Which black teas have the most caffeine, and which ones have the least?
I enjoy Assam, Nilgiri, Earl Grey, Keemun, Darjeeling black teas, Ceylon black tea, and sometimes Kenyan black tea if it's in a tea blend.
Re: Which black teas have the most caffeine and the least?
I think there's far too many variables to make much in the way of generalizations that tea from region X or region Y is higher in caffeine. When in the growing season it's harvested, what parts of the plant are plucked(buds and young tips are higher, stem is very low in caffeine), etc. And that's not even getting into factors effecting the extraction itself, leaf/water ratio, how broken the leaves are, time of infusion.
However this page http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caff ... ality.html does make two claims which indicate some regions may tend to higher caffeine if everything else was equal.
Assamica bushes have more caffeine than sinensis. Unsuprisingly assamica is common in assam and is also popular for Africa.
New clonal plantings are higher in caffeine than old growth from seedlings, so more caffeine from Africa with many new plantings vs established plantings in Asia.
No idea on the sourcing or accuracy of those two claims but the rest of what I've read on that page tracks so I'm open to believing them.
However this page http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caff ... ality.html does make two claims which indicate some regions may tend to higher caffeine if everything else was equal.
Assamica bushes have more caffeine than sinensis. Unsuprisingly assamica is common in assam and is also popular for Africa.
New clonal plantings are higher in caffeine than old growth from seedlings, so more caffeine from Africa with many new plantings vs established plantings in Asia.
No idea on the sourcing or accuracy of those two claims but the rest of what I've read on that page tracks so I'm open to believing them.