Ilex guayusa
Encyclopedia
Ilex guayusa is an Amazonian tree
of the holly
genus, native to the Ecuador
ian Amazon Rainforest
. One of three known caffeinated holly trees, the leaves of the guayusa tree are dried and brewed like a tea
for their stimulative effects.
The guayusa plant is a tree
growing 6-30 meters tall. The leaves
are evergreen
and 2.5-7 cm long. The flowers are small and white. The fruit is spherical and red, 6-7 mm in diameter. The leaves contain caffeine
and other alkaloid
s.
s such as caffeine. Two other species of holly trees, Ilex paraguariensis, or yerba mate, and Ilex vomitoria, or yaupon holly, also contain caffeine. A tall tree native to the upper Amazonian regions of Ecuador
, northeastern Peru
, and southwestern Colombia
, guayusa has been collected only rarely by botanists
is known almost exclusively as a cultivated
plant. Melvin Shemluck documented a flowering
guayusa tree in Pastaza Province
, Ecuador in his work between 1979 and 1980.
and Pastaza, but is found in parts of Peru and Colombia. After harvested, the guayusa leaves are dried which allows flavor to set in.
Traditionally, some Ecuadorian Kichwa
people boil guayusa leaves in water and consume the resulting beverage for its stimulative effects. In addition to drinking cups of guayusa like many Americans drink coffee
, indigenous hunters drink guayusa to sharpen their instincts and call it the “Night Watchman" because it helps them stay alert and awake all night. Fresh leaves are used as well as dried leaves, which are dried in rolls and strung together as a wreath
resembling a Hawaiian lei
.
, a stimulant commonly found in chocolate
, and L-theanine
, a glutamic acid
analog found in green tea
that has been shown to reduce physical and mental stress
.
Chemical analyses in 2009 and 2010 have shown caffeine content in guayusa of 2.90-3.28% by dry weight. Guayusa contains all of the essential amino acid
s for humans and has a “high antioxidant activity,” with ORAC
antioxidant values of 58μM per gram, compared to 28-29μM per gram for commercial green teas.
, the founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies describes how “the Jivaro
say guayusa is so habituating that before it is offered to a visitor, he is warned that once he drinks it, he will ever always after return to the Ecuadorian Jungle.”
The Kichwa people claim that guayusa induces dreams that foretell whether hunting expeditions will be successful.
A 1,500-year-old bundle of guayusa leaves was found by Harvard University
ethnobotanist
Richard Evans Schultes
in a medicine man's tomb high in the Bolivian
Andes
, far beyond the natural range of the plant.
is building the first commercial supply chain
for guayusa using fair trade
and organic
principles for guayusa from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Runa works directly with indigenous farming families to purchase guayusa leaves and then markets guayusa tea in the United States
. Guayusa can also be purchased from companies such as NovoAndina International ( which also produces Coca-Guayusa a blend of coca leaves and Ilex Guayusa), Art of Tea , Stash Tea
, and Sunfood.
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
of the holly
Holly
Ilex) is a genus of 400 to 600 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. The species are evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbers from tropics to temperate zones world wide....
genus, native to the Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
ian Amazon Rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
. One of three known caffeinated holly trees, the leaves of the guayusa tree are dried and brewed like a tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
for their stimulative effects.
The guayusa plant is a tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
growing 6-30 meters tall. The leaves
Leaves
-History:Vocalist Arnar Gudjonsson was formerly the guitarist with Mower, and he was joined by Hallur Hallsson , Arnar Ólafsson , Bjarni Grímsson , and Andri Ásgrímsson . Late in 2001 they played with Emiliana Torrini and drew early praise from the New York Times...
are evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
and 2.5-7 cm long. The flowers are small and white. The fruit is spherical and red, 6-7 mm in diameter. The leaves contain caffeine
Caffeine
Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a stimulant drug. Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the seeds, leaves, and fruit of some plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants...
and other alkaloid
Alkaloid
Alkaloids are a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds that contain mostly basic nitrogen atoms. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Also some synthetic compounds of similar structure are attributed to alkaloids...
s.
Biological descriptions
The plant yields xanthineXanthine
Xanthine , is a purine base found in most human body tissues and fluids and in other organisms. A number of stimulants are derived from xanthine, including caffeine and theobromine....
s such as caffeine. Two other species of holly trees, Ilex paraguariensis, or yerba mate, and Ilex vomitoria, or yaupon holly, also contain caffeine. A tall tree native to the upper Amazonian regions of Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, northeastern Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, and southwestern Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, guayusa has been collected only rarely by botanists
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
is known almost exclusively as a cultivated
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
plant. Melvin Shemluck documented a flowering
Flowering plant
The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
guayusa tree in Pastaza Province
Pastaza Province
Pastaza is a province in the Oriente of Ecuador located in the eastern jungle. The capital is Puyo, founded on May 12, 1899 and which boasts 25,800 inhabitants...
, Ecuador in his work between 1979 and 1980.
Cultivation and use as a beverage
The plant is grown primarily in Ecuador in the eastern provinces of NapoNapo Province
Napo is a province in Ecuador. Its capital is Tena. The province contains the Napo River. The province is low developed without much industrial presence. The thick rainforest is home to many natives that remain isolated by preference, descendents of those who fled the Spanish invasion in the Andes,...
and Pastaza, but is found in parts of Peru and Colombia. After harvested, the guayusa leaves are dried which allows flavor to set in.
Traditionally, some Ecuadorian Kichwa
Kichwa
Kichwa is a Quechuan language, and includes all Quechua varieties spoken in Ecuador and Colombia by approximately 2,500,000 people...
people boil guayusa leaves in water and consume the resulting beverage for its stimulative effects. In addition to drinking cups of guayusa like many Americans drink coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, indigenous hunters drink guayusa to sharpen their instincts and call it the “Night Watchman" because it helps them stay alert and awake all night. Fresh leaves are used as well as dried leaves, which are dried in rolls and strung together as a wreath
Wreath
A wreath is an assortment of flowers, leaves, fruits, twigs and/or various materials that is constructed to resemble a ring. They are used typically as Christmas decorations to symbolize the coming of Christ, also known as the Advent season in Christianity. They are also used as festive headdresses...
resembling a Hawaiian lei
Lei (Hawaii)
Lei is a Hawaiian word for a garland or wreath. More loosely defined, a lei is any series of objects strung together with the intent to be worn. The most popular concept of a lei in Hawaiian culture is a wreath of flowers draped around the neck presented upon arriving or leaving as a symbol of...
.
Chemical composition and properties
In addition to caffeine, guayusa also contains theobromineTheobromine
Theobromine , also known as xantheose, is a bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant, with the chemical formula C7H8N4O2. It is found in chocolate, as well as in a number of other foods, including the leaves of the tea plant, and the kola nut...
, a stimulant commonly found in chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
, and L-theanine
Theanine
Theanine , also gamma-glutamylethylamide or 5-N-ethyl-glutamine, is an amino acid and a glutamic acid analog commonly found in tea , primarily in green tea, and also in the basidiomycete mushroom Boletus badius and in guayusa. More specifically, this compound is called L-theanine, being the...
, a glutamic acid
Glutamic acid
Glutamic acid is one of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids, and its codons are GAA and GAG. It is a non-essential amino acid. The carboxylate anions and salts of glutamic acid are known as glutamates...
analog found in green tea
Green tea
Green tea is made solely from the leaves of Camellia sinensis that have undergone minimal oxidation during processing. Green tea originates from China and has become associated with many cultures throughout Asia. It has recently become more widespread in the West, where black tea is traditionally...
that has been shown to reduce physical and mental stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
.
Chemical analyses in 2009 and 2010 have shown caffeine content in guayusa of 2.90-3.28% by dry weight. Guayusa contains all of the essential amino acid
Essential amino acid
An essential amino acid or indispensable amino acid is an amino acid that cannot be synthesized de novo by the organism , and therefore must be supplied in the diet.-Essentiality vs. conditional essentiality in humans:...
s for humans and has a “high antioxidant activity,” with ORAC
Oxygen radical absorbance capacity
Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity is a method of measuring antioxidant capacities in biological samples in vitro.A wide variety of foods has been tested using this method, with certain spices, berries and legumes rated highly. There exists no physiological proof in vivo that free-radical theory...
antioxidant values of 58μM per gram, compared to 28-29μM per gram for commercial green teas.
Synonyms
"Wayusa" as spelled in the indigenous Kichwa language of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Also pronounced "Why-sa" by the Kichwa people and "Why-ees" by the Shuar people.Myths and legends
Michael HarnerMichael Harner
Michael Harner is the founder of the and the formulator of "core shamanism." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world...
, the founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies describes how “the Jivaro
Jivaroan peoples
Jivaroan peoples refers to groups of indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River, and its tributaries in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador...
say guayusa is so habituating that before it is offered to a visitor, he is warned that once he drinks it, he will ever always after return to the Ecuadorian Jungle.”
The Kichwa people claim that guayusa induces dreams that foretell whether hunting expeditions will be successful.
A 1,500-year-old bundle of guayusa leaves was found by Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
ethnobotanist
Ethnobotany
Ethnobotany is the scientific study of the relationships that exist between people and plants....
Richard Evans Schultes
Richard Evans Schultes
Richard Evans Schultes may be considered the father of modern ethnobotany, for his studies of indigenous peoples' uses of plants, including especially entheogenic or hallucinogenic plants , for his lifelong collaborations with chemists, and...
in a medicine man's tomb high in the Bolivian
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
, far beyond the natural range of the plant.
Commercialization
RunaRuna LLC
Runa LLC is a privately-held organic Amazonian beverage company primarily processing and selling guayusa. The company is based in Brooklyn, New York with offices in Quito and Archidona, Ecuador. It was founded in 2008 by three soon-to-be Brown University graduates, Daniel MacCombie, Tyler Gage, and...
is building the first commercial supply chain
Supply chain
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to...
for guayusa using fair trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
and organic
Organic food
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...
principles for guayusa from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Runa works directly with indigenous farming families to purchase guayusa leaves and then markets guayusa tea in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Guayusa can also be purchased from companies such as NovoAndina International ( which also produces Coca-Guayusa a blend of coca leaves and Ilex Guayusa), Art of Tea , Stash Tea
Stash Tea Company
Stash Tea Company is a privately-held specialty tea company headquartered in Tigard, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.- History :Stash Tea was founded in 1972 and originally operated out of an old Portland Victorian-style house, supplying loose herbal teas and bulk herbs to natural food stores...
, and Sunfood.
See also
- Ilex paraguariensisYerba mateMaté, yerba maté or erva maté , Ilex paraguariensis, is a species of holly native to subtropical South America in northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, southern Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay...
- A caffeinated holly known commonly as Yerba Mate - Ilex vomitoriaYaupon HollyIlex vomitoria, commonly known as Yaupon or Yaupon Holly, is a species of holly that is native to southeastern North America. The word yaupon was derived from its Catawban name, yopún, which is a diminutive form of the word yop, meaning "tree". Another common name, Cassina, was borrowed from the...
- A caffeinated holly used to make the Black DrinkBlack drinkBlack drink was the name given by colonists to a ritual beverage called Asi, brewed by Native Americans in the Southeastern United States... - Kuding tea - A holly from Asia which is used as a type of Tea.