Episode 171: Turning Texas “Weeds” into Wellness with Abianne Falla

Hi, friends, this is John. Welcome back to the Regenerative Agriculture podcast. In the current economic conditions, one of the things that I believe is so important for us to think about, if we want to have a regenerative agriculture, we first need to have something that can be regenerative and sustain us from an economic perspective. Because without healthy foundational economics, then all of the rest is just a wishful daydream. So in this pursuit of thinking about how do we realign macroeconomics to truly have a sustainable food system that sustains its sustainers, one of the recurring themes and topics is how do we decommoditize ourselves? How do we decommoditize the crops that we're producing? And today I'm having a conversation with Abby Anfala, who's gone all the way to the extreme ends of that spectrum and producing a very unusual crop. But, and it's, it's. I really enjoy the, the originality and the innovation and the inspiration that we can have for developing similar opportunities. So, Abiana, thank you for being here. I'm really inspired by the work that you're doing. Please tell us about, tell us the story.

Sure. Well, John, thank you so much for having me and it is an honor to be here. And I'm so grateful for, for all that you do in highlighting of alternative and restorative modalities and in the way that we relate to the soil, but also in the way that it fits into the bigger community and economic impact. And so I think thank you for all you do for that. Yeah. So I am Abby Yan and I am the founder of CatSpring Yaupon. What is Yaupon? Is often the follow up question.

Is Yaupon a thing? That's almost the first question. Yes.

Yeah. You know, we're getting the question less and less, which is always exciting. It feels like that's it, we're doing our job. But. So Yaupon is our only source of caffeine in North America. It is this incredibly hardy plant that is native to the Gulf coast region and has a really rich history. You know, where we are in, in Texas. I grew up with family land in Catspring, Texas, which is kind of west of Houston between Houston and Austin. And where we are, we've eradicated 95 to 99% of the native grasses in our post oak savannah. And so Yaupon is native, but she has taken over and grows totally unchecked, often classified as an invasive species. I prefer the term pervasive. But we, we, everyone in our Region knows her. She takes over fence lines, grows through pastures. And I grew up, you know, that was our punishment was, here, take this machete and keep the Yaupon off the fence. And so everyone is bulldozing it and burning it. And in the drought of 2011, which is the driest recorded year in Texas history, we lost, I think they're saying something like 300 million trees over the course of that drought statewide. And where we were, you know, everyone had sold off cattle a long time ago. No, there's. Everything was dying. We were losing our beautiful hundred year old oak trees. Everything looked like wilted spinach and scorched earth and dry lake beds, all of it. And the only thing that was not dying at that time was Yaupon. It was the only GRE we had. And at the time we're like, what is it about this plant? Why is it, why is it going to outlast us all? You know, I wish I could be like, we knew it was so special and it was going to have all these benefits, but really it was the same vein of like, I wonder if there's something good about fire ants because they're going to be the only thing that survive Armageddon, right? Like, that was our, our, our curiosity and started to just do some research and was like realized this is our only source of caffeine that is native to all of North America. It is. There are some studies coming out of Texas A and M and the University of Florida that were demonstrating, you know, some of these incredible health benefits, like antioxidants, anti inflammatory polyphenols, comparable to tea has, you know, lymphatic drainage support, all of these incredible things. And, and then also realizing, like, wait, there's a rich legacy of tradition with this too, right? Virtually every indigenous tribe along the Gulf coast in its growing region had a tradition as well. And at that time I was. It was not commercially available anywhere and hadn't been for 50, 60 years. And so I just was like, I guess it tastes terrible. That's the only reason I could think that this isn't everywhere, right? And so spent a couple of years just playing with preparation methods in our kitchen. And we put up a landing page to say, hey, this does anybody want to give us feedback on how we're making this? And after a couple of years realized, wait, this, this tastes great. It tastes like a familiar tea. And it also was, is we were getting inbound from this, you know, little website we had put up from all over the world of people who were like, interested in the plant or just wanted to try it. And so we thought, well, maybe here's something. And so we did a commercial harvest in 2013, you know, moved to a. A catering kitchen, and not just the. The. The farmhouse, and started taking it to farmers markets. And I'm. I'm based here in Austin, and pretty early days, had a couple, you know, James Beard chefs that were like, you know, everything, if you're familiar with, like, Jesse Griffiths at Dai Dway, you know, he was opening up his. His brick and mortar at the time and was committed to anything on the menu comes from within 100 miles. And he was like, I can't not have an iced tea. And so what's my option? And so he found us and put it on the menu and. And then same with a duck here in town who's committed to local sourcing. And I. I was like, man, if these James Beard chefs are willing to serve this, then. Then maybe we have something. And that's really how we got started.

Tell us a little bit about this plant. What does she look like? What is your energy? What's the stature? Are we talking a bush, a tree? What are the parts of the plant that you're harvesting, and what is the degree of preparation required?

So she is a shrub. She's an ilex. So a cousin of yerba mate or yusa, are the more commonly known caffeinated cousin plants. But she's a holly, and so is an evergreen. She grows unchecked where we are. So she's an understory tree. Um, but she will. And is a rhizome. So she just spreads and takes over and grows so dense that not even deer can walk through it. Um, so the reason she's viewed as a nuisance right now is because she just shades everything else out. Right. So. And grows 20, 30ft tall under our. Our post oaks and our. Our established oak canopy mixed in with a little bit of cedar and sometimes pine. We're kind of a sandy loam mix with some fingers of clay. Right. We're a little bit coastal where we are. And so she'll grow under all of it and grow kind of thicket, a very, very dense thicket, and she's hardy, and there's a lot we don't know about her. It's interesting just in the sense of, like, she's. It's almost like a. You. You're looking at a grove, and we don't know if that's 50 organisms or three. Right. But we know that she'll take over and. And we use the leaves, so we are making it like tea. We're just. You were just using the leaves. And so there's again, like, tea. There's a million different ways we could be processing it, because all of the different flavor profiles come from oxidation fer. And you can use mechanical means. You can use heat. Yeah. I mean, just look at all the different types of tea. It all comes from one plant. Right. And we have three that we commercially do right now. Our green, which is going to be like a. It's a dried leaf. It's a. Like a Japanese green. We have a medium roast, which it'll be closest to, like an oolong. Um, and then we have our dark roast, which is kind of our premium, most labor intensive. Um, but it is a really rich dark roast. And so. But it tastes like a familiar black imported tea. And so predominantly, what we sell is our iced tea is actually a mix of our medium and our dark roast. Um, we found that to be the most approachable when it comes to a replacement of a traditional black iced tea, which we're in Texas, so if we want to sell anything, it needs to be iced tea. And. But they're. But they're all really good hot as well. What.

What. How would you describe the flavor profile to someone who's never experienced it before? Because you. You mentioned initially you. You didn't think it might be commercially viable because of the taste, and you. You expressed surprise that James Beard chefs would serve it. So what's that like, exactly?

Yeah, you know, I was. I was wary of the taste before we found a way to produce it. Right. But now that we have, it's delicious. You know, it is. What's fascinating is Yaupon doesn't have tannins and tannins or it gives.

That's a big deal.

Yeah. Tannins are what give imported tea that like astringency or bite. And so you're not having to cut it with a sweetener or if you're British, with milk. And that's often what you're trying to. To cut in those. In the flavor profile. It also means you can't over steep it, which is really nice because we'll steep ours for a long time or over and over it also. So the green is going to be very crisp and vegetable, like a very clean, grassy. It's personally my favorite, but I like green teas. But because, again, there's no tannins. A lot of times people don't love green because of that, like, astringency mouth feel. Right. Where it's almost the bite on your tongue. And, and so the green is flavorful but without more subtle.

What is, what's the degree of caffeine concentration relative to coffee or green tea or the beverages that people are familiar with?

It's comparable to a green tea. It's about 25 to 30 milligrams per serving. But what's fascinating is it's a more complex caffeine. So it's caffeine, theobromine and theocrine together. And so um, because of that, one of my advisors, food science at A and M, his hypothesis is that it means it's broken down later in your intestines. And so because of that you don't get like a spike and then a crash. It's much more of an even more of a mental boost. And then because of it's really high in rootin, which is an amazing like anti inflammatory. And so there's this like opening and anecdotally we get a lot that it's a joyful energy, like a focused energy. And so it's more of like a mental impact and makes you a little bit more happy than the high octane coffee does. Right.

So one of the pieces that I'm so intrigued about your story, and I've heard versions or iterations of this now several times, is that you are in essence, you are finding value in and creating value from plants that people otherwise would designate as weeds or even as invasives.

Yep.

And there are, there are so many stories of this. My years ago, my brothers on the home farm used to produce winter greens and their most, their greatest demand. Salad mix was heavy in lamb's quarter and galanzoga and purslane, they had the greatest competition for that. They couldn't produce enough of this quote unquote weed mix. That's what everybody wanted. They didn't want the spinach and the lettuce and everything else. They wanted the weed combination because it was the most flavorful and the stories like that abound. But there aren't many of those stories came about as a result of happenstance or serendipity where we kind of stumbled across them. Your story is a little bit different in that you deliberately set out to explore and to define, try to understand what it is that you can create or what it is that what this plant can bring. So from what you've observed and experienced, what advice or perspectives would you share for other people to explore similar opportunities?

Yeah, that's a good question. You know, and I think we, we see A lot of these things that have been classified as quote, unquote, weeds because they're hearty. Right. They're. They're what should be here. And I think Eau Pawn is an interesting snapshot of that. Right. You know, some historians believe it was more widely consumed than. Than tea and coffee globally at any. At one point. But with the eradication of a lot of the native drinkers. Right. And the elimination of all of these. These people that had a deep tradition with it. And then, then the forced relocation. You know, I'm a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, and we had a tradition with it back in Mississippi. It doesn't grow in the res. In Oklahoma and certainly not in the state that it did in Mississippi. And so we've lost the legacy. And a lot of the Trail of Tears is. Is the growing region of Yaupon. Right. And so I think it's not just. That's just one plant that we've lost our tradition with. And then at the same.

That's my point.

Yeah. And then at the same time, you know, the Spanish loved it, they exported it. They. There's accounts of all of these, you know, Spanish sailors drinking it to get amped up before a storm. Wait a minute.

This sounds like a reversal of the. Of the Tea Party.

Ironically, some of the. Some historians believe that they were drinking Yaupon before they went in to throw all of the tea into the, into the harbor. And yaupon was a derogatory term which meant you're too poor to afford imported tea. And the scientific name of Yaupon is Ilex vomitoria. And what historians believe now is that the Scottish botanist who named it, who, by the way, never stepped foot in North America, was employed by the East India Tea Company at the time he gave.

That's hilarious.

Yeah. And so it's like, oh, they're like, oh, we don't want anything local to disrupt this demand, so we're going to give it a nasty name. We're going to make it a drink of the poor. And, and then with that, with the eradication and relocation, we lost a tradition. And so I think. And then at the same time, you know, nature's got a glass draw, right? Like, we come in and we do our interventions, and the things that should be here are going to take over. And, and, and Yopon is an example of that. And the reason that she grows unchecked is because we, we got rid of what. That, what kept her in balance with the. The native grasses with their super robust deep root systems. Of 30 to 50ft. You know, that's what was, what kept balance and I think cyclical grazing pressure.

From ruminant animals, et cetera, et cetera.

Exactly. Monocropping, then allowing it to go fallow when economics don't make sense to grow cotton in our region in Texas and overgrazing and replacing with, for hay, which is a, you know, 10 inch root system. And Yaupon's like, cute, I'll take over now, thanks. And, and so I think with that as the background, Yaupon's not unique, right? Like, it's like what, what is hardy here, what should be here. And you know, I believe strongly, like I'm a, I'm a steward of this plant. And, and she's a catalyst for restoration. She's a catalyst for restoration in our land, in our community, in our bod think therefore, in our, in our industry. And so I, I don't think this is the only instance of this, but I think if we're framing what we're looking at, right, like, okay, what's out of balance in our ecosystems? I think there's, there's a tradition of kudzu, right? And that grows unchecked. There's a, I see this with sotl, right? Sotl is a, a Chihuahuan desert, southern Texas cactus that had, you know, is, is, can be fermented like a tequila. And if you look back in a lot of these indigenous cultures, they had a deep tradition with it. But then, you know, the Mexican government didn't want anything to compete with tequila, so they made it illegal. And it was mainly a drink of the, the marginalized in the Chihuahuan desert and they couldn't afford lobbying. And so now sotl grows unchecked and has taken over. And so I think in the same with prickly pear, right, it wasn't as aggressively a government intervention, but it's a, it's a side effect, right? And there's a lot you can be doing with prickly pear. Anything from a beverage to, you know, there's opportunity for fermenting it as a, as a biodiesel, right? And so I think that is, You know, I think there's, there's an element of what's been on the grocery shelf is what is food and that's how we, what we know how to make and how to cook. And so therefore that's what we've farmed. But that isn't what is best for the land and isn't what it's best for our bodies.

There are all of these different Opportunities. Another one that, another historical example that comes to mind is the, some of the highest quality corn silage that I ever observed from an animal performance and from a testing perspective was a very weedy field of corn where the plant population of lamb's quarter exceeded the plant population of corn. But this lamb's quarter has a 23% protein content. So we had corn silage that was extremely high in protein. So there's these many examples of things that we perceive to be bad that can actually be very, very beneficial in the right context, in the right framework. But the question that I would have for you is when growers see a plant or they have a plant that they are struggling with, trying to compete with, what are the pathways for learning about what these plants can bring? If there isn't a strong historical connection as you have with indigenous knowledge, what are the pathways for learning how to develop so called weeds into potential economic, viable, economically viable opportunities?

Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of ways to. The picture I have right now in my head is like, okay, what are the questions we can ask to narrow that region of darkness? Right? Because there are a lot of things we don't know when it comes to what the steady state ecosystems that we are trying to manipulate in a way. I mean, because that in essence that is a little bit of what AG is, right? We are trying to manipulate an ecosystem and we've in some ways we've swung so far to one extreme through years and years of intervention. And so what, what will help us swing back to, to a healthy place? And I think there's a lot of ways to do it. I think there's one is like the historical records, right? You know, what were, what did it look like 100 years ago, what did it look like 200 years ago? And, and I also think at the same time we're living in a really fascinating time where there's such a democratization of information where we can be going through thousands of pages of content with the support of GPTs that can help parse that information. But like anything, it's, it's finding the best sources of information and asking the best questions. And so I think that's where it's. How do we, how do we find, how do we ask the right questions is really what I think it comes down to. And I don't know enough about everybody's different instances of, you know, with your corn, for example, right, like your corn field is going to look very different than, than where we are. But I think a Lot of the questions are the same is, you know, what would be. What would be the best for the land? Right. And what would be. What. What is it that we're working with? And I also think there's an element too, of what can we process, Right. Because I think from an economical perspective, like, yeah, maybe this value added product would be the most impactful, but is that even. Is the cost of that going to be more harder to implement than even growing the raw material? Right. And so I think there's a lot of these different kind of intersections of, like, where's the Venn diagram in. In what is best for land? The best economical option and the most viable. But I also think, because we have access to computing power in a way that we've never had before, I think it's. It's about asking better questions and getting more information into those GPTs. Right. I think there's a whole loss of, and I'm blanking on the name of it, but I think it's in the university, it's in Cincinnati, has the, the library of a lot of the last traditions, of a lot of the different medicinal and botanical uses here in the US from all of these different tribes. And I think 5% of it's online, right. And I think that's where it's like, oh, let's get that as much as that into a usable state so that then we can be looking into the Southeast and saying, hey, these are the herbs that have the traditions. These are the values, these are the benefits. This is how it was used historically. And then here's where we are now. And sometimes those are the weeds, right? Sometimes those are the, the things that were seen as a nuisance, but we've lost.

Not sometimes, not sometimes. It's, it's, it's. You know, it's interesting when you describe the, the resilience that Yaupon has from this extreme drought stress environment, is that that degree of resilience, that degree of, of another word for that derogatory word for that is invasiveness or persistence, that degree of persistence and vigor is almost invariably associated with something that we value, other characteristics that we value, polyphenolic content and antioxidant content. And on and on the list goes. And that's universal across almost all the plant species that I can really think of.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, and to echo the other point, one additional point that you were making, we've developed field arc and put field arc out into the world. And one of the things that, like you, I'm so inspired by the potential value, the possibility, the promise of these large language models is the ability to democratize information and make it readily accessible. Where previously if you wanted to research something, you might have to visit a dozen libraries and read a hundred books to get the answer to the question you were looking for. And as that increasingly becomes digitized, becomes readily accessible, it makes streamlines accessing that information to such a remarkable degree. Let's come back to Yaupon specifically. Give us some context for what is the, what's the economic scale of the crop currently and what is the opportunity, I mean, my goodness. To drink such ridiculous amounts if we consume such ridiculous amounts of caffeine. By the way, I'm not a caffeine addict, so I'm free to use that adjective.

Perfect. Yeah, no, we do. And at this point, all other alternatives are on a ship and recently now are tariffed. Right, so there's that aspect of it. Yeah, I mean, I think the potential is huge to be, you know, to just to, not to give specific numbers but at the same time knowing like, okay, it grows, it grows well. It grows well in the Southeast. It grows really well. Where we are in Texas, we can come back and harvest within a year of where we're coming back and initially harvesting because once it's stressed, it grows more. And what we're actually piloting with the support of a USDA Conservation Innovation grant is what does it look like if we're doing rewilding alongside our harvesting? So what if we're doing a heavier intervention on the harvest and restoring these native grasses to kind of aggressively help get back to a healthy ecosystem. And so, you know, we've done a ton of research on, you know, what is the scale of this challenge. And right now, you know, you're familiar with equip, right? The equip standards for the conservation currently right now for managing eopon are for an IPT of remedy and diesel. So introducing a, a pesticide to land that's literally never seen it, or to bulldoze it with, you know, a D4 or more, which is just incredibly disturbing into the land. And you don't only kill the open. When you do that, it often is, is stressing the, the established trees that you want there. And so those are the conservation standards. And so, so what we've proposed is, you know, what if we do a mechanical harvest that is more machine driven and as we're harvesting we're doing some clearing and reseeding to accelerate the grassland regrowth, managing with, you know, multi stage mulching and or prescribed burning and then, then we'll see what happens. Which is nice because the USDA has historically not always been open to a multi step intervention. They kind of like a one and done which I'm like do you mow your lawn once? How does that work? And so they, they're now get, they're becoming more open to conservation standards that are multi step like this, which is really exciting. And so we're piloting this on 500 acres over the course of the next couple years. And, and so within that we've learned that this is a about a 20 million acre problem in our region of overgrowth and sounds to me like a.

20 million acre opportunity.

Yes, exactly. And some of our preliminary data that we've just gotten is showing that our harvesting interventions like this and restoration is actually improving carbon storage in the soil by 7% and improving species biodiversity by 70% following our, our restoration. So that's super exciting. And so we kind of have two paths forward as far as how we relate to the land. And we can either be doing these coming in, harvesting grassland restoration and letting it rewild or we can come in, be coming in and doing thinning and coming back and doing maintained harvests. The exciting thing is both are qualify as certified regenerative organic and it's all organic.

But yeah, one of the reservations I have when I hear you use the term rewilding, in my mind rewilding is often associated with the, with this idealistic perspective of removing people, livestock from the landscape after. So if you are, it would seem to me that as you are re establishing grasslands, in order to establish those successfully and maintain them well, you will need to also incorporate ruminant grazing pressure. How is the, how is, what's the success of your grass establishment and rewilding efforts look like?

To be honest it's, you know, a Success is an 8 year, 10 year timeline. So I hesitate to give you any numbers just yet because we're only a couple of years in. And I think you know what's interesting where, where we are is there's, I totally agree with the rewilding aspect of it. But Yaupon, because Yaupon has made the land inaccessible, our rewilding efforts are actually increasing access to the land. Right. Because it yopon currently shadows everything else out. So there's no grass, which means there's no invertebrates, which means there's no birds, which means there's no, it's all the way up the ecosystem and caffeine is a natural deterrent. Right. And so cows.

Yeah, I understand all those pieces, but my point is that if you just take it back to a grassland and then say, all right, this has been successfully rewilded and conserved and now we're going to walk away in another decade, you'll be right back to square one. No.

No, I mean, I think in what ways that yaupon would have taken over again.

The yaupon will. It'll begin regrowing.

Yes, it's. But I think that's it. It's not an invasive. Is. Should be there. But with the, it. With. If we are successful with the rewilding of the grasses and their, it's. Their 30 and 50 foot root systems are what kept keeps the yaupon growth in check. And so once they're established, the yaupon is there. It's just, it's imbalance. And so that's it. We're not trying to eradicate. No, we want yopon there and she should be there. She just should not be a monocrop. Yeah. So, yeah, and, and, and we're. Yes, and grazing is a part of that. So. No, it. I, I understand the concern and I think that's something that we see too with conservation. You know, sometimes is. It's this. Well, in order for this to be effective, it needs to go into an easement in perpetuity where there's no ability to do anything on the land, including access for grazing. And, but that's, that's not, that's not what we're shooting for.

So let's change gears. I'd like to talk a little bit about the entrepreneurial and the, the marketing work that needed to go in. What, what, what needed to happen for you to develop this and to, to get it out there in a significant way.

Oh, man. I was so naive and probably gratefully so when I started, but I, I think I.

There's this old saying that if most people had any idea what it took to start a company, nobody would ever do it.

It's so true. You know, I think we're, we've been in the enviable and unenviable position of building a brand in a product category at the same time. And I say that's been awesome and hugely challenging for both, for both aspects. One, we get to, we get to really be in the driver's seat for a lot of the standards, the messaging, the, the way that it's positioned right and, and the way that it's framed right. We've been able to really kind of make sure that Yaupon kind of coexists with a non extractive storyline, right. That it inherently becomes a sustainable like the laying the groundwork from everything from the messaging to the way that it's sourced and the expectations associated with that. So that's been really cool. I think it's also been really neat to be bringing back a plant that has been. Has such deep ties, right. And I think both with different tribes and then also with the history of the. In the Southeast. It's, you know, Yaupon's been a drink of the marginalized, right. And so historically the slaves drank it a lot, right.

All the way, all the way from the tea party, the way it sounds. My goodness.

Yeah. And so, and I think because there's, there's a lot of complexity within that is like how do we, how do we talk about a plant without there being cultural appropriation and also an element of restoration with these traditions. And so I think being in the. Being in the driver's seat again has been a gift to be able to have the time and the intentionality and how. And how we talk about it and how we. And how we learn. Like how am I talking to the. The different tribes and who are we working with? And so that's been really cool. The downsides are no one knows what the plan is when we get started. And, and so we've been, we've been very multichannel, right. We are bulk and ingredient sales. We are food service. We are our own branded product on the shelf and, and on E Commerce. And so because, you know, what do they say a consumer needs to see something 13 times before they remember it. And we're not in a position to afford 13 brand exposures all ourself. And so by being able to shoulder that with other brands that are wanting to incorporate Yopon into their product is. Is awesome and, and on their menus, right. And I think. But the flip side of that is this brand building and venture has been able to be incredibly collaborative, right. Because I don't really have any competitors in the sense that everyone is somebody we can potentially work with, including other Yopon brands. Right. And so we get to supply to other tea companies, kombucha, brewers, energy drinks, energy bars, cosmetics, kind of this whole gamut of opportunity. And, and so I think that's actually made this really fun because you can be best in the world at one, maybe two things, right? And we're going to be best in the world at harvesting Yaupon and producing an amazing product and then we can work with Other brands who want to create a great bottled tea, a great energy drink, a great. You name it.

Well, when. When you consider the opportunity, the market opportunity that you have from a macro perspective, your. Your competition essentially being coffee, green tea, yerba mate, what else? I think there's more. One other source. I mean, my goodness, coffee. There's this persistent myth that coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil. That's not actually true. Anyone is curious. But still, the sheer volume of coffee that gets consumed around the world and you having a viable alternative to that that is cleaner, healthier, better for you. I mean, look, the reality is coffee production is being challenged by changing climates in many parts of the world. And there is a need to develop alternatives that are healthier, better for you. And also when you look at coffee production and the intensive use of. Of pesticides, fertilizers, et cetera, that is so common, that doesn't need to be wasn't historically, but it is today. Having an alternative that doesn't have all those exposures and all those hidden externalities is quite appealing completely.

And I think one of the things that makes the open pretty interesting is, you know what it. Studies have shown that for a cup of coffee, like 38 gallons of water have gone into the cultivation of it. And whereas because we're wild harvesting and we don't use water anywhere in our processing, it's a cup of water is what's used to make a cup of yaupon. Right. Because we're not having to irrigate, we're not having to use it in our processing. And so while there is water that's being used, it's incredibly drought resistant and we're not. It's rainwater.

Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if. I was about to ask that, that question is how much of the water that's used for coffee production is blue water?

I think it depends on where it is.

Yeah. This has been a fascinating conversation. What have we missed talking about that's important?

Oh, man. I'm sure I'll get off the call and remember all of the things I was supposed to say. No, I mean, I think hopefully we're just getting started. You know, I think it's. It's been incredible to be a part of this and to. To be a steward of this amazing plant. I think what gets me super excited is this is. This is just one example. Right?

Exactly.

We've touched on so many, and I think the time is right. I think because of COVID and now tariffs, people are inherently aware of their sourcing in a way that even if they aren't motivated from a healthy, like from a health lens, you know, they're like, oh well, so much of my food is, is stuck in customs or pricing or you know, all of those things. And, and so I think we are in. In a time where people are aware of. Of sourcing in a way that we, we haven't been historically, not since we've gone so globally versus local. And I think. And then at the same time, so many of the challenges that were associated with bringing a single or like a single ingredient or a diversified ingredient to market away from moving from like commodity ag is, is getting easier, right. Because of access to information, because of access to research. Right. Like this. There's. It's getting. It's an exciting time where I think bringing these newer products to market, the education. Right. The access to consumers while it's loud, it's available. Right. And I think consumers are looking for authenticity. And the more we can go back to, hey, this is where this is grown and this is how it's made. Even if it's a word you've never heard before is interesting. And, and people are looking for that. It's not. I think there's. And even in, in consumer packaged goods, right. They're, they're looking for innovation is in the source and in the ingredient. And I think it's in the rise of regenerative organic. Right. That inherently means people care more about the source. Right. Whereas innovation for the last decade and CPG before previously has been in, in packaging and in branding. Right. And that's not where we are right now. And so I think there's a lot that is becoming tailwinds for producers. And yeah, I'm excited.

It's an exciting time. And you know, every time we, we are. We're approaching what has been described as the fourth turning. We're approaching a massive socioeconomic shifts from many different perspectives and dimensions. And it's in every time, in every moment in history when we have significant turbulence, macroeconomic turbulence or the turbulent political turbulence, turbulence creates many challenges in your daughter souls. It also is a time of unprecedented opportunity. It's just. Are we mentally prepared to take advantage of those opportunities and to lean into those.

Yeah. And I think, you know, my charge would be to for anybody that's that's looking is take a walk like look around you see what is fighting to be there and, and start there. I think that's something that we can often and I know this is speaking out of this other side of my mouth, I would just touting the opportunity with these GBT's and the access to technology. But I think there's an importance of returning to, to where you are in your land. Right. The only reason we got started is because we were curious about why is this the only thing on our land that's not dying? And in listening to what was, looking out, looking out our window, walking our trails, like, really questioning what was around us. And I think it's those two things that are hand in hand. I mean, like anything you can swing to the extreme, but I think it's, it's the balance and the incorporation of, of being quiet and listening and being aware of your surroundings and also asking the questions and, and being a little bit of a dog with a bone and finding out how to, how to make it, where it goes, how does it fit?

Well, Abby, Ann, thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for sharing your work, for all the work you're doing. And I wish you the best of success. And at some point soon, I would love for Yaupon to replace coffee as the primary source of caffeine in North America.

That'd be amazing. We'll be here when that happens. Right. Thank you.

The team at AEA and I are dedicated to bringing this show to you because we believe that knowledge and information is the foundation of successful regenerative systems. At aea, we believe that growing better quality food and making more money from your crops is possible. And since 2006, we've worked with leading professional growers to help them do just that. At aea, we don't guess. We test. We analyze, and we provide recommendations based on scientific data, knowledge and experience. We've developed products that are uniquely positioned to help growers make more money with regenerative agriculture. If you are a professional grower who believes in testing instead of guessing, someone who believes in a better, more regenerative way to grow. Visit advancingecoag.com and contact us to see if AEA is right for you. Thank you for listening and we look forward to working with you.