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Terroir affects caffeine, no simple rule for caffeine and tea
I was in Portland recently for a whirlwind trip - to drop our daughter, Tashina, off to school, visit with one of my best friends, and to buy furniture for Lake Missoula Tea Company. No simple feat for two days. I am happy to report that Tahsina made it up to Tacoma safe and sound in her new to her car, and that I successfully found much of the furniture items on my list for the tea bar. The visit with my friend Jane was fun, as it always is. On a tip from a gal who works at the Antique Mall in Missoula, Tashina and I had lunch at the Jade Restaurant in the Sellwood district of Portland. The owner, Josh, figured out that I was opening a tea company in Missoula and suggested we visit the Jasmine Pearl in Portland. It was at the Jasmine Pearl that I learned from Nathan, tea researcher, that it is hard, if not inaccurate, to generalize the caffeine content of any type of tea. For example, saying black tea has more caffeine content than a green tea is not necessarily true. Recent research shows that caffeine is affected by terroir, a combination of soil characteristics and climate, as well as when the tea leaves are picked. InTea : History, Terroirs, Varieties(Marchand, et al 2011), 35 teas of varying types are compared for caffeine content. The highest caffeine content is a black tea, seconded by a green tea, which then appears again later in the list because it was picked at a different time of year. Two other teas appear twice with different rankings, each coming from different estates. Bottom line is caffeine is all over the map when it comes to caffeine content and tea. ...read more
By Lake Missoula Tea Company August 19, 2012