focis, dare not even enter the sacred square, when they are on this religious duty; otherwise, they would be dry scratched with snakes teeth, fixed in the middle of a split reed, or piece of wood, without the privilege of warm water to supple the stiffened skin.  When this beloved liquid, or supposed holy drink-offering, is fully prepared, and fit to be drank, one of their Magi brings two old consecrated large conch-shells, out of a place appropriated for containing the holy things, and delivers them into the hands of the two religious attendants, who, after a wild ceremony, fill them with the supposed sanctifying, bitter liquid: then they approach near to the two central red and white seats (which the traders call the war, and beloved cabbins) stooping with their heads and bodies pretty low; advancing a few steps in this posture, they carry their shells with both hands, at an instant, to one of the most principal men on those red and white seats, saying, on a bass key, Y’ah, quite short: then, in like manner, they retreat backward, facing each other, with their heads bowing forward, their arms across, rather below their breast, and their eyes half shut...While the women are running about, and getting ready to dress the sanctified new-fruits on the sacred fire, the Archi-magus sends a religious attendant to pull some cusseena, or yopon, belonging to the temple; and having parched it brown on the altar, he boils it with clear running water in a large earthen pot, about half full; it has such a strong body, as to froth above the top by pouring up and down with their consecrated vessels, which are kept only for that use: of this they drink now and then, till the end of the festival, and on every other religious occasion from year to year.”

For my own experiment, the first stage of the process was to collect, dry, and parch the leaves.  While documentary accounts indicate that an earthenware jar was used to parch the leaves, I used a cast iron frying pan, stirring regularly as the leaves began to turn brown and smoke.  

The last moments of this process are a bit tricky in order not to completely char the leaves (or actually set them ablaze), but when the leaves appeared to be sufficiently parched/toasted, I poured them out into a bowl to cool a bit.

 

Most of the leaves turned various shades of brown, some of them puffing up in spots.  A few were nearly black, but none actually burned.

 Next, following a Spanish account from 1700, I crushed up some of the leaves, sufficient to fill one teaspoon measure, in order to brew a cup of tea in a standard Europeanized fashion.

Then I poured fresh-boiled water into a small container to let the crushed leaves steep for 6 or 7 minutes.

After this, I poured the result through a strainer into a white mug in order to have a look at the color.

The resultant tea looked very similar to Chinese green tea, and when served with a teaspoon of honey mixed in (no, the original version was not sweetened, but my intent was to enjoy the tea, not force it down as a science experiment), was excellent in taste and aroma.  Both my sons enjoyed the taste.  This, however, was clearly NOT the famed Black Drink of colonial-era fame.  It is obviously its weaker cousin.

Following several solid documentary accounts, I next tried a different brewing technique, one in which I took a medium handful of the unbroken parched leaves (about 1/2 cup) and simply put them to boil in a saucepan with about 3 cups of water.

I left this pleasantly aromatic and increasingly dark concoction boiling for about 2 hours straight, adding water along the way to keep the level about the same in the pot (and replacing that which had boiled away).  The leaves seemed to turn blacker and blacker as the boiling continued.

At the end of this process, the water had turned effectively black, making an excellent match for what the documentary accounts describe (and accounting for the name).

When poured into the same cup as before, the difference was striking; the well-boiled cassina leaves produced a beverage that resembled very strong coffee, and which had a stronger but nonetheless pleasant flavor and herbal aroma when sweetened with honey.  Toward the bottom of the cup the taste had a bit of an edge to it, but this may well be due to the fact that I over-toasted some of the leaves.  Next time I'll try parching the leaves a bit more lightly and see how it turns out.

I'm by no means the first to reproduce the Black Drink (I know at least one person who drinks it daily, and who kindly shared some pointers on how to brew it), but I was pretty pleased to have successfully made a very tasty version of cassina tea that I plan to drink more regularly as an occasional alternative to commercial coffee and tea.  And in a small way, it provides a link in practice with the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern United States, whose culture persists in many little and often unnoticed ways across the American South today.