Not having a good day

Many thanks. Good tip about water temp. The research reviews I looked at treated all the teas the same way, so all got 5 minute brews with boiling water. That might be a good counter argument for white and green because of the lower steep temp and possible lower steep time. Interestingly enough, given how popular tea is, there aren’t a lot of studies on the caffeine. Maybe it’s a tea lobby thing trying to keep the truth out, but I would think there’s enough interest to really study it further.

Many thanks for your best wishes as well. I consider myself fortunate enough to be able to continue on. So life goes on, albeit less enjoyable without my teas : )

I’m not trying to avoid it. Not going to happen. Just trying to figure out ways to bring down the intake without totally killing the flavor with the extended washes.

I was probably drinking 3-4 fresh infusions (at least 16 oz) a day of black, green, oolong. Sometimes doing a 2nd infusion (i.e. Oolong), sometimes not (i.e. a masala chai). I was mostly doing western style, but some gongfu with the yunnan black.

So rough estimate, I figure I was doing about 300-400 mg caffeine a day which is on the high end of “normal” but definitely not where you want to be with heart troubles.

So I want to get in about 100 and see how that goes. I can either making one or two really good cups of tea or figure out a way to milk out 4-5 cups by playing around with steep times, temp, throwing first batch, etc.

Thanks for the article though. Think I read it already as part of this quest.

well, with short gongfu steeps that’s not really very helpful, the caffeine release is fairly linear, (ie: tossing steeps 1 and 2 would be similar to tossing steeps 4 and 5) You can’t assume most of the caffeine is frontloaded like that, that’s the same flawed thinking behind the “30 second rinse removes 80% of the caffeine” myth.

this is interesting as this was my first thought too. You’re only steeping 10 secs to maybe 90 secs on the last steeps. So if I were going to make say a 16 oz pot, am I better off doing 5 3oz gongfu steeps, or one 16 oz pot that’s going to steep for 3-5 minutes.

My non scientific thought was go gongfu, but then I realized I also put in more tea when I gongfu. For instance, on an Oolong, I’ll do 4 grams in the pot, but probably 7 in the gaiwan.

Respectfully, my suggestion might be off base but its not tthathacaffine release is “fairly linear”. Caffine will dimminish with each steep. Ill put that out there for you to reasearch on your own. I read enough evidence, through studies, that show caffine is heavily released in heavily at first then declines. Im not posting any links because, at the time, I didnt not care enough to save the sources.

Also, length of steep does play a role. the longer the tea soaks the more caffine is released. In gongfu the longest steep is likely to be 30 seconds. many teas are only steeped for 10 seconds. 7 grams of tea steeped for 10-15 seconds in a 2 oz serving will have far less caffine than 3 grams steeped for 3 minutes in an 8 oz serving. given that caffine is water soluable thats perfectly logical.

yeah, this article was mentioned above and one of the first I read which opened up my eyes as to the myths about white and green tea and the 30 second decaf wash.

There’s a very interesting discussion that continues in the comments of the article.

What the study confirms is that white, green, black have very similar caffeine counts. There’s some variance in seedling vs clone, african vs Chinese variety, etc. The problem is that all the teas were treated the same way, i.e. boiled water and steeped for five minutes. So one could make an argument that white and green are steeped at lower temps and in some cases for less than 5 minutes.

Amazingly, not to my knowledge, but there is no study which steeps tea at the various increments, i.e. 30 secs, 1 min, 1 min 30 etc. to gather how much caffeine is leaking, much less steeping at the recommended temps for that class of tea.

The two studies I’ve seen did 5 minute and 3 minute. So it’s still very difficult to dismiss how much caffeine comes out in the first minute vs. the 3rd. It’s perhaps logical that it’s linear leakage, but that by no means is scientific.

If indeed it is linear and water temperature and steep time play a factor, then you could argue that white and green tea have less caffeine in the finished cup, but maybe the actual tea has the same amount or even more.

I think I’m still going to stick with Oolong because I’ve seen it mentioned now a few different places as being the best choice, mostly because of the mature leaf and possibly because roasting may have a factor as well.

The Gongfu method also seems to me to make most sense because even if my 5-7 steeps total 7 minutes in brew time, I can spread those out through out the day and there is the issue of amount of water also affecting how much caffeine is extracted.

Given how big the tea business, I’m surprised there’s not more studies. Many of the ones found online go back 4-15 years. Maybe the tea business doesn’t want the truth to come out? But for people like me who can tolerate a smaller amount, you may lose us all together.

I would love to know how much caffeine is an actual finished cup when the tea is brewed “properly” both with western and gongfu style.

It can vary so much from tea to tea and even brew to brew based on so many different factors beyond your control though that any such individual measurements would not really let you extrapolate any broader conclusions beyond that individual tea/harvest/batch. The only thing you can really do is take note of a individual tea’s effect on your own body when you try it. (and from my personal experience even though it’s brewed lower temp green tea often feels more caffeinated, presumably because of it’s much higher bud content)

True, it varies no doubt. But if you took same tea and brewed western style, say a 5 minute steep, and then did the minute equivalent in short steeps gongfu style, you could compare total caffeine count with each method. Then at least you could make a scientific decision about which method yields the least caffeine.

The idea of how your body reacts is true too. I am quite surprised at how much caffeine withdrawal I’ve been going through past few days. I cut my tea intake by at least 75% since Sunday, and I’ve been getting headaches like I can’t believe. No doubt I was getting more caffeine than I imagined and my body is definitely signaling me back as such.

I’m sure there’s other things going on like the usual stress, etc. but other diet type stuff that was typically touted as being good for your heart, i.e dark chocolate, red wine, etc. is not in many instances. It might be good for arteries, blockages, etc. but not good for electrical wavelength problems.

Anyway, lesson here is take those Yahoo type articles with a grain a salt. I see them all day long, eat kale, drink green tea, etc. It’s not that easy.

Camellia Sinensis Tea House actually did some research for this and included a very detailed chapter in their book called “Tea” about this. They took a variety of teas, steeped them at different temperatures for different lengths of time, and measured the caffeine levels in the liquor. They also measured antioxidant levels too, I think.

If you can get a copy of this book through your library or through Amazon, it might have the info you’re looking for. Here’s the book itself:

http://camellia-sinensis.com/en/teaware/tea-history-terroirs-varieties

thank you, Christina. I will definitely look into this. I ordered via Amazon for about $12.

additionally I discovered this:

This link sources most of the studies I’ve read in one place.

http://www.theteatalk.com/caffeine-in-tea.html

There is definitely a lot of variance even within certain classes, i.e. green, white, etc. But there appear to be certain constants as well, i.e. water temp, amount of water, particularly steep time.

I think that sounds plausible. Some people can’t sleep if they drink caffeinated beverages in the evening, but to other people it doesn’t make a difference.

You’re right, that is crazy. Oxidation or other processing only affects caffeine in tea a really small amount (see the experimental data in the chadao article linked above, oxidation actually reduced caffeine but only by a few %), and it certainly doesn’t “unlock” the caffeine or anything, that’s just ridiculous, not to mention that the experimental caffeine content data you see everywhere is almost always measured by the amount of caffeine in the brewed liquid, not the dry leaves.

Angrboda – exactly! Otherwise, why would this be the case right??

Sansipple – really? there is no need to be rude. That was just one study, and there is a lot of research yet to be conducted. And I am actually taking courses to become a sommelier, so this is my hypothesis (ie. an educated, unproven theory).
Every body is different and I highly doubt you know how every single person reacts to all the different compounds out there.
I’ll thank you not to throw any judgments my way now.
Cheers.

Sorry, wasn’t trying to be rude, but I’ll take the existing body of scientific evidence over your random hunch that white tea caffeine is somehow just special.

It’s just the same old wishful thinking myths about white tea with a new coat of paint, with zero evidence in your favor, and in contradiction to an established scientific consensus that the caffeine molecule is the same no mater where we find it (coffee, tea, chocolate, guayusa, etc, and certainly when it’s from the same plant).

Our bodies react differently to different teas, because of differing levels of various active chemicals, caffeine among them, (also l-theanine, egcg, and many many others). This complex blend of stimulants and other psychoactives in varying amounts is what can make the energy from different teas feel different, not differences in the caffeine itself (other than its quantity, obviously, of which it’s been proven that white tea often actually has similar or even higher amounts)

This was my initial thought. But based on the research, this is actually contrary to research. I’m assuming you’re now brewing those leaves for a longer time to get a “suitable” cup. The more water and longer steep time actually extracts more caffeine. Maybe the fewer leaves averages it out, but a rose by any other name is still rose. You still might be getting the full amount of caffeine per pot with this method.

Now if you’re just using a small amount of tea and steeping really quickly, then I guess you’re ok. But that sounds like flavored water to me : )

I can only speak for myself, but I’d rather have one good cup of tea per day, than 2 or 3 mediocre. And gongfu is an interesting proposal because you could space out that “cup” of tea over a few different sessions, i.e. doing 2 quick steeps per sitting.

My alternative is as I mentioned, a good quality oolong, doing a wash steep of about 2-3 minutes, which based on research should remove about 40% of the caffeine. You can then do a “normal” 3-5 minute steep and still get a flavorful cup with maybe half as much caffeine as if you just would have brewed 5 minutes on a first steep.

No doubt, I need to remove cups from my daily routine, that’s a given. But the few cups I’ve decided I can still tolerate, trying to figure out the best bang for the buck.