About caffeine...
I mean I could be completely wrong, I was watching that meileaftea guy’s YouTube video “how to get dea drunk” and I thought he said that
The common theory for years was that white tea has the least caffeine, followed by green tea, and then black having the most, with oolong and puerh somewhere in the middle. However, there was a post somewhere on Steepster, don’t ask me where, linking to a scientific study where a scientist had tested the caffeine in white, green, and black teas. He found that from his samples, the white tea was actually the highest in caffeine. It is now known that caffeine content is more a factor of the innate leaves and less the processing. Teas with a lot of buds will be higher in caffeine because buds have the most caffeine, followed by small leaves next and the by large leaves, with stems having the least caffeine. Tea flowers, although not too often made into tea have the least caffeine. Tea flower tea is interesting but doesn’t taste anything like tea.
There was another post on here somewhere debunking the theory that you could decaffeinate a tea by simply rinsing the tea for 30 seconds, then throw out the rinse and rebrew a decaf tea. There was a link to another scientific study proving this wrong. It turns out that to remove all the caffeine from a tea you had to steep it closer to fifteen minutes and then rebrew but there probably wouldn’t be any flavor left either.
I’ve heard that white is supposed to be the highest in caffeine too but my body says differently. Black teas & ripe puerh teas are the highest to me. Matcha is extremely high too.
I just had a chance to try Mamaki “tea” for the first time, and in many ways it tastes similar to a lightly steeped green tea. There are some differences, but it is close enough that it might be worth looking into. I need to cut back on my caffeine intake, and I think that Mamaki might help me to do that during the work week, so that I can enjoy real tea on the weekend. :)
Hi Stock Man. I too am sensitive to caffeine and have to monitor my caffeine carefully through the day. I tend to enjoy more greens, whites, sheng, & light oolongs more than the other teas because I can get more cups in for the day. Once in awhile I enjoy a black tea but when I do , I will fit it in for early afternoon and not have anymore caffeine afterwards. I also keep the infusion time for blacks shorter than most people. I’ve got a few black teas I really love but go through them much more slowly than other teas because it means a sacrifice (less cups of tea) when I do.
So you need to find out what your caffeine level for the day is. For me, I can drink up to 4 cups of green , white ,light oolong, or sheng tea for the day. When I say green , I mean Chinese greens. Japanese greens like sencha could count for 1 1/2 and a gyokuro could count for 2 teas. Matcha is completely off my list. Too much caffeine in that one. Some whites tend to have a wide range of caffeine based on what type of white they are too. When I count 4 cups , I am not counting extra infusions. Each infusion counts as a cup.
Hope this helps. You just need to plan out your caffeine through the day and listen to your body.
For me it is not really about the total amount of caffeine that I have but that I cut it out early enough. Depending on my day this may be as early as 12 noon or as late as 3 pm. I have an extreme case of insomnia so I have to cut out caffeine as early as possible.
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