So is there really no good decaf green tea?

[cp12321]

I've been trying to cut out my caffeine habit, but would still like the benefits of green tea. Some say that decaf green tea doesn't have the same benefits, though. So is it better to just stop drinking green tea altogether or is decaf worth it?

[chingwa]

Well, decaffeinated green tea seems to be sold at just about every neighborhood market around here, and so is normal green tea. But once you get used to a certain quality of tea, such as that enjoyed by most people on this forum, it becomes very hard, if not impossible, to go back to the average offerings from the local deli.

I also have bouts with caffeine adaptation sometimes, and usually just reduce my tea consumption or cut it out of my diet all together .... for short periods of time of course... I always come back

unfortunately I have personally never seen a decaf green tea worth drinking....

[tenuki]

yes really, there is no good decaf green tea. sorry.

[ChengduCha]

Lots of higher end chinese longjing seems to be rather low in caffeine, but that's just based on my personal perception.

[cp12321]

I get that many do not find decaf to taste as good as regular green tea. My question before was merely asking if decaf maintains enough health benefits to make it worth drinking.

As far as taste goes, I easily prefer herbal teas. My consumption of true teas is usually mostly for the caffeine. Now that I have dropped caffeine, I would like to mix a bit of decaf green tea into my diet, if it is worth having.

Of course, there seems to be a difference of opinion about the health benefits of decaf tea anyway, I was probably a bit naive to think I would find any clarity on this.

[Chip]

I do not think there are really credible scientific studies on the remaining health benefits in decaf tea. Hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong.

Then there are the different methods of decaffeinating tea ... some seem downright unhealthy!

What the tea world needs is a couple of tea scientists who will conduct all our whimsical and not so whimsical studies for us ... or the tea world.

[teaisme]

here is a study, I'm sure there are more, as for credible, that is for you to decide.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewe ... d=1&hid=12
from the abstract

The total flavavol content varied from 21.2 to 103.2 mg/g for regular teas and from 4.6 to 39.0 mg/g for decaffeinated teas. The ORAC value varied from 728 to 1686 trolox equivalents/g tea for regular teas and from 507 to 845 trolox equivalents/g for decaffeinated teas.

as for method of decafing, widely used solvent ethyl acetate is the most common form of decaf, and supposedly strips a lot more then co2 extraction. If anyone is really curious I'm sure online literature is out there. I could go look for it if you want me to.

and 2013 USDA measurements for the flavonoid content of select foods
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=6231
I've gone through the tables, basically confirms what we know, I am assuming the method was ethyl acetate since differences were so huge
You can browse them yourself, open it in Microsoft access, go to FD_GROUP, then click BEVERAGES and voila

of potential interest is comparisons that they did with different waters, would be interesting to see how/if any synergy is lost with changes in water, but for some reason I can not find that table again after a quick re-browse...another day