(bruce) writes:

Sorry, I'm confused now. There's no way there is *how much* caffeine
in a teaspoon of leaf?

Most of what I have read says there is roughly 35 mg caffeine in a
"cup" of green tea. So I am wondering if this number applies to a
serving of the leaf or is it applied to one of the 5 or so "cups" you
can get from a serving of that leaf?

In most of what I've read, it isn't clear what they did to extract the
caffeine.

I can't believe there is 35 mg of caffiene multiplied by 5 cups in
one teaspoon of leaf.

Agreed.

We all know that most of the caffiene comes out early in the
steeping, and the rest of the stuff (amino acids, polyphenols etc..)
comes out in later steeps, but I am wondering about the total
amounts. When I drink green I get many steeps, usually at least 5,
while black tea gives me two steeps at best.

What I've seen of that literature suffers from a lack of clarity and
uniformity as to exactly what was done to yield the liquor they
measured. But I wouldn't exclude the possibility that 5 minutes of
boiling leaves (typical for black) might yield more caffeine than 3
short, relatively cool steeps (of green.)

Ah-ha. So you think mabey they are steeping green tea for 5 min. in
boiling water in the lab?

Probably some of them are doing that.

That could be, that way they are treating all teas the same way (I
still can't imagine a japanese scientist for example pouring boiling
water on some sencha and letting it sit there for five min. seems a
little funny even in the lab)

There are probably some young Japanese scientists by now who grew up
on Coca-Cola and coffee.

I don't think I have read anything that talked about the difference
in steeping temperature with regard to caffiene. What have you
heard about this?

I think you can find something about this from past threads in this
group by checking Google Groups. The way I remember it, it comes down
to the fact that caffeine, like many - nearly all? - substances, is
more soluble in water as temperature rises. I'm sure Dog Ma will slap
me down if I'm wrong here!

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html