Reducing caffeine in tea

December 3, 2014 1:27 PM

My pregnant wife wants to reduce her caffeine intake while still enjoying a few cups of tea each day so I suggested she follow the instructions in this Lifehacker post by brewing her tea for 30 seconds, throwing it away, then rebrewing with fresh water. She is skeptical that this works and would like to see additional evidence. Has anyone else tried this with success? Or have you come across another source that suggested it?
posted by exhilaration to Food & Drink (17 answers total)

You can just buy decaf tea. It tastes pretty much like normal tea.
posted by fshgrl at 1:34 PM on December 3, 2014 [14 favorites]

My dad showed me this and it works really well for my wimpy, caffeine-sensitive stomach.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 1:36 PM on December 3, 2014

Best answer: I think that may be an Internet myth, and that you remove only minimal amounts of caffeine with such a short steep.
posted by nanook at 1:36 PM on December 3, 2014

I found nothing of any use when I was pregnant. I went to rooibos (there's a vanilla infused one I like but I only discovered it after my kids were born).

Rooibos still allows for the ritual of tea making and drinking but is completely caffeine free. The beauty of it is that it lends itself to milk being added, not like the hippy herbal shite ones.
posted by taff at 1:37 PM on December 3, 2014 [14 favorites]

There are lots of caffeine free or decaf teas. You can definitely find decaf green and black teas plus there are herbal teas such as mint, lemon, ginger, chamomile, lavender, rooibus, and various blends and mixes of those. I really love tazo wild sweet orange and passion teas which are available at most grocery stores. Also many teas such as tazo will have the caffeine content. There's a coco mint mate that's only 15mg per cup.

Ahem. I may be obsessed with tea and may not love caffeine.
posted by Crystalinne at 1:47 PM on December 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

I would just go to a good tea shop and find a decaf tea you like. You can go with decaf black if she really prefers black tea, but there are also lots and lots of delicious herbal teas out there depending on her taste. You might try a Teavana if there is one near you...they're a Starbucks offshoot but I've found their looseleaf tea is quite good and they will let you sample if you ask so she can try some before committing.
posted by rainbowbrite at 1:47 PM on December 3, 2014

Decaf black teas are pretty amazing now. I accidentally made a cup of decaf English Breakfast this morning and only noticed the problem as I was putting the box away and re-read the label. (And that was just bagged Twinings - my fancy Teavana loose decaf English and Irish Breakfasts teas are fantastic.)
posted by Lyn Never at 1:52 PM on December 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Caffeine Content of Brewed Teas looked at a number of different teas, with steeping times of 1, 3, or 5 minutes. The fraction of caffeine extracted within the first minute (compared to the five-minute steep) varied quite a bit between different varieties, from a low of about 1/3 to a high of nearly all of it extracted within the first minute (Tazo Awake, which also had a higher total caffeine content than any of the other varieties).

So it seems likely that some not insignificant amount of the caffeine is extracted and removed in that first thirty seconds, but just how much is hard to say. Depending on what kind of tea she's drinking, she might be able to achieve a greater reduction in caffeine just by switching to a variety with less caffeine; or, just by brewing for a shorter time to start with (unless she's drinking Tazo Awake, but then switching varieties is even more advisable).
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:01 PM on December 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

Another source: Andrew Weil has often suggested doing this for 50 seconds to get most of the caffeine out. He says caffeine is extremely water soluble. Just google Andrew Weil decaffeinated tea coffee, and I'm sure it will come up.

I would personally prefer this method over buying any kind of decaf tea, which I hate the idea of. When I buy it, it sits on my shelf for years.
posted by Blitz at 2:05 PM on December 3, 2014

I'm extremely sensitive to caffeine and I have done this. I often start the day with the first "flush" of the teabag for a bit of caffeine and then just keep re-steeping it. The caffeine definitely wears off, but even my second "flush" has enough that it would keep me up if I drank some in the evening. I can't say how much that is, but it feels something like half as buzzy to me as a first flush. A third flush is good anytime except right before bed, but as I said, my sensitivity is extreme.
posted by stinker at 2:20 PM on December 3, 2014

If I were serious about doing this, I'd get a 7-day pill pack (with the larger chambers) and some loose-leaf green tea, measure out a teaspoon into the first day, just under a teaspoon for the second day, 3/4 tsp. for the third day, etc., then use a tea ball and the corresponding day's dose of tea each day.

Once the dose is small enough, I might just switch to (or gradually mix in) a non-caffeinated tea.

Use a meat thermometer to check the temperature of the water you use to make the tea. For green tea, you only need 160-180 degrees fahrenheit (more will make the tea bitter).
posted by amtho at 2:24 PM on December 3, 2014

Seconding roobios. Peppermint tea is also good. Avoid hibiscus/lemongrass which are common in teas. There's also some great instant ginger teas. Some white teas have lower caffeine levels but it depends on brand so you'd have to find a site/brand where it indicates that.
posted by typecloud at 2:27 PM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

There's nothing mythlike about it - every single chemical that is in tea has a unique solubility rate, and their order (most->least soluble) are (I am 99% certain) constant regardless of temperature.

So, if you move a teabag from one cup to another at the time T, some of tea's most-soluble compounds are liable to be highly dissolved (removed from the tea) in the first cup, while it's least-soluble compounds will take a long time to their maximum solution concentrations. (Obviously T can be made so small almost nothing dissolves, or so large the second cup is barely discolored, but we're aiming for a midpoint here.)

Caffeine is highly soluble in water; moreso than even most of the flavor compounds we cherish in tea and coffee. That's why rinsing tea leaves and coffee beans (or grounds) in water is one of the commercial methods for making decaffeinated tea and coffee.

Your wife is just doing a semi-repeatable, unmeasured home version of this decaffeination.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:32 PM on December 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

Nthing decaf tea.

Every time I've tried to reuse a tea bag, I've gotten watery gross tasting tea. Maybe only brewing for a few seconds and taking the tea bag out immediately mitigates that, but then again maybe it doesn't. Also, it doesn't really seem like something you would know for sure was working, unless your wife is extremely sensitive to caffeine. I mean, we can debate about whether all this vigilance about X or Y chemical is really necessary during pregnancy, but it's very possible that the "steep and remove" teabag method will result in the exact same amount of caffeine as just drinking an ordinary cup of tea. With decaf tea, you know there is (virtually) no caffeine in your tea.
posted by Sara C. at 2:34 PM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Let me throw in my recommendation for honeybush, which is similar to rooibos, but has more body, IMHO. My go-to herbal is a 50-50 blend of honeybush and lemongrass.

If she's dedicated to black tea, as someone who was previously too snobby for flavored tea or decaf, I think TeaSource has some amazing flavored decaf. The TeaSource Gold and the Lemon Solstice are both lovely. (The unflavored decaf English Breakfast is... meh. The decaf Sencha is also pretty bland on its own, but not to bad with some lemongrass and hibiscus for a sort of faux cherry flavor. I'm not an Earl Grey fan so I haven't tried that one.)
posted by BrashTech at 5:14 PM on December 3, 2014

This doesn't precisely answer the question you're asking, but the current American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' recommendations (which tend to be super on the safe side of things) are that it is safe to drink up to 200mg of caffeine per day during pregnancy. Looking at the list posted above of caffeine contents of various teas, you could drink 3 cups of any of them without doing anything differently and not hit the 200mg level.

I understand that many people aren't comfortable with any degree of risk in pregnancy and may still want to eliminate caffeine regardless of what ACOG recommends or what research supports - which is totally their prerogative and for most people is not a hardship anyway, I just wanted to include this information in case your wife was not aware of the medical recommendation - many people mistakenly believe that caffeine is absolutely verboten in pregnancy because the recommendations changed fairly recently.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:53 PM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm actually encouraged to drink some caffeine if pregnant because depending on your personal health, it can be helpful. She should definitely check with her doctor because she might be surprised. Decaf tea tastes fine - decaf chai tea is lovely.
posted by viggorlijah at 5:20 AM on December 4, 2014