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Black Drink:
A Native American Tea
Edited by Charles M. Hudson
$16.95 (paperback)
University of Georgia Press |
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Book details true nature of ‘black’
tea
Until its use declined in the 19th century, Indians of the southeastern
United States were devoted to a caffeinated beverage commonly known
as “cassina” or black drink. Brewed from the parched
leaves of the yaupon holly, black drink was used socially and ceremonially.
Black Drink: A Native American Tea details botanical, clinical,
spiritual, historical and material aspects of black drink. Issued
for the first time in paperback, Black
Drink is edited by Charles M. Hudson, UGA professor emeritus
of anthropology.
“The purpose of this volume is…to clear away the extraordinary
confusion about an important ethnobotanical and ritual complex among
the Indians of the Southeast and to describe the true nature of
a caffeinated beverage that has so far failed to win an enduring
place in Euro-American cuisine,” Hudson writes in the book’s
intro. “Why this failure occurred still awaits full explanation.
… It is clear—if I may be allowed to play upon the words
of Claude Lévi-Strauss—that cassina has always been
both good for drinking and good for thinking.”
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