FAQ

Why don't you list the caffeine content of your teas?

Because, truthfully, this is not possible to do accurately. There are so many variables that affect the caffeine content of a particular tea that there is no one comprehensive or simple answer. Most of the information one reads online, in magazines and on websites suggests that one type of tea has more or less caffeine than another: ie. that green tea has less caffeine than white tea.Or is it the other way around? We have read both answers on the internet and are always dismayed at how misleading this kind of information must be.

These types of easily-dished-out inaccuracies suggests that each type of tea ( green, white, yellow, oolong, black and Hei Cha including Puerh) has an empirical amount of caffeine that is somehow constant or that will fluxuate by only a small degree. Most of these statements about caffeine content are just repeated from one source to another without any basis in truth.

What is true is that the amount of caffeine in any particular tea depends on many variables and particulars, most of which are impossible to know when shopping for tea, and least of which is about the type of tea in question. On our tea sourcing trips to China and other places in Asia, we have learned that the important variables are these:

1. The choice of leaf that is plucked partially determines the caffeine content of that leaf. Buds and budsets often have more caffeine than larger leaves located further down on the branches of the tea bushes. This means that early spring plucked teas will, in most cases, contain more caffeine than teas plucked later in the season or the year. So, a spring plucked tea can and probably will have more caffeine than a summer plucked black tea. However, a black tea made from two leaves and a bud in the spring will probably have more caffeine than a country green tea plucked in the late spring or early summer.
2. The age of the plucked leaf has an influence on the amount of caffeine in the tea. Tea made from younger leaves generally contains slightly more caffeine than tea made from older leaves.
3. Specific tea bush varietals and cultivars ( and there are hundreds of them ) have differing amounts of caffeine.

So, it is easy to see that the usual, definitive answers to this question are not good ones. Testing on tea can be done to determine caffeine content, but it is expensive and would need to be done to every new batch of any given tea as each new harvest brings change to the tea garden and the tea.

We tell our customers who ask that they should assume that all tea has roughly the same amount of caffeine. Those who believe that one type of tea ‘agrees’ with them better than another type of tea should follow the instincts of their bodies and stay with that tea. Everyone responds differently to the foods and drinks that we consume, so experiment and see what is right for you. Most adults tolerate the caffeine in several cups of tea a day quite well and enjoy both the taste and the alertness and sense of well-being that tea brings to them. Those who are sensitive to caffeine and need to avoid it (but still hope to find lower-caffeine choices among traditional teas) will need to experiement periodically with many teas to see which they find most tolerable.