white vs. green tea

[haha]

Here's a monkey coffee that goes for a pretty good price too.

"Whenever you think coffee connoisseurs have come up with the strangest idea, just wait for this one. It will leave you holding your breath! What kind of coffee could possibly sell for prices ranging from $100 to $300 per pound? I present to you Kopi Luwak. An extremely rare coffee due to the fact that the beans are first processed through the intestinal track of a palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). Once thought of as only an urban legend, I now present you with the honest truth. This raccoon like animal has a sickly-sweet odor reminiscent of a striped skunk and loves the cherry like fruit that covers the coffee bean. Yes, ingested and deposited shortly thereafter, the beans are ripe for the picking. Once thought as a pest to the crop, these critters are now welcomed friends. Coffee pickers comb the civet's droppings for the berries and remove the husk. These yummy, choice beans are thoroughly washed, in other words, decrappinated, then roasted and ready for the brew. Oh boy, an aromatic brew it would be."

Kopi Luwak - Good to the last dropping (INeedCoffee.com)

 

[Kroeran]

wonder how long it will take for someone to figure out caging those little guys and force feeding them the beans

or....I am thinking, those green beans probably don't taste so bad, maybe I could pop and then poop a few, start a new profit centre!

what if you could get celebrities to do this! imagine what these coffee beans would sell for if passed through the intestinal track of P*ris Hilton!

 

[Sarah in SC]

Okay, finally, the tea expert returns from my academic pursuits and paper writing!

All tea (except herbals) is made from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. There really are only three types of tea produced from that plant: green, oolong, and black. All others are some form of the same processing methods (like the white tea mentioned).

As a member of the Camellia family, it can be grown in lots of places in the United States, but there is only one commercial tea producer in the country. All other tea is imported. High temperatures and high humidity are needed to grow quality tea for consumption.

Green tea is not oxidized after picking, so it retains a more grassy flavor. The leaves (usually two leaves and a bud, but the so-called white tea is just the bud and no leaves) are harvested and then allowed to wither overnight to reduce the moisture content. The leaves are then dried and ready to go if it is loose tea, the leaves may be chopped right before drying if it is going into teabags.

Black tea is fully oxidized, meaning that after the withering, the leaves are crushed or chopped and allowed to sit for up to 90 minutes, which changes the leaves from green to a coppery brown color and creates the characteristic black tea flavor.

Oolong tea is right in the middle, oxidized, but for less time.

Caffeine content can vary from region to region (think apples from one state taste different than those from another) but generally don't vary a whole lot, but the caffeine content of the final product is increased by the chemical reactions that take place during oxidation, hence green tea's reduced caffeine content.

The best way to reduce caffeine in the cup is to brew for one minute and then throw that tea out and pour more hot water over the bag for another 3 minutes. Most of the caffeine leaches out of the leaves in the first minute.

You shouldn't brew longer than 5 minutes, and 3 is considered optimal for tea tasting. Sun tea is a great way to make iced tea--you just put the bags in a jug of cold water and let it steep until it is the color you prefer (and strength).

I think that covers it, but let me know. I must have given a thousand lectures on the subject and it is funny that the same words come back to me all these years later.

 

[megacorp-firee]

IMO, white tea is a marketing ploy to charge you 10x the price. ... and it's w*rking.
pet rocks, beanie babies, cabbage patch dolls and whatever they call those hamsters that are so popular this year ... dontcha love America?

 

[powerplay]

Sarah in SC - Thanks for the tea info!

It sounds like a lot of what we are hearing about the various teas is more hype and marketing than anything else.

 

[Sarah in SC]

The one thing that is true in all that marketing is that tea (all kinds) is full of good phytochemicals and antioxidants, just like other *real* food that isn't overprocessed junk. I personally would not ever drink decaf tea, but that is because the stuff they use to strip out the caffeine is bad medicine. Better to use that pour out the first cup method--and cheaper than decaf, too.

Or go with herbals (not properly called tea, BTW, but a tincture or infusion unless mixed with tea leaves). Speaking of herbals, if you like sweet tea, you can also experiment with adding stevia instead of sugar and brewing the stevia leaves and tea leaves together. It is kinda cool--like having already sweetened tea in leaf form. We experimented with it before stevia got FDA approval and I still think it is a great idea to put the two leaves together in a tea bag.

Glad to help! I am an idiot savant at least on this one subject!

 

[Kroeran]

I use a metal camping single cup coffee filter that I use with expresso, passing the boiling water through the grounds as rapidly as possible, as an expresso machine might do.

I have one of those boiling water on demand devices in the kitchen, but that is not necessary. Just hold the filter with the coffee over the cup, pour as rapidly as it will flow through, dump grinds in sink or garbage and rinse.

Using a couple of tablespoons of coffee with this method creates a great creamy brew, that I believe is relatively low in caffeine. The faster you do it, the better the flavour.

oh shoot...I am way off topic

what got me thinking about this is the idea of lower caffeine and brewing speed

talking tea, a chinese friend of mine says the normal asian way is to throw the first steeping out...he calls it cleaning the tea

 

[Bestwifeever]

Sarah, can/do people grow and harvest their own Camellia sinensis plants?

 

[harley]

Sarah, can/do people grow and harvest their own Camellia sinensis plants?

That's what they tell the police they thought it was.

 

[Sarah in SC]

You can, but it takes a lot of leaves to get a cuppa. If you can grow Camellias, you can probably grow tea plants. Just harvest the top two leaves and a bud, but it takes about five pounds of fresh leaves to make one pound of tea, dried!

I used to have a coffee plant but I let it freeze once and killed it. Never got any beans either. After that one died, I smuggled some cuttings back from a trip to Jamaica (was worried coming through customs--I mean, how do you explain smuggling leaves from Jamaica that turn out to be coffee plants?) and had my dad try to get them rooted, to no avail.

Harley, they look nothing alike!

 

[harley]

Harley, they look nothing alike!

Doesn't matter.

Plant is called hibiscus, but it won't get you high / Officials mistake the popular foliage for pot and storm home of contractor 07/29/2004 | Archives | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Drug Bust Goes Bust (sunflowers).

Don't want to even list all the raids on tomato grows.

Tea is (50's) slang for pot, so that makes it even more suspicious.

 

[kevink]

Most of the info in Sarah from SC's post is correct, except for that part about decaffeinating tea by steeping it briefly, throwing out the water and then re-steeping. That is a common myth among tea fans that owes its origin to a famous French tea retailer but has been completely disproven. That info, along with the facts about relative caffeine content between green, white and black teas is at the site I posted earllier:

Tea Caffeine

Decaf tea is a thoroughly unsatisfying experience unless you go for flavored stuff (Earl Grey, chai, etc.). The good news is there are many wonderful tisanes (herb "teas") out there. Enjoy!

 

[Sarah in SC]

From your article: He found that a three-minute infusion removes 46-70% of the caffeine from a cup of tea.

That sounds about right from my long-ago understanding of caffeine from tea tasters. I've never heard the claim that 80% would be removed in a 30 second brew. The things that get passed around!

 

[kevink]

Hi Sarah,

The problem with the 3+ minutes needed to remove significant caffeine from tea is that that long an infusion also puts nearly all the flavor and aroma of the tea into the brewed cup/pot. To be clear, what was widely recommended by many tea merchants was a 30 second infusion, which is not enough to remove much caffeine but does little damage to flavor. About the only teas that still have something to offer after pouring out the first 3 minute steep are a handful of fancy oolongs brewed gung fu style and of course heavily scented stuff like Jasmines.