White Tea - Most or Least Caffeine?

Don't believe blanket statements that white teas as a group have the most or the least caffeine. But to the extent that white teas *tend* to be made from the buds or growing tips of the tea plant, they will have more caffeine than average teas. But there are many variables that contribute to the amount of caffeine in the cup.

/Lew

All teas contain caffeine. I haven't read anything in literature, but I would think caffeine content for different tea types would depend on tea strain grown and growing conditions. I read Chinese are experimenting and developing naturally low-caffeine strains of tea plants (then no decaffination process required). Whether anything will come of that I don't know.

If we go by a majority, I've always heard tell it has the least. :-)

Aaron W. Hsu

Google "Nigel Melican" and Caffeine for some correct information on tea and caffeine

Amen that.

/Lew

What weighs more a gram of White tea or a gram of Black tea. What that really means is the density of the leaf determined by oxidation levels ie the more oxidation like Black teas the easier to leach caffeine because of the density. Think of leaf as a sponge. The White leaf will be more water logged but normally it will reach a caffeine saturation point after brewing limits.

Jim

Don't believe any of them.

The problem is.... one white tea might have more caffeine than one black tea, while another white tea has less and another black tea has more.

On top of that, I might steep a white tea a lot longer than you would, and I might get a lot more caffeine from the same tea as a result.

The problem is that there's no good field test for caffeine level, so all you can do is just relax and see how you feel after you drink it.

--scott