Lewis Perin wrote in message ...
(bruce) writes:

When you read an article that says there is so much caffeine (or
antioxidant, or whatever) in a cup of tea, does that mean a serving of
leaf or does that mean in a cup of the liquor?

I'm sure they mean a cup of the liquor.

You're sure? That just doesn't make sense to me. There is no
way there is that much caffeine (or polyphenol etc..) in one teaspoon
of green tea leaf. In that same literature we read that black tea has
more caffeine than green, but most people re-steep green tea many more
times than black (at least as far as I know, I really only drink green
tea so some black tea drinkers out there feel free to correct me) so
the green tea drinkers would be getting TONS while the black tea
drinkers would get less.

If it is in a serving of leaf then if you re-steep one serving of
leaf 5 times you're obviously not getting much extra caffiene (or
antioxidant etc..) but if the numbers are averaged out for a cup of
the brewed liquor then 5 steeps means around 35 mg of caffiene
multiplied by five! I assume it is the former and not the latter
but I have never read anything that would clarify it one way or the
other, and I have done a fair amount of reading on the subject.
Anyone know?

Even though it's only a question of the liquor, there is vagueness in
lots of published numbers when it comes to steep times and
temperatures, as well as multiple steeps.

Yes the numbers always vary a lot and are never definite. I think mabey I asked an impossible question, there might be just too many variables to get any kind of accurate answer unless you test the exact leaf in question.