Natural sugar in tea?

[strained]

Hi

I have just been introduced to quality loose leaf teas and I have tried quite a few with my friend who had been into them for a while, I love the variety of flavours and the experience of a tea session and I have a question:

Some of the teas I have tried have been very sweet which lead me to wonder whether there is natural sugar in these teas or tea in general like there is in fruit?

what do you think?

[Simon_Qc]

I'm pretty sure that there is no sugar in tea, I'm talking about pure tea of course. Some flavored low quality bland might have sugar in it.

Tea is a very healthy beverage! Enjoy

[strained]

thanks, that's what I thought, I was just surprised at the extreme sweetness of some of the teas I had tried

[Simon_Qc]

thanks, that's what I thought, I was just surprised at the extreme sweetness of some of the teas I had tried

I know, I have a very good Bai Mu Dan Wang that taste very sweet (like honey).
That's a white tea, you should try it if you have the chance. I bought mine from Camellia Sinensis.

[strained]

thanks, that's what I thought, I was just surprised at the extreme sweetness of some of the teas I had tried

I know, I have a very good Bai Mu Dan Wang that taste very sweet (like honey).
That's a white tea, you should try it if you have the chance. I bought mine from Camellia Sinensis.

thanks simon, i have been looking at white teas lately, hope to pick one out soon.
are all white teas sweet like that?

[Simon_Qc]

thanks simon, i have been looking at white teas lately, hope to pick one out soon.
are all white teas sweet like that?

Any BAI MU DAN should be sweet, but I'm not sure for other white tea.

[strained]

thanks

[john.b]

Tea leaves do contain limited amounts of carbohydrates but very little sugar, with the perceived sweetness caused by other compounds. Or at least that's my understanding. This reference explains the compound types in tea:

https://specialtyteaalliance.org/world- ... chemistry/

Carbohydrates are listed (around 10% of the leaf content), but if you look up the amount of sugar or carbohydrate input from brewed tea in different sources there is essentially none reported. I take that to mean that the carbohydrate form in leaves is related to complex carbohydrates, like the starches that occur in wheat, so these don't brew out into liquid tea. You'd have to eat the leaves for them to work as an energy source, and a limited one at that.

It's not easy to keep track but I think I've heard that amino acid compounds are responsible for the apparent sweetness in different forms of teas. We perceive sugars as sweet when tasting them, with sensors on our tongue, but other compounds can trigger a similar effect, and can also seem sweet. The types of sweetness in tea don't seem identical to those in sugar or honey, to sucrose or glucose, but then separating out individual flavors when mixed together with different compounds isn't easy.

I tried a different form of tea not long ago that was quite sweet, a tea presented as a Moonlight White version. Those are typically from Yunnan, China, but this was from Thailand instead (not far away though; the two countries are relatively close to being neighbors, even though relatively narrow sections of Myanmar and Laos actually border Northern Thailand in between the two):

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... g-tea.html