The short answer is yes. Green tea, if natural and derived from the plant Camellia sinensis, contains caffeine.
If you’re using a green tea and want to know how much caffeine is in a serving that, however, depends on the manufacturer of the tea.
Some green teas are made more potent, while others have less of the plant’s material in each tea bag.
Green tea is known to be a healthy caffeine alternative, and there are many health benefits to green tea.
According to Medicinal Food News, there are also brands of green tea that are decaffeinated. This means they only contain trace amounts of caffeine if any at all. However, green tea does not contain as much caffeine as a cup of coffee in most cases.
While green tea by itself does contain more caffeine than coffee, as soon as it hits the hot water the caffeine amount is greatly reduced. Tea that has been brewed for 5 minutes or less contains around thirty-two milligrams of caffeine. This compared to a cup of coffee’s forty milligrams is much less.
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What Do I Do If I’m Trying to Minimize My Caffeine Intake With Green Tea?
Knowing what types of green tea to use is important. Tea leaves that are younger tend to have more caffeine than those that are older. Stick with older tea leaves and the caffeine levels will be less.
- Looking for the right brand of green tea leaf can be useful when trying to keep your caffeine consumption down to a minimum. Japanese Genmaicha is a green tea that is low in caffeine.
- Japanese Houjicha is another. The other green tea to look for when searching for a low caffeine alternative is Japanese Bancha. There are green teas that are decaffeinated.
- However, one method of decaffeination is safer than the other. When researching the decaffeination process look for the word effervescence. This is used in order to get the caffeine out of the tea and is a safe method.
- The other method used is usually referred to as “natural decaffeination” even though there’s nothing natural about it. A chemical solvent is used called ethyl acetate.
- While the cost is low along with the toxicity, ethyl acetate has other uses. Some of these other uses are for nail varnish removal and to clean circuit boards.
- Avoid the tea bags when searching for a low caffeine green tea. Teabags tend to have much more caffeine and the quality of the green tea is poor in comparison. Buying loose tea leaves is your best bet and you can use them more times before throwing them out.
- Most of the green tea’s caffeine is in the first brew, thirty-two milligrams per serving in most cases. However, this diminishes as you brew more. The potency of the tea leaves becomes diluted the more you reuse them.
- When using the loose leaves of green tea simply cut your amount in half when brewing. This way you are only getting half of the caffeine even though you’re only getting half of the flavor as well.
There are also molecules in green tea that when hot can diminish the effects of caffeine. These molecules are catechins and theanine. These molecules will combine with caffeine when in hot water and help with the effectiveness of the caffeine.
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What Do You Do If You Want to Increase the Caffeine in a Serving of Green Tea?
You can increase the caffeine per serving by doing the opposite of what was described above. Instead of drinking green tea hot, you can drink it lukewarm or even cold. This way the molecules catechins and theanine don’t affect the caffeine in the tea leaves.
Use the full serving of tea leaves when brewing and drink the first serving within five minutes of brewing. This way you’re getting the full amount of caffeine from the tea leaves. Stick with the younger tea leaves when brewing. They tend to have the most caffeine content while fresh.
Instead of using tea leaves, you can use tea bags. They also tend to have more caffeine.
Using the Japanese green tea Gyokuro is a good idea. Gyokuro is one of the expensive types of green teas from Japan and because of how it’s grown has higher amounts of caffeine than other green teas.
When used properly green tea can have weight loss benefits and it provides many antioxidants and nutrients. When trying to lose weight it’s important to exercise on top of eating well.
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