I read about an interesting rubus plant called Rubus chingii suavissimus which apparently has a sweet compound in its leaves. Seeds seem to be available in the US ( Rubus chingii var. suavissimus - Web page Navigation - Chinese Sweet Tea). I considered getting the seeds to try it out, but I saw that the leaves look like hemp and my wife did not want neighbors asking questions. That being said, it would be cool to see if this plant could hybridize with other rubus to get a combo of good fruit and good tea leaves.
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The name is Rubus suavissimus (Lee 1981).
https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomydetail?id=402703
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According to Plants of the World Online Rubus chingii var. suavissimus is considered the correct name with it being a variety of R. chingii rather than elevated to species rank of R. suavissimus.
POWO doesn’t get it right 100% of the time, but they do a pretty good job of keeping their nomenclature up to date. Well enough that iNaturalist uses them as the authority by which they determine what plant nomenclature to use within their own database. If you do feel that POWO has got it wrong and that it should be elevated to species status, there is contact info on their website. They’re pretty good about considering any input sent to them and assessing whether it has sufficient merit to implement a nomenclature change.
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Thanks for posting about this. It looks like it is hardy enough to make it possible to trial in a lot of areas. I think I need to order some seeds! I already grow “Tea of Heaven” which is a special Japanese Hydrangea that is used to make a sweet tea. It sounds like this Rubus is the same concept, but working with a different chemical source of sweetness.
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Myself and others have tried to work directly with the Kew and their plant databases. Overall, it reminds us of the librarian and his computer system Zero in Rollerball.
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I will be interested to hear how it does for you if you get it. Definitely seems like a plant with potential.
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Seen an old TV show where they were using blackberry leaves for tea. Island of Guernsey? under Nazi occupation.
Blackberry leaves are an important ingredient in a lot of herbal teas, but one that adds sweetness sounds like a great addition to a tea garden. It would be good to get some data about how the human body handles this particular compound, given what we’ve found out about so many sugar substitutes… I’d love to get some dried leaves to try before investing space in a plant.
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I did a bunch of reading on it after seeing this post. I’ll share some of the highlights I found:
Chinese name = 甜茶 which translates literally to “sweet tea”
Apparently this is also being used as a nick name for Timothée Chalamet, so if you want to search for Chinese language info on this plant, you’ll have to include the term “Rubus” in the search as well.
The Chinese website Baidu has a pretty detailed article on this plant with a number of vlogger style videos about it attached to the page as well. You can use Google translate to read an acceptably understandable translation in English.
While this plant does have some small amounts of natural sugars in its leaves (like all plants cause that’s literally what leaves do, make sugar for the plants), the main source of its sweet taste is called “rubusoside.” This chemical is one of a group of chemicals known as “steviol glycosides” and is actually one of the numerous types of steviol glycosides found in the already widely studied and consumed Stevia rebaudiana.
In addition to being used for its enjoyable flavor, this plant is also used medicinally to some extent within China and it appears that a fair amount of study has and is continuing to go into it.
I went ahead and ordered seeds, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some to germinate.
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The show is “Islands at War” from 2003, PBS. I saw it also.
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Enemy at the Door, 1978- 1980. Had to look it up, thought it was decades ago I watched it! 
Must have remade it much newer. 
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I’m curious, is the R. suavissimus diploid or tetraploid? Does anyone know? I I’m almost leaning toward thinking tetraploid based on appearance.
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Rubus chingii is listed as diploid, but it’s not uncommon for species that are normally one ploidy to still have sub-populations of alternate ploidies… When I look at pictures of R. chingii var. chingii compared to pictures of R. chingii var. suavissimus, the main visual difference seems to be that the latter tends to have a couple more lobes on the leaves than the former. However, that’s just based on the average leaf as you can find individual leaves of varying lobe counts. There may be some non-visual differences too though. Though all the data about rubusoside in var. suavissimus refers to that found in its leaves, when it comes to var. chingii I’ve only seen data about the rubusoside content in its berries.
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