TeaChat

michael wrote:What may explain the queasiness your feel after drinking tea? The likely culprit is caffeine. Having the enviable task of sampling every tea selected for sale at Adagio, I often time consume more than 20 cups a day. I find that doing this with white or green varieties, which are low in caffeine, suits my stomach better than doing the same with black tea. So if queasiness continues to be an issue, I suggest forgoing black tea, and opting for those that are either lower or devoid of caffeine.

Just thought I'd follow up on this topic.

I started buying certified organic Silver Needles (nothing against the tea here, I found it to be delicious..... I just wanted to see if it made any difference.) As it turned out I experience the same sensation with the certified organic stuff as I did months and months ago with the stuff from here. I tend to use more white tea than is recommended for steeping (usually double the amount,) and I tend to steep it for longer. It's just how I prefer the taste.

This leads me to believe that even the slight, slight amount of caffeeine or something else inherent in the tea is causing my occasional queasiness. I don't really eat much throughout the day, and usually when I have a cup it's on an empty stomach.... when I drink it when I'm eating something I don't have the problem.

Contrary to popular belief, many are under the opinion that silver needle is very high in caffeine. I am among them.

TeaMan wrote:Many teas from China have been found to have dangerously high levels of industrial pesticides (like DDT) and/or other potentially harmful chemicals.

I was wondering, because while I love the tea from here, I find it sometimes makes me a little queasy (I’m in no way implying that it’s because of chemicals or a fertilizer, it just puzzles me when it happens.
I noticed other people have a similar problem, some even vomit because of it.

-Tom

I'm not meaning to change the subject. But I'm one of the tummy ache crowd. I was thinking to myself the other day that I am also allergic to sulfa (antibiotic) and I know tea has a lot of antibiotic properties. I have even cultured some mighty healthy looking white powder in the bottom of my cup over the weekend.

I have also been sensitive to pesticides as well. I used to move out of my room for 24 hrs when the exterminator sprayed our floor. That caused mostly headache/dizziness, tho and no nausea.

Any other tea drinkers allergic to penicillin????

Hi all,

It has been my understanding that it is the tannins in tea that can cause the achy belly, especially on an empty one. Suggest a nice cookie with your silver needle.

-CynTEAa

I am sensitive to sulpha type antibiotics. I had them one time, and I thought I was going to die...I never felt that sick before.

The only tea that causes this type of reaction for me is not even a tea. I seem to react to actual jasmine buds I got from TeaSpring. Yet I do not react to jasmine scented teas.

CynTEAa-- the amount of tannins in tea is so small that they are essentially not there. "Polyphenols" is the correct term. People have just borrowed the term "tannins" from the wine-tasting lexicon to describe a taste, if I recall correctly.

augie-- I'm not sure I'm aware of the antibiotic properties of tea... but if they do exist I highly doubt they are due to the presence of sulfa drugs, which are synthetically produced AFAIK.

That being said, I do sometimes feel funny if I drink tea on an empty stomach. Dunno what it is, though. *shrugs*

I'm allergic to amoxicillin. Tea is vastly different when comparing the two.

Hey, sorry to bump a relatively old thread but I've been researching into this.

I am extremely allergic to a lot of pesticides and additives. I've even had reactions before from using organic green tea as an astringent on my face.

Adagio tea has been fine for me. I drink it, I use it on my face, and it makes me feel great. Which makes me question the validity of labeling a tea "organic" in the 1st place.

From what I've researched, it's the chemicals in the paper of bagged tea that are especially toxic and carcinogenic. Simply by drinking loose tea, I am already avoiding that.

I've seen a lot of references to Adagio as being similar to Teavana, which is known to have tested for 22 pesticides in just one tea! But from my experience, that simply cannot be the case.

The concern of insecticides and pesticides on tea has been on my mind, but only slightly. I rarely drink bagged tea and never anything from teavana or loose leaf that you can buy at a typical grocery store. I have not done much research on this subject but found this article to be eye-opening http://foodbabe.com/2013/08/21/do-you-k ... -your-tea/, however the purpose of this site is it point out (maybe even magnify) the bad chemicals in food. Heck, I never even knew beer had bad chemicals or that Guinness contained fish bladders - the brewers are not required to list such ingredients on their packaging and I assume tea cultivators are not either.

As for tea - is this something to be concerned about with teas from China and Taiwan? I might have to start drinking organic tea, though the options are few and thin.

I've always thought pesticides in Chinese tea are overrated. I am not saying they don't have it, but then they should be the same stories to teas of other nationalities. Tea is a plant naturally very vulnerable with bugs, if you visit tea farms after May, you will find they are already comfortable with insects or would you be comfortable with organic leaves eaten by bugs?

I know few Korean sellers who sell Chinese tea, who do Customs of exportations, they always complain as well. Because in same logics Korean teas contain almost as same or more than Chinese tea...unless they are high-quality grown in high altitude of Mt. Jiri.

If you worry about pesticides of Chinese tea, it's not Chinese tea it should first be the tea bags of supermarket. And those mass-produced Tie Guan Yin, Jasmine tea or supermarket Long Jing, sure they might have many pesticides.

High quality teas shoulnd't have pesticides too much, like Gaoshan, good Wuyi, early green teas, I hear Puerh is considered to contain 'relatively' small of amount of pesticide. I've been informed Shu almost never get caught by Customs for pesticides (the reason I dunno)

+ 1 to chrl42's post.

Personally it would be a lot more concerning the damaged caused on human health by the following factors: Incorrect diet, air and noise pollution, stress, anxiety, negative thinking, etc.

I always drink Chinese tea (puerh, Taiwan mountain and green) on an empty stomach and don't have any issues with it...I had mild stomach pain in the beginning but after cleansing my internal organs with TCM methods (herbs and correct diet) I no longer experience any discomfort. Maybe the tea was telling me how unhealthy my stomach, spleen, liver and gallbladder were before I started drinking Chinese tea.

I would think the fermentation and aging of shu would break down any pesticide residues into simpler compounds.

Depends; pesticides can lie pretty latent for a considerable length of time.

M.

True, I should have said some of the pesticides--in China they tend to use a cocktail of stuff without any regard for consumer health. The farm workers often have no idea what they're spraying and are just provided with barrels to use by people higher up the chain.