Tea at night

[hop_goblin]

I have read a couple of post which state that if they drink tea well into the evening, they will have trouble falling a sleep. I am very fortunate to say that I have no problems and I generally have my last cup roughly 9pm or so. Do I have a tea super human strength? Or am I just tried? I mean, when I generally get ready for bed, I am alert but not to the point where I can't fall asleep. I typcally fall a sleep in 20 to 30 min. I wonder however if it is due to the gongfu style of brewing that I use. I typically brew gongfu at home and in a post MaryR was quite lovely to inform us that tea loses caffine after its first steep. (Correction, MaryR said the opposite and stated that in fact caffine does not dissapate with a first flush)Well, if I rinse my tea, then logic would dicated that I am not consuming as much caffine as someone who uses a tea ball or any other method. Just wondering

[scruffmcgruff]

Actually Hop, Mary said the exact opposite!

What this basically means is that to really decaffeinate your tea, you would have to have a first infusion time of around 15 minutes and by then both flavor and polyphenol content will be very much affected by that point.

Though many health celebrities may swear that tea becomes decaffeinated after a quick first infusion, the science just doesn't back up their claims. Unfortunately, the celebrities continue to spread this misinformation andget away with it.

[forkyfork]

Tea loses SOME caffeine after the first streep, but not that much, especially with a quick "rinse".


Also, I stop drinking ANYTHING an hour before I go to bed. Otherwise, I'm getting up in the middle of the night

[olivierco]

I have read a couple of post which state that if they drink tea well into the evening, they will have trouble falling a sleep. I am very fortunate to say that I have no problems and I generally have my last cup roughly 9pm or so. Do I have a tea super human strength? Or am I just tried? I mean, when I generally get ready for bed, I am alert but not to the point where I can't fall asleep. I typcally fall a sleep in 20 to 30 min. I wonder however if it is due to the gongfu style of brewing that I use. I typically brew gongfu at home and in a post MaryR was quite lovely to inform us that tea loses caffine after its first steep. Well, if I rinse my tea, then logic would dicated that I am not consuming as much caffine as someone who uses a tea ball or any other method. Just wondering

I don't think it's gongfu related.
Some people are sensitive to caffeine, some aren't.
I drink any kind of tea (even a concentrated gyokuro: 10gr leaves), sometimes very shortly before going to bed and I have no problem to fall asleep.

[silverneedles]

ditto, i drink any kind of tea i go to sleep

exceptionally 1 time a tea (green oolong!!) kept me from going to sleep
and another time i drank like 1/2 gallon black tea then tried to sleep, didnt help.

[RussianSoul]

I read a few articles on caffeine in tea which said that the flow of caffeine out of the leaves is a function of time. The first steep will remove a little over 50% of caffeine from the leaves into the solution, that would be our tea, in 5 minutes. The second steep will take another 40 or so percent out of the leaves if brewed for 5 minutes. I actually don't remember the numbers for subsequent steeps, but there is less than 10% of caffeine left at this point.

I am not all that sensitive to caffeine, tea caffeine is gentle as I experience it. But it does cause me trouble in falling asleep at night if I have some freshly brewed strong tea after 7pm. So far I solved this problem by saving my leaves used during the day to make the third steep in the evening. On an average evening I may have some morning's Assam and some Sencha nicely drained and preserved in a saucer.

I tried a few decafs and gave up - they taste awful. I am looking into naturally low-caf teas like Houjicha, maybe that will work if I like the taste.

[hop_goblin]

Actually Hop, Mary said the exact opposite!

What this basically means is that to really decaffeinate your tea, you would have to have a first infusion time of around 15 minutes and by then both flavor and polyphenol content will be very much affected by that point.

Though many health celebrities may swear that tea becomes decaffeinated after a quick first infusion, the science just doesn't back up their claims. Unfortunately, the celebrities continue to spread this misinformation andget away with it.

Oh ok.. I guess my mind was playing trick on me! LOL

[osadczuk]

I obviously inherited my father's lack of caffeine sensitivity. He drank coffee up until he went to bed and I do the same for coffee and tea. I have found, that if anything caffeine relaxes me, and is quite helpful to get rid of headaches.

The only thing that has ever buzzed me and kept me awake was a summer flush Darjeeling. I couldn't sleep at all after that (late at night) and when I drink it earlier in the day I always feel "odd."

I just think caffeine's a genetic/body thing. It hits some (most?) people and misses some.

[TaiPing Hou Kui]

Well, I dont usually go to sleep until 2:30-3:30 am and I brew my last cup at about 2ish.....Caffeine really doesent effect me that much when I brew my own tea......If I have a starbucks coffee I feel jittery and horrible and get a bad headache......so I dont get those often.....but, everyones body processes/absorbs/what have you, caffeine differently.

[becco]

I've never had an issue with caffeine affecting my sleep. I stopped drinking pop, but when I did, I could drink a Coke anytime and be able to fall asleep.

So tea definitely doesn't affect my ability to fall asleep. In fact, I find it extremely relaxing to have a cup before going to bed.

[henley]

One of my favorite times for tea is late in the evening after kids are down for the night. Thankfully it doesn't keep me awake.