How Tea is Decaffeinated
It’s a regular question here at WoT and elsewhere on the old interweb – How is tea decaffeinated?
Well here’s the answer and I think you’ll be quite suprised.
Tea can be decaffeinated in a number of ways although all require use of powerful solvents – even the so-called “natural” method.
1. Ethyl Acetate
Often claimed to be a natural decaffeination process as this solvent occurs naturally in the environment although I’m sure you can tell from the name that being natural doesn’t necessarily mean ‘nice’ and ‘friendly’. So the tea leaves are washed in this solvent which dissolves the caffeine in the leaves and flushes it out. When caffeine is seperated from its carrier – in this case tea – it forms a solid white bitter-tasting powder.
2. Methyline Chloride
The tea is first softened in heated water to loosen the bonds before being washed with this solvent which binds to the caffeine and draws it out of the leaves. However, this initial water processing can cause the loss of many of the flavours and oils so the leaves are re-washed in this solvent to re-introduce those oils.
In Conclusion
I don’t care if you’re heart is on its last legs – you can’t possibly justify doing this to tea. Washing it in anything besides water ready for a drink is tantamount to heresy. So please, please, please go caffeinated – go natural!
I agree completely. Talk about tea abuse. Tea doesn’t contain that much caffeine anyway, certainly if compared to coffee.
In fact, I recently read about how coffee is decaffeinated, and that process seems much nicer: The beans are soaked in water, so that the caffeine and many of the substances that give coffee its flavor dissolve into the water. The water is then strained through active coal, which binds the caffeine, but nothing else. The water that emerges contains practically no caffeine, but all the other substances. Then the water is mixed back with the beans and evaporates, leaving the coffee with all the good chemicals, but not the caffeine.
Er, sorry about this long, off-topic rant, but your description of the barbaric treatment of our beloved tea got me all fired up
You have a very nice blog, good post…keep up the good job
Thank you for posting this article about decaffeinating green tea. It is something I would like to link to on my Teafox blog. I have a small business importing and selling high quality Sencha and other green teas direct from a small family farm in Shizuoka, Japan.
http://www.teafox.com
Lipton bag said Decaffeinated Naturally,
Does it mean zero caffine?
Or close to zero?
Thank you Dr. Tea
JJ