One of SweetGrass Trading’s yaupon tea vendors, CatSpring Yaupon, recently became Regenerative Organic Certified. It is the first yaupon producer to do so.
Regenerative Organic Certified™ is a revolutionary new certification for food, textiles, and personal care ingredients. ROC™ farms and products meet the highest standards in the world for soil health, animal welfare, and farmworker fairness. CatSpring received certification in 2021 for both their “soil health andland management” and “social fairness” in employment practices.
CatSpring Yaupon produces yaupon of the highest quality. The company is returning to the true American values of sustainable farming and good stewardship of the land. Nothing touches CatSpring yaupon but sunshine and rainwater; it’s free of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and synthetic weed control measures.
CatSpring Yaupon was founded in 2013 by sisters Abianne Falla and JennaDee Detro in Cat Spring, Texas. During the historic 2011 drought, the sisters’ family-owned ranch was suffering major losses, from 100-year-old oak trees to hay fields.
The only thing that was able to weather the drought was Yaupon, the only naturally caffeinated plant native to North America.
The wild Yaupon is harvested in Cat Spring, where it is prolific and makes up the majority of the undergrowth in the land. After that, it is either dried or roasted. Drying the Yaupon results in the green Yaupon tea, while roasting it creates the black Yaupon tea.
CatSpring Yaupon, which typically employs 7-11 people, has a focus on providing second chances for community members. According to the CatSpring website, “we [Detro and Falla] work directly with probation officers in rural communities to hire individuals who want their future to look different than their past. In our packaging facility, we hire women who have a history of generational poverty. By offering flexibility in our scheduling, we can help their next crisis not mark the end of their employment with us.”