Modern people’s life is indispensable to a cup of coffee, in addition to enjoying the mellow taste of coffee, it also has a refreshing effect, almost a necessity like water. However, when the body consumes too much caffeine, it will cause insomnia, anxiety and other collateral effects, so more and more people want to find daily drinks that can replace coffee.
Looking for an alternative to coffee but don’t want to drink just water or sugary drinks? Low-caffeine tea will be a good choice for your health.
Table of Contents
When caffeine intake becomes a habit: the risk of caffeine overdose
Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, when the human body operates, it will continue to consume the energy accumulated by sleep, when the energy is consumed, the human body will begin to produce fatigue substances, reminding people to enter a state of rest and sleep.
At this time, if people drink and eat foods with caffeine content, caffeine enters the human body from the stomach through diet, and it only takes about 15 minutes to replace the molecules that cause fatigue, so that even if the human body reduces energy, it will not receive fatigue information reminders and want to sleep.
However, once the dependence on caffeine, interrupting the intake of caffeine or more frequent intake leads to excessive caffeine, there will be palpitations, anxiety, excessive fatigue and other side effects that threaten the human body, so more and more people return to the embrace of drinking tea, through drinking tea to refresh and reduce caffeine intake.
Is decaffeinated black tea real? How to choose decaffeinated tea?
The caffeine content in tea is about 2-5% of the total weight, caffeine is one of the important ingredients that make tea have a charming bitter taste, and the caffeine content of tea is much lower than coffee, and the intake in a day is not easy to exceed the standard than coffee and is not easy to harm health, which is very suitable as the first step of “quitting coffee”.
Many beverages advertised as decaffeinated tea, such as decaffeinated black tea, decaffeinated black tea, etc., are introduced using the technology of extracting flavor and extracting caffeine, so that the tea has tea flavor and caffeine-free.
But if you are more in pursuit of the natural original taste of tea, you can choose decaffeinated tea according to the following three factors when buying tea.
Three major factors affect the caffeine content of tea
Here’s a little knowledge of popular science:
The difference between the types of tea, such as black tea, green tea, and oolong tea, lies in the degree of fermentation during tea production, not the difference in the original tea plant. In the past, it was often mistaken that the degree of fermentation was the standard for judging the caffeine content of tea, but in fact, during the production of tea, the degree of fermentation had little effect on the caffeine content of tea.
Here are three tips to help you have a basis when looking at the caffeine content of tea:
Tip 1 for choosing decaffeinated tea: tea tree varieties
Even if it is the same tea, the caffeine content of different tree species will be different, tea plants can be roughly divided into Assam large-leaf species (C. assamica) and Chinese small-leaved species (C. sinensis), large-leaf species are mainly distributed in tropical and subtropical regions, with higher caffeine content, and small-leaf species are distributed in subtropical to temperate regions, with low caffeine content, such as Taiwanese tea plants are mostly small-leaved species.
Decaffeinated tea selection tip two: conditions at the time of picking
● Season at the time of harvest
Tea picked in summer and autumn will have more caffeine content than tea picked in winter and spring. In addition, in the same season, the maturity of tea leaves in different parts is also different, and there will be old and tender.
● Tenderness of tea leaves
When the tea leaves are harvested, if they are young leaves, the caffeine content is high, which can reach 4-5, %,但若是老葉,甚至會低到剩下1%.
● Tea shade
The length of sunlight that tea leaves receive can also affect the caffeine content of tea. If you want to choose a tea variety with less caffeine, alpine tea will be a good choice, because alpine humidity is high and easy to fog, compared to flat land tea tree, alpine tea tree absorbs less sunlight and contains less caffeine.
Tip 3 for choosing low-caffeine tea: tea brewing conditions
▲Spero Tea – 【 Decaffeinated Tea Group 】 Loose tea (1 pack of each of the 3 types of tea).
When we brew tea, the number of brews and temperature will affect the content of caffeine dissolved in water in tea:
● Number of brews
The first brew of tea must be the strongest caffeine, and then as the number of brews increases, the caffeine content dissolved in water will also decrease a lot, so if you want to avoid taking too much caffeine when drinking tea, you can choose to drink the last few brews of tea soup.
● Brewing temperature
Since caffeine is easier to dissolve in hot water, the higher the temperature of the brewed water, the higher the dissolved caffeine content, for example, the caffeine content of tea brewed in boiling water is nearly twice as high as that of tea brewed at 80 ° C.
Tea soup brewed in cold brewing is as much as three times lower than hot tea caffeine content no matter how many rounds of brewing, so if you want to reduce the amount of caffeine in the tea soup, cold brew tea will be more suitable than hot tea.
Recommended items for decaffeinated tea
After reading so many factors that affect the caffeine content of tea above, are you worried that you can’t pay attention to so many details when choosing tea? The following SperoTea has sorted out three types of decaffeinated tea and their characteristics for you, if you don’t know how to choose decaffeinated tea, choose from these three!
Oolong tea: roasted charcoal, alpine tea
One of the important reasons why oolong tea has much lower caffeine content than other teas is that oolong tea contains a roasting step in the production process.
The roasting process can refine the caffeine and separate it from the tea leaves, so that oolong tea has more charcoal aroma, but the caffeine content is less than that of other teas; In addition, alpine tea, which has less caffeine content, chooses to use light fermentation to make oolong tea, so that oolong tea belongs to the tea category with less caffeine in terms of raw materials and production process.
▲SperoTea to Xi Tea – Frozen Oolong Special Loose Tea
If you don’t like the rich charcoal smell of roasting, choose lightly roasted oolong tea, in addition to fresh and sweet flavor, it can also reduce caffeine intake!
▲Spero Tea Light Roasted Oolong Original Leaf Triangular Three-dimensional Tea Bag Series
Pu’er tea: clear heat and dissolve phlegm, aid sleep
Pu’er tea has the effect of clearing heat and phlegm, and the caffeine content is also very low, which is very suitable for drinking as low-caffeine tea, but to drink Pu’er tea, you need to pay attention to two important points, so as not to hurt the stomach insomnia:
Drink ripe Pu-erh tea and brew the tea
Pu’er tea is divided into raw tea and cooked tea, raw tea is only lightly fermented, tea polyphenols are strong, drinking not only does not help sleep, but also has a refreshing effect; And to drink Pu’er tea before going to bed, in the way of brewing can avoid Pu’er tea is too strong, just to help sleep, if you boil tea or steep, Pu’er tea will be too strong, so want to drink Pu’er tea to help sleep, remember to choose to drink Pu’er ripe tea in a brewed way.
Green tea: brewed at low temperature, promotes metabolism
Unfermented green tea in the production process is the most original tea in the tea product, containing high amounts of vitamin C, amino acids and catechins , which help metabolism, smooth gastrointestinal and gastrointestinal metabolism, and improve sleep quality; And green tea is not suitable for high temperature brewing, hot brewing between 70 and 80 degrees, cold brewing flavor is better, and compared with hot brewing is less bitter, is the first choice for many people cold brew.
▲Spero Tea – [ Decaffeinated Tea Bag Set ] 21 stand up bags (1 pack of each of 3 types of tea).
Suitable for green tea brewed at low temperature, caffeine is naturally difficult to dissolve, plus the function of promoting metabolism, it is very suitable as a tea alternative to American coffee!
▲Spero Tea Cold Brew Combo| Cold brew tea kettle + lightweight bag
epilogue
After reading the introduction of the above article, do you want to try brewing your own decaffeinated tea to drink? All kinds of tea have different flavors, effects and suitable drinking times, if you want to know more tea knowledge, please pay attention to the Spero Tea Blog
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