Biomass derived carbonaceous materials have been widely used as active electrode materials for electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) or hybrid capacitors. However, redox-active properties of these carbonaceous materials have not been explored. Here, for the first time, we demonstrated that carbonaceous materials from earth-abundant glucose via a hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process have redox-active properties with lithium ions. Morphologies of the carbon materials can be controlled from spheres to sheets by using graphene oxide as a template. When used as cathodes in lithium ion cells, both the carbon spheres and sheets showed high redox potentials in the voltage range of 2.2 - 3.7 V vs. Li. Freestanding, flexible composite electrodes consisting of the hydrothermal carbon materials and few-walled carbon nanotubes delivered high specific capacities up to ~155 mAh/g_electrode for carbon spheres and ~176 mAh/g_electrode for carbon sheets, respectively. These carbon materials exhibited no obvious capacity fade up to 10,000 cycles, proposing to be promising cathodes for lithium-ion batteries or capacitors. The simple, scalable HTC process converting earth-abundant biomass source into high performance cathode materials enables the development of high-performance lithium-ion storage systems, which can provide a sustainable solution towards clean and renewable energy storage.