Comment · Fri, December 7, 2012 · Ceretropic
Best kind of tea for nootropics purposes?
Original post in this thread
1man_factory · 12 points
I'm a bit of a tea geek and I'm interested in their nootropics potential, whatever it may be.
Now I know that the EGCG in green tea may have some beneficial cognitive effects (and there may be other things in green tea that are good for that purpose as well), but black tea has significantly more l-theanine (google: l-theanine content of black tea).
So is the winner Oolong, or one of the two? Or hell, maybe even white tea is the best choice, it's supposed to have the highest caffeine content of any variety.
What they were answering
1man_factory · 2 points
http://www.reddit.com/r/tea/comments/z8svg/how_much_caffeine_is_actually_in_a_cup_of_white/
It's not that simple (even more complicated than I thought when I posted this thread!)
But yes, there are definitely some useful tisanes, like kava or lemon balm (something I use myself from time to time)
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
I found a good study on the subject!
>Black and green tea leaves
contained significantly more caffeine on a dry weight
basis than both Formosa oolong teas as well as both
bagged teas. There were no significant differences
between the theobromine content in leaves and bags.
Both black teas contained the most theobromine on a
dry weight basis (bag, 1.69 f 0.03 mg/g; leaves, 1.64 f
0.12 mg/g) followed by both green teas, and both
oolong teas, which contained the least.
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>The results of this study indicate the differences
in methylxanthine concentrations in tea that may be
consumed depending on the preferred brewing method.
Fujiki et al. (1992) suggest drinking 10 cups of green
tea daily as a form of cancer prevention. They did not
specify how many milliliters were considered a cup. If
one were to consume 10 cups of tea per day by brewing
green or black tea the Western or bagged tea method,
one would approximately consume 445 or 588 mg caffeine
and 17.8 or 31.7 mg theobromine respectively.
Someone brewing green tea or black tea by the loose
leaf method would approximately consume 289 or
301 mg caffeine and 9.6 or 13.5 mg theobromine per
day respectively, which is about a third to a half less
methylxanthines as compared to the Western brewing
method. Therefore, the epidemiological studies that
base methylxanthine consumption on the average
methylxanthine content in a cup of tea can be very
misleading because of different brewing methods.
_____________________________________________________
Also, time made a big difference on the caffeiene extraction:
* 30 seconds: 9% caffeine removal
* 1 minute: 18% caffeine removal
* 2 minutes: 34% caffeine removal
* 3 minutes: 48% caffeine removal
* 4 minutes: 60% caffeine removal
* 5 minutes: 69% caffeine removal
* 10 minutes: 92% caffeine removal
* 15 minutes: 100% caffeine removal
Given this information, properly brewed white and green teas will have significantly less caffeine than black teas, due to the steeping time. The leaves themselves seem to have varying levels of caffeine depending on the region and sub-species.