Newbie Questions:Cups,ounces, steepings and extracts

[rdl]

i have a question pertaining to the table below- if you steep an oolong tea 6 times for example, the first for 30 seconds, you only get 9% of the caffeine from the tea leaves in the cup. the next steep, let's say, for 1 minute, gives you 18% caffeine, but 18% of only 91% since the first steep removed 9%. if the next steep is 1.5 minutes, then you get about 25% caffeine in the cup but 25% of tea leaves that already have less caffeine.
is this the correct way of reading this table? i ask because as other parents have written, they give their child tea only after multiple steepings. i read this table as deductive, rather than accumulative. so later steeping should be relatively caffeine free for a child.

30 seconds: 9% caffeine removal
1 minute: 18% caffeine removal
2 minutes: 34% caffeine removal
3 minutes: 48% caffeine removal
4 minutes: 60% caffeine removal
5 minutes: 69% caffeine removal
10 minutes: 92% caffeine removal
15 minutes: 100% caffeine removal
for the full study: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caff ... ality.html

[rdl]

http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=12300
here´s the older thread...it has less detail than the Cha Dao article

thanks for the thread and for the valuable information!

[Tead Off]

regarding the caffeine in tea i have read the it is very soluble in hot water and if you want to decaffeinate a pot of (black) tea you can steep it for 20-30 seconds and pour that off, and re-steep and drink. many green teas can be steeped several times so the caffeine in the 2nd or 3rd steeps should be negligible.

I´ve posted studies about this before...it´s a myth...it actually takes about 15 minutes to remove 95% of the caffiene...

You´d be better off making that 30 second infusion and drinking it if you want to limit caffeine intake because in 30 seconds very little caffeine dissolves into the infusion.

I cant find my older post on the topic...but here´s a Cha Dao article that discusses the same myth with scientific studies as sources

http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caff ... ality.html

I saw a video recently where James Norwood Pratt apologizes for putting this myth into one of his books. This misinformation has been used by many thinking it to be correct. The world of tea is full of myth going back for centuries. It's a nice drink and it's myth-free.

[entropyembrace]

Thanks for the second round of information.

It looks like the Japanese tea vendors are the better deal. Is it possible to find fair trade tea among those vendors? How about organic tea?

Most of the tea I've been drinking so far has been Frontier Herb green gunpowder and jasmine green from bulk jars.....but it is from a co-op that has a pretty good turnover in its bulk spice/herb/tea section.

Most of the japanese vendors carry at least some organic teas and also for tea grown in Japan fair trade is a non-issue...their labour laws are fairly good being a 1st world nation.

rdl: yes I think you´re reading the chart properly

[beforewisdom]

i ask because as other parents have written, they give their child tea only after multiple steepings.

Why not just keep a box of decaffeinated tea around?

I think even the strongest of black teas have much less caffiene than soda.

[beforewisdom]

I saw a video recently where James Norwood Pratt apologizes for putting this myth into one of his books. This misinformation has been used by many thinking it to be correct. The world of tea is full of myth going back for centuries. It's a nice drink and it's myth-free.

What is the myth? That you can do a do-it-yourself caffiene reduction process by using the same tea multiple times?

[debunix]

If you brew up a small quantity of leaves, and resteep and resteep it, you will eventually get to a point where there is very little caffeine left, but even in a very nice oolong or puerh tea there may not be that much flavor left either, so what's the point?

On the other hand, if you brew up a batch of oolong, and then keep resteeping, you're certainly not consuming as much caffeine as if you were using a fresh batch of black tea leaves each time.

If I want tea but it's too close to bedtime, I pull out the rooibos or chamomile, and skip the C sinensis.

[rdl]

i ask because as other parents have written, they give their child tea only after multiple steepings.

Why not just keep a box of decaffeinated tea around?

I think even the strongest of black teas have much less caffiene than soda.

beforewisdom,
i made the mistake of using the word decaffeinate, when i meant reduce caffeine content, and was happy to see the test results as to how much caffeine is being reduced. (i do wonder, if caffeine is not very water-soluble, how so much caffeine is in a cup of coffee when it has limited exposure to below boiling water).
for myself i don't drink de-caf, but i find the arguement that if the 30 sec myth really worked the tea companies would use it false becasue the water process to remove caffeine reconstitutes the flavors back into the tea leaves, that were removed with the caffeine. i would like to have a better idea how much caffeine my son may be drinking when we share our tea, now that i have learned what i have learned from these studies.
Tead Off,
i hope the myths not related to health or quality can remain. maybe even "TeaChat" will create a few that will endure over the centuries....