Matcha - High in caffeine because you ingest the entire leaf
I'd like to share with you this informative post on About.com: Factors influencing caffeine levels in tea. Thanks to Lindsey, my friend and tea professional, for summarizing a tricky topic.
In the past few years, more thorough and sensitive testing has shown that the old idea of pouring off the first brew of your tea to decaffeinate it doesn't work like we once thought. It has to do with caffeine's "desire" to be in a state of equilibrium. The caffeine keeps on giving, so to speak, in addition to a host of other factors, like tea varietal, growing method, maturity when picked, processing style, brewing technique and even water temperature. If you and I brew the same tea side by side, chances are each cup would differ in caffeine levels. Yours might brew a bit longer, I might use cooler water, etc.
I've been learning more about this over the past few years, and I think Lindsey has done an excellent job of summarizing the findings.
* Photo from Microsoft images
7 comments:
Thanks, Steph!
Hey - thanks for the updates! Good to know the latest and greatest.
Thanks, Steph! The more we know the better we can explain to others.
Thanks! It is encouraging to see people grasping a more accurate impression of things. Many of the studies debunking the "black tea = high caffeine, green tea = low, white = lowest" myth have been around for a long time, but I have found that there is a great deal of misinformation repeated, not only
When I first wrote my page on caffeine in tea, there were very few other pages explaining the more accurate view of things, mainly one blog post I found by Nigel Melican which I'd encourage you to read if you haven't. Thanks for helping to pass on good information. I would also encourage everyone to be more of a critical thinker and check for sources: I have cited numerous sources in my article on caffeine and I think when it comes to health information, it's almost imperative that one does so if the information is to be trusted.
That is very helpful, Steph, so thanks for the link! I do get asked about this occasionally, so it's good to have more and better information at my fingertips!
Thanks for sharing this!
Beautiful photo composition, and always good to discuss the tricky caffeine question.
Post a Comment