09.22.09
How to decaffeinate tea
posted by James Norwood Pratt | 38 comments
Caffeine is highly soluble and is one of the first constituents of the tea leaf to be extracted in steeping. Usually 80 percent of the tea’s caffeine content is released within the first 20 to 30 seconds of steeping. You can enjoy virtually caffeine-free tea with small sacrifice of flavor, therefore, by discarding the water after the first 30 to 60 seconds of steeping and adding fresh hot (temperature depending on tea type) water to the now-decaffeinated leaf. Remember too that tea has constituents which act to soothe and relax the body. These polyphenols only begin to dissolve after the third minute of steeping and will be pretty fully extracted after 5 minutes. This long-steeped tea is the secret of bedtime tea some swear by as an aid to sleep.
Managing Editor’s Note: This post generated a lot of discussion, including corrections to the information it contains. I strongly encourage you to read the many comments posted by our readers. Thanks to all who took the time to voice their thoughts on this important topic.
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I would hope that TChing and Mr. Pratt would please stop perpetuating unsubstantiated information on the decaffeination of tea.
Nigel Melican and Corax of Chadao cite a 96′ study showing that a 30 sec steeping on avg, removes only 9% of caffeine. It would take over 5 minutes of steeping to remove 80% of caffeine from tea.
That study and article can be found here: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and-reality.h tml
I encourage you to revise this article, remove it, or provide research to substantiate your claims.
Thank you, Jason
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Why do tea stores keep spreading this lie. it is nothing short of Fraud.
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Read the Truth about decaffeinated tea
September 22nd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Jason - I believe a lot of tea and caffeine issues need to be addressed. IF after a 30 second steeping, only 9% of the caffeine is released, why are the documented levels of caffeine listed as being so high? That would put green tea at a VERY low level of caffeine. We also know that each crop of tea has different amounts of caffeine and it’s also influenced by the level of freshness. Ultimately how much caffeine is in each cup varies substantially based on brew time, temperature, freshness, etc. The study that you mention is accurate for that batch of tea tested under those circumstances. I agree that more testing needs to be done to validate the findings. I can only speak to my subjective experience with caffeine and tea.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
1. “why are the documented levels of caffeine listed as being so high?” To which documented levels are you referring, and under what conditions were they measured?
2. “We also know that each crop of tea has different amounts of caffeine and it’s also influenced by the level of freshness.” My concern is not about the total amount of caffeine in dry leaf tea, I am concerned about caffeine release during steeping. Do you have evidence that dry leaf with higher concentration of caffeine releases its caffeine at a different rate than other teas?
3. “I agree that more testing needs to be done to validate the findings.” Yes, testing can be quite useful in confirming facts. However, you still have not provided any scientific evidence to disprove the findings I cited. Until you can, would it not be more responsible to cite the most up-to-date, detailed findings available, and adopt that data instead of “subjective experience”?
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Mr Pratt writes a weekly post which T Ching publishes each week. He is a nationally recognized tea expert. This is his opinion. We publish many posts that may not be the opinion of T Ching. The truth is, a few of us in the editorial positions have different opinions on this topic. We all feel strongly about our positions.
Regarding #1 - there are various reported levels of caffeine for many beverages. You can simply go on-line to review them. I am not sited scientific studies. They seem to range from 10-50mg for a cup of green tea. If in fact only a small amount of caffeine is released in a brief steeping, that would represent a very small level of caffeine. Less than in a Hersey kiss. I think the real issue is in fact caffeine. People have been made aware that caffeine has some problems associated with it as well as some pro ported health benefits. My comment is not reflective of the dry leaf and like you, I’m interested in the level of caffeine that is released into the cup of tea once it’s brewed.
It is curious to me why so many people, including our staff, and I’m including myself here too, has such strong feelings about tea and caffeine. We’ve received some pretty hostile comments about this topic. I have learned that just because there is “scientific research” on something - it doesn’t necessarily make it so. We have only to look at large scale double blind placebo controlled studies to realize this. It would be nice if things were black and white - right and wrong- good for you or bad for you - I’m coming to accept that most things reside in the grays.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I am not going to get into this discussion except to say that I have noticed many”studies” about tea in which the accepted standards of numbers, proposals, margins of error, acceptable parameters, etc. of statistics are ignored, rendering the results meaningless as any sort of scientific information. I am all for doing a better job with this sort of thing. I do respect Mr. Pratt, but he is not infallible, as are none of us.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
maybe the number of hostile comments have something to do with Caffeine sensitive people who have been told this lie just so some one could sell an oz or two of Tea.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Michelle,
“This is his opinion.” There is no indication in Mr. Pratt’s language that this is opinion. The content of this article can be found, nearly verbatim, in his book Tea Lover’s Treasury. There is no indication in his original text, or here in this posting, that Mr. Pratt is giving an “opinion.” His context implies he believes he is stating fact. Let me say here that I have met Mr. Pratt, and respect his contributions to the tea industry in the US. I would simply ask him to update/revise his facts.
Again, I go back to my previous point in #3 about your providing some sort of scientific evidence to support your stance. It would still be better to base our decisions on the best evidence we have at the moment than believe everything is “gray” and wait for some form of final, decisive proof that may not arrive.
Strong feelings aside, the issue of tea and caffeine is a matter of helping tea drinkers make informed choices. Some people purchase teas based on caffeine levels. Some report how caffeine irritates their digestion, or prevents them from sleeping well. When an expert posts an article telling them something that contradicts our best scientific understanding of the subject, we mislead consumers. This may seem insignificant to you, but why potentially mis-inform tea drinkers when we can avoid it? Better yet, why not give them both perspectives (as our dialogue here is doing), so that they can decide for themselves?
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Jason - I agree with you about giving both perspectives which is what we strive to do at T Ching. When we state something as being scientific, we site specific references. Without such a citation, it is the opinion of the author. When you speak of “some sort of scientific evidence”, I’m not convinced in theory that that is better for the general public. There appears to be a general belief that when something is scientifically studied, the conclusions must be valid. We know that statistics can be made to say what the investigator intended - and it adds credibility that may not be deserved. Think of all the FDA approved drugs that later get pulled off the market despite rigorous testing. I heard - unsubstantiated I’m afraid, that more people die each year in this country from prescription drugs taken as prescribed, than all the soldiers who died in Vietnam. I have heard from numerous sources that death from side effects of drugs is a leading killing of Americans. I’m not that impressed with “scientific” data I’m afraid. That’s why when I actually observe people drinking tea at my house who report being extremely caffeine sensitive and have no reaction to my second steeping of tea, I can’t dismiss that fact. It may however reflect the short steepings that I tend to brew.
I look forward to the time when I’ll be in a financial position to run some caffeine tests on a variety of teas. I wish our tea association had the funding to do some of this much needed work.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Regarding your comment above - Oolong4Go- love the name by the way - I think it would be foolish and short sited of any retailer to misrepresent tea. No one will get rich selling tea to people one time. When we can establish an honest relationship with our customers, we have gained a loyal tea consumer. That’s a win/win scenario that will be successful.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:32 pm
?”I think it would be foolish and short sited of any retailer to misrepresent tea.”
I would agree with this and after having fallen for 80% rule years ago by giving my wife a 2nd steeping too late at night. I feel I have reason to feel so strongly when I see “old wives tales” spread by Tea Retailers when current scientific evidence points to them being false. This is easy to debunk if you know someone who is very caffeine intolerant. Make a small pot of Sencha with a 45 to 60 second steep time (a common suggested prep for Sencha) save it for yourself. Then steep the leaf for a 2nd time, and serve it to them if the 80% rule was true the liquor from this steep would be very low in caffeine but please don’t blame me when your test subject has the shakes and can’t sleep.
The whole caffeine level takes on even more importance with the recent finding that caffeine highly degrades the effects of certain cancer drugs. and it is possible for you to have costumers whose Oncologist has warned to severely limit their intake searching your site for info on decaffeinated tea’s to replace the tea they normally drink.
In response to Mr Walker
?”This is his opinion. We publish many posts that may not be the opinion of T Ching.”
I can also understand you taking this outlook. But when the statement (fact or opinion) is presented on a blog with the company name and a link to the e-tail page at the top, it is not unreasonable to think that the info presented there is the position of said company. And the company should be ready for the possibility that current or potential customers will see it as such.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I hear you - I really do value this stimulating dialogue. This is what blogs were meant to be.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
I wish to avoid this discussion spiraling down to the point of futility.
Will you revise or remove the article, yes or no? You could simply add an editor’s note at the bottom of the article.
We have provided the best published research on the subject available at the time, and all you have provided are feelings of doubt and distrust. Surely you are not suggesting that you are expert enough to decisively discredit lab testing that had to follow stricter rules for research and publication than your first-hand experiences, are you?
I respectfully ask TChing to examine your conscience and your responsibility to the tea-drinking public. I trust that you will make the most honorable decision possible.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:51 am
This article follows a video clip that appeared on the CNN website last week about tea and caffeine pour-off under the guidance of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, which included an interview and quote by Dr. Andrew Weil. Dr. Weil did not claim 80% of the caffeine washed away in the rinse. He claimed 90%.
With all do respect to tea merchants and consultants (including ourselves) trying to seek out the best information for customers, if well publicized doctors (one who has given their name to a line of tea products) and a tea industry figure such as Mr. Pratt make these informative declarations their gravitas is going to carry the day. (By the way, the general public interprets this information as fact, not opinion.)
“Science” is not the holy grail in balancing out this type of misinformation either. It may have been at one time when more studies were independently funded by university programs or government agencies but now that the tea industry is the funding partner behind much of the published research the objectivity of science has become tainted. How is the lay person able to distinguish between legitimate independent, objective tea research and results vs. studies quietly funded by large tea companies where the experimental models are tweaked to insure only positive research results? Science is too frequently used as a white coat of approval to justify a predetermined outcome. The marketing department is the end user.
Solutions?
With regards to caffeine, if a customer is potentially that sensitive to caffeine that even lower levels of caffeine in teas may cause a problem, then we suggest their only option is a tisane. Herbal and botanical tea blends have improved vastly in the past 5 years and there is no reason why a customer can’t enjoy a great tasting tisane blend or a rooibos based tea without any worries about caffeine.
Correcting misinformation about caffeine properties or tea misinformation in general - this should be the #1 priority of the Specialty Tea Association. Their higher profile, representing the specialty tea merchants and consultants needs to address these concerns. Individual tea merchants can talk all day long to their customers but it won’t matter the next time a tea article or profile appears in the New York Times or CNN with inaccurate information. A “10 Tea Commandments” press release or certificate that we could frame and hang in every tea retailer’s shop would go a long way to establishing some authority behind updated, credible information for tea drinkers everywhere.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Jason - I’m confused - I though we agreed that this type of dialogue does exactly that.
“Better yet, why not give them both perspectives (as our dialogue here is doing), so that they can decide for themselves?” Not sure how an “editor’s note” would provide anything additional that the comments don’t reflect. We have written about this issue numerous times - check out my 6/9/08 post entitled Home Decaffeination for example - with many comments as well.
I have never professed to be a research scientist or expert in the field of caffeine nor have I discredited the lab testing you provided. I am a Ph.D. in psychology which required me to design and complete a research project. It was there that I first learned about the validity, reliability and accuracy of scientific testing.
As Mr Pratt’s post is quite dated, we can certainly ask him to comment about his current view of this issue. Again, I believe that this format provides an excellent opportunity for tea drinkers to see the differing opinions on this topic. Given your strong feelings, I will bring this issue up at the next editorial meeting to discussion the possibility of leaving “editor notes” below postings of controversial information.
I do appreciate your efforts to bring truth and clarity to the public. That is my agenda as well which prompted me to found T Ching. I believe tea has the potential to impact health on a huge scale. I believe the caffeine issue has clouded that potential unfortunately. It’s most conspicuous with mothers who have concerns about allowing their children to drink a beverage with caffeine.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
this decaffing process has been perpetuating for over over two decades, via word of mouth, and noted in several books on tea written in the 1970s and 1980s. I have 25 books on tea, I myself have read this in several of them and until this study that Mr. Walker refers to, have been perpetuating this myself in tea workshops I hold, and on the Cuppa Tea group of ravelry.com (over 3,000 members).
While I value the work and books that Mr. Pratt has done–most which has greatly helped spread the love of drinking tea, and the delight of using loose tea leaves for thousands of us–this myth has been spread without any scientific or factual basis. It has been spread under the undocumented notion that caffeine is water-soluble. Times have changed, and now technology and science has given us a bit more (factual) information.
I hope this “battle of decaf” can continue in a civil manner, because we are all in this mostly due to our love of drinking this wonderful elixir!
namaste!
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I’m afraid I will be away from the computer all day - as this is a hot topic- I’m regretful that further comments may have to await moderation until this evening. I apologize for the delay -please check back tomorrow for the continuing commentary.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Greetings, All–
I’m grateful for the chance to repudiate past errors, of which the misinformation on de-caffeinating tea ranks amongst my most egregious. When I wrote this ten years ago this hear-say was the conventional wisdom. We must all be grateful to Bruce Richardson who financed the lab work by which it has now been exposed as an old wives’ tale. It came to me via Tom Eck of Upton Tea Imports, who printed pretty much exactly what I repeat in one of his newsletters in the 1990’s. I had–and have–no way of checking since I appear to be (mostly) immune to caffeine, but I thought the caffeine-sensitive would be glad of the advice. Hope I have not been responsible for too many sleepless nights! —james norwood pratt
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Dear Jason Walker, Michelle Rabin, et al–
Please allow me to add here a comment I published previously in the introduction to my preliminary edition of James Norwood Pratt’s Tea Dictionary:
“None of us knows all there is to know about tea but to benefit the age-old Tea Society to which we all belong, let our knowledge, like our tea, be shared and our ignorance, like our thirst, overcome.”
The First Edition of JNP’s Tea Dictionary will soon be available to demonstrate the full extent of my ignorance–corrections always welcome!
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Wow. Quite the debate. I would concur with the naysayers that a 30 second steeping does not remove the majority of the caffeine. This has been disproved convincingly and repeatedly in properly conducted scientific studies for years now. In fact, most of the difference in the amount of caffeine IN THE CUP results from differences in steeping time and temperature, NOT from inherent differences in styles of leaf. If you were to brew all types of tea with identical methods the result would astound the “experts”.
But rather than drive the discussion any further down this hole, allow me to posit another important factor in the debate… as the caffeine in tea is “washed away”, so are the health benefits!
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
When we first opened, I would give Mr. Pratt’s method as a way to decaffeinate. But very quickly I stopped doing it after reading so many conflicting things about decaffeination. I don’t even offer decaffeinated teas. Like Zen Tara Tea, I now move people to Rooibos or other herbals/tisanes.
Even yerba mate has a ‘great debate’ going on regarding whether or not mattein is any less harmful than caffeine. I used to tell customers at the beginning it was, but now tell them it is similar to caffeine but doesn’t seem to give most people the ‘drop’ later caffeine can.
Information tends to be fluid and studies not 100% reliable in so many cases that it does put
the retailer of anything in a position of having to watch what advice they give out.
The simple thing for me is to say that tea has about 1/3 to 1/2 the caffeine of coffee when both are brewed and that the best way to avoid caffeine entirely is to go herbal. Any more details than that can get into sticky territory and who likes to get stuck??
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
By the way, as per Charles Cain’s last comment, it might be great if there were a thread that got into the technicalities of the brewing process. It really is a science..brewing and how it affects the tea leaves.
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
My views about short steep 80% (or even 90%!) decaffeination are well known and available on Cha Dao. They are based on the available scientific data. allow me however to make two points:
1. Sparse though the myth busting data is - there is at least some. I have never found ANY data in support of the 30 second decaff proposal - unless Dr Weil has some to hand?
2. Science apart does anyone really believe that Lipton would use extremely expensive decaffeination systems that degrade product quality (the best of these - supercritical CO2 caffeine extraction at a pressure of 300 atmospheres is difficult, dangerous and expensive) if a cheap effective 30 second water dip suffices. They have tested water decaffeination - and it failed.
Nigel at Teacraft
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I read about the study that James Norwood Pratt sites in his response above, in the January 2009 issue of “Fresh Cup” magazine. The article was written by Bruce Richardson and gives the results of a scientific study. The conclusion I took from this article was there there was no set rule about levels of caffeine, some greens & whites had more than some black teas. The standard myths were blown out of the water about black tea having the most caffeine and also a clear debunking of the 30 second steep removing most of the caffeine. As a tea house owner at the time, I felt I needed to dispel this myth of home decaffeinating and also the rule of thumb of caffeine levels increasing with oxidation of teas. So many factors go into the levels of caffeine in tea that there seems to be no steadfast rules. I love to see this dialogue and also greatly appreciate Mr. Pratt for saying “…let our knowledge, like our tea, be shared and our ignorance, like our thirst, overcome.”
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Regarding Charles’ comments -
Your first point was/is an inherent problem in some of these studies. The lab guys don’t like variables and so they would indeed brew any and all teas at the same temperature for the same amount of time. Then publish the results. This only ignited a furor as the tea folks pointed out the absurdity of structuring the experiment that way since (most) tea drinkers brew black, green, white, oolong according to different times and temps based on the type of tea. The results only had merit in a lab setting or for people who ignored proper tea brewing and brewed all their teas in boiling water. It wasn’t the greatest start to advancing the science of tea and caffeine levels.
Your second point about health benefits. Perhaps. Thankfully, the rinse also gets rid of any pesticides which is a good thing. Having traveled to parts of some tea producing countries that use pesticides, the general population there always washes their tea because they assume they need to rinse off pesticide residue, caffeine is of a lesser concern.
That takes us further down the rabbit hole. Sometimes I don’t think the medical community at large understands the trade-offs off tea caffeine content (relatively low) vs. all the health benefits of tea. Easier to just make a blanket statement about staying away from caffeine.
But even if we know all the caffeine levels of every possible tea type at every temperature and time combination once the tea reaches our lips you reach the last stage of the process: each of our bodies processes caffeine differently - age, biology, what food is in our stomach, drug interactions, etc… Mr. Pratt mentions in his post that caffeine never really bothered him so it was never that big a deal for him personally. For others, they have a very acute sensitivity. (Who maybe shouldn’t be drinking any caffeine containing beverage rather than trying to parse out differences between a green and a white tea looking for the one that fits their system?).
Funny how you don’t hear as much concern about caffeine when it comes to chocolate? (1 oz. dark chocolate = 20 mg. caffeine)
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Greetings, All–
There is so much ground to cover in considering this topic that I’ve been pre-occupied with the subject all day. If I had not lent out my copy of “Tea: Cultivation to Consumption” I could probably locate the graphic showing the chemical composition of the first five or six leaves on a tea shoot. Amazing how quickly and steadily the caffeine and polyphenol content drop from tip to fourth leaf, to go no further. Then too, does not the caffeine content vary from one varietal to the next–Tiequanyin vs. yabukita say– from one crop to the next–as in spring and fall flushes–or region to region? All small differences, no doubt, but small differences are decisive.
The tea plant is surely the last frontier in caffeine studies. Nothing humans ingest has received such relentless clinical investigation as caffeine, which has been found blameless for the most part and perceived by most as beneficial. Read B. Weinstein’s huge work “Caffeine” sometime.
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Oh Zen Tara “Thankfully, the rinse also gets rid of any pesticides which is a good thing” - truly another myth in the making and a victory for wishfull thinking. Where did you hear that pesticides wash off tea? The locals who wash their tea have been doing it for generations - long before pesticides; they are washing off dust and fluff. Most pesticides for efficacy are designed to be systemic - internal, so do not wash off, and many are fat soluble not water soluble - remaining with the infused leaf.
And as for chocolate, if we are being scientific, it contains very little caffeine, but a major amount of theobromine and trace amounts of theophyline - both chemically related to, but different from caffeine - all are methylxanthine alkaloids. A quick check of “silly” caffeine blogs will reveal many postings where the caffeine challenged argue that there must be caffeine in chocolate because they are allergic to it - no, it just means they are intolerent to methylxanthines and - here I agree with Zen Tara - should be sticking to tisanes.
Nigel at Teacraft
September 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Thank you Norwood for your words of wisdom. I suspect I’ll be quoting you many times over.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:22 am
This summer TeaGschwendner began testing EACH TEA in their collection for antioxidants, caffeine and other beneficial components. They should be in a position to publish the REAL RAW DATA on roughly 300 teas in their collection later this year or early next year. (For the last five years TeaGschwendner has been testing every shipment of every tea in their collection for contaminants in in-house laboratories run by the head of the European Economic Community’s committee on tea quality and pesticide testing. Today they can provide a PDF of the testing results for every tea, but these results do not yet include desirable components.)
This data will provide a meaningful competitive advantage for the company and I expect it to become a trend among leading suppliers. I’ve heard rumors of a number of leading US specialty tea companies in talks with labs to begin scientific quality control programs.
(Full disclosure: I was formerly employed by TeaGschwendner but am no longer. I am now an independent consultant in the industry. I remain, however, a fan.)
September 24th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Wow. Lots of great stuff here. I’ll just put in my brief responses to several things that caught my attention:
1) Regarding the call to change the post, I think a good middle road would be to add an editors note that says there is a lot more information in the comments. Often people don’t read comments, and my inner archivist would like the original post preserved. I say leave the post as is, with a note saying something to the effect of “this post has gained a lot of attention around some of the claims. Please read the comments for more specifics on caffeine”
2) Walden Diane (@ September 23rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm) : “Mattein” is no less/more harmful than caffeine because it’s the same molecule. If my memory is correct, different people discovered the compound independently and named it after the plant they found it in. Thus, theine, caffeine, mateine, etc. However, subsequent research has shown them to be the same molecule with different names. I did find this interesting bit: http://www.erowid.org/plants/yerba_mate/yerba_mate_chemistry1.shtml
3) Zen Tara Tea (@ September 23rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm): It doesn’t really matter how the tea is brewed to do the lab tests in this case. The standard telling of the “decaf myth” doesn’t vary for type of tea or water temperature. Therefore, any data about the myth doesn’t need to worry about those things in order to debunk the myth. You just need to compare how much caffeine is in the leaf to start with, how much comes out in the 30 seconds, and how much there is afterwords.
4) Charles Cain (@September 24th, 2009 at 10:22 am): Ooooh, looking forward to raw data! Good for them doing that testing and publishing the results! And quite a financial investment, too. I’m doing some comparison shopping on lab tests and the most accurate caffeine one alone can be US$50-350 per test. Multiply that by every shipment and by every tea and by tests for things other than caffeine, and you’re talking some money.
That’s my $0.03’s worth for the time being.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Per Nigel’s comments about pesticides.
3 episodes (which I realize do not a scientific study make).
- In Hangzhou during a tea tasting at a tea grower’s facility.
- At another tea estate which was insisting they followed organic practices because the only pesticides they used were “water soluble” - hence the wash.
- By an American ex-pat who lives 6 month’s in the US and 6 months in India near the Blue Mountains. Interesting tea stories.
I would imagine it would be a much easier testing procedure to test the tea leaves before the infusion and then test the brew for pesticide levels. Much less complicated then testing for caffeine levels. Not a test many growers would want to participate in perhaps. Its also possible that the tea industry as a whole be very keen on knowing the results either. (Not that tea is necessarily better or worse than many other agricultural crops we consume on a daily basis)
September 24th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Michael, thank you for your first suggestion. I took it!
It is wonderful to read all the eloquent, passionate, and very informative comments you all have written. Thanks.
September 25th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Zen Tara
Hearsay evidence - in science, as in law, is inadmissable.
This Chinese grower’s contention you cite is as laughable as it is dangerous - and more fool you for believing it - “At another tea estate which was insisting they followed organic practices because the only pesticides they used were “water soluble” - hence the wash”.
Organic practice must follow strict IFOAM procedures and be certified by IFOAM approved local certifying bodies. Your Chinese grower would never achieve organic certification if a) he followed the procedure he claims and b) if he used pesticides at all.
Nigel at Teacraft - with apologies to the editor for digressing from the caffeine topic.
September 26th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Is it possible that we find a variety of tea tree that has no caffeine and use this fresh leaves to produce tea?
If we decaffeine the tea, at the same time we lose some composition which contribute to the flavor .
If we can find out a tea variety has no caffeine,we will have no need to deffeine.
September 27th, 2009 at 10:45 am
No Caffeine Variety: It is possible. In fact, I’ve just read about a botanical variety of Camellia sinensis (that is, generally classified at the same level as “assamica” and “sinensis”) that supposedly produces no caffeine. Now, it may have other methylxanthines–related compounds with similar affects on the nervous system–and it may make a terrible-tasting brew. But you might be able to get a naturally caffeine free cup of tea.
The question becomes: Why is everyone so obsessed with that one molecule? I mean, are the people who are “caffeine sensitive” unaffected by, say, theophylline or theobromine? Would it be okay to have caffeine-free tea that tasted bad? Are people willing to sacrifice the antioxidant qualities of tea in order to have no caffeine? And what about the psychological/placebo affect of it?
Alcohol intoxication is a real, physiological phenomenon. However, at least two or three studies that I’m aware of off the top of my head have set up the *environment* in which people often get intoxicated and provide them with abundant liquor (I believe it was beer in two studies, and something like schnapps in another). The experimenters just didn’t tell anyone that there was no alcohol in the alcohol. Curiously, everyone still got drunk. Their reaction times plummeted, cognitive abilities dropped, subjects began staggering, talking became louder and more slurred. Everything you’d expect from intoxication. But none of it was caused by alcohol.
So switch back to caffeine. How many sleepless nights, racing hearts, etc. are blamed on caffeine when it’s not really caffeine? I would bet if you served caffeine-sensitive people a caffeine-free tea before bed without telling them it’s caffeine free, a good number of them would still have trouble sleeping and say it’s because of the caffeine, and not that it was their expectation of a bad night’s sleep, nor that they had too much theophylline.
September 27th, 2009 at 11:41 am
So far all non caffeine Camellias taste bad. Hard fact is that in C. sinensis caffeine is a biochemical necessity. Some no caffeine coffees exist - but they store the caffeine precursor theophylline - also psychoactive like caffeine.
The best I can say is if you don’t like caffeine you must either i) avoid camellia tea, ii) accept the decaffeinated inferior product (inferior in taste and in AOX), or iii) teach you body to accept a moderate caffeine intake.
Nigel at Teacraft
PS I have often wondered why Westerners, particularly North Americans, are caffeine “intolerant” - I have never heard of an Asian avoiding caffeine. Maybe in the US the early exposure of children to high caffeine soda??
November 27th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
This is a fantastic conversation. We have to deal with this question repeatedly from our customers. For our very sensitive customers, I suggest staying away from camellia sinensis completely. I appreciate this additional knowledge to add to the ‘caffeine conversation’.
And yes, Nigel - I find so many more Americans having serious issues with caffeine than other countries. Although some of these parents who will not let their children consume tea seem to have absolutely no issue with the occasional coke or pepsi. I will never understand that one.