Low Caffeine Tea

red tea

Rooibos? Tried it. She doesn't like it.

AP

It's mostly commonly thought/observed that white tea has the least and black tea has the most caffeine. white -> green -> oolong -> then either black or puerh tea.

A lot of sites have a table like the one on

I also found this page which thought these figures were all hooey. Try some lighter teas and if they don't give a bad buzz then stick with them.

Sorry, but that's just folklore.

Ah, now I feel better.

I apologize for being cranky, but this subject comes up often here, even though it's been settled on the merits. The short version is: Don't believe that green or white tea in general has less caffeine, and don't believe you can extract nearly all caffeine from tea leaves with a 30-second rinse. It's complicated!

/Lew

Just do a caffeine search in this group and you'll find all the info you need.

Red tea is not tea. It is rooibos. Tea is tea-camillia sinesis. I am joining Lew in crankidom.

The like of roobois, yerbal mate (I think)and herbal/flower teas have no caffeine. I have no comments about their favor because I haven't tried them.

It's also important to look at theanine, caffeine and catechins in aggregate, they cancel out each other.

I agree with Lewis It IS a complicated subject. Here are some thoughts:

Julian

You can buy teas that have been decaffeinated by the CO2 process. This is suppose to remove the caffeine only. They taste metallic to me. You won't get this taste through your own trial and error to eliminate caffeine through infusions. It does prove how important caffeine is to the taste of tea.

Jim

Alan Petrillo wrote:

Honored!

/Lew

Right, that's a point that's usually overlooked. But caffeine is bitter, and some of the people who don't like caffeine's pharmacological effect might have trouble with bitterness, too. Of course, if you can't stand a certain amount of bitterness, there's probably a limit to how interested you can become in tea.

/Lew

Unfortunately this is a hasty generalization with no real fact behind it. The caffeine in the leaves isn't affected much by processing, so it has a lot more to do with the particular variety and the soil and weather conditions than anything else.

The figures are all hooey, and the lighter teas may not be any lower in caffeine. Without measuring, you don't really know, although you can expect a pre-steep to reduce the caffeine levels somewhat.

--scott

Lewis Per> ... Don't believe that green or white tea in general has less caffeine,

Yes, rather. May I suggest an alternative approach: find the tea that offers the most satisfying flavor per gram of dry leaf, and brew it as weakly as possible. To my taste, some oolongs and most whites give their peak enjoyment when brewed so lightly that there is little or no color to the brew. No kick-in-the-teeth flavor, but enough to balance the rich aroma - right for sipping and sharing, not for bull-drinking.

An analogy is what happened when tobacco companies started selling low-nicotine cigarettes. Most addicts smoke to a constant blood level of nicotine (which isn't especially dangerous); getting there with reduced-nicotine tobacco means inhaling a lot more tar, CO and other bad stuff. So the health benefit was kind of reversed. In this case, the opportunity is to achieve sensory satisfaction with the least leaf, since all have (very roughly) the same extractable percentage of caffeine.

juliantai wrote: > It's also important to look at theanine, caffeine and catechins in > aggregate, they cancel out each other.

Err - let's watch the medical generalizations. They don't "cancel each other out" any more than amphetamines and alcohol; they work together in partially opposite directions, leaving plenty of side-effects. It may be true that for some people, there's an overall uniform effect. But people who are caffeine-sensitive will not be "saved" by those other components.

-DM