tea

Caffeine Content

/ Shane / Leave a comment

The amount of caffeine in various items came up the other day, so I looked it up and was sort of amazed at what I found. I am including a table below of common items with caffeine. I found the table here, which I admit is not the most scientific site, but I double checked the figures against at least 5 other sources (this one had the best table). None of them are exactly the same, but that makes sense. For example, every type of coffee is going to be slightly different. So these seem to be in the ballpark of everything else I found.

Interesting things that I’ve learned since I started looking into this stuff:

  1. Decaffeinated coffee has a non-trivial amount of caffeine (this chart lists it as lower than other sources).
  2. Teas don’t list caffeine as an ingredient because they’re naturally caffeinated…decaffeinating them is the unnatural thing. (Okay, that one I knew already)
  3. Caffeinated teas are far less caffeinated than coffee. They actually don’t have a lot more caffeine than decaf coffee.
  4. The type of tea has a huge impact on how much caffeine they contain (this one makes sense, but I was surprised at the difference)
  5. Chocolate (especially dark) has a LOT of caffeine, and is a much bigger deal than tea (You know you’re not eating 1 oz at a time!).
  6. A glass of chocolate milk has a not-insignificant amount of caffeine!! No wonder your kids are crazy.
Double espresso (2oz) 45-100 mg
Brewed coffee (8 oz) 60-120 mg
Instant coffee (8 oz) 70 mg
Decaf coffee (8 oz) 1-5 mg
Tea – black (8 oz) 45 mg
Tea – green (8 oz) 20 mg
Tea – white (8 oz) 15 mg
Coca Cola (12 oz can) 34 mg
Chocolate milk (8 oz) 4 mg
Dark chocolate (1 oz) 20 mg
Milk chocolate (1 oz) 6 mg
Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Fudge Frozen Yogurt (8 oz) 85 mg

Caffeine is the enemy

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Fall makes me feel like drinking tea. So the other night I opened up some new White Chai that I bought and gave it a try. Not too long after I started to feel very light headed, and then eventually sick to my stomach. Finally, I had to lay down for a while until I felt better. That’s right, a cup of tea laid me out. That’s the kind of party animal I am these days.

So of course, I had to try it again.

Though I hadn’t had this particular tea before, the ingredients of the tea were pretty standard. I thought maybe it was a coincidence that I happened to feel sick after I drank the tea. Also, I hadn’t eaten any supper that night, so there was a lot going on. The second time, I had eaten a huge super, so I wasn’t going in on an empty stomach. This time I didn’t feel sick, but I did feel pretty light headed for a while. Of course, that could have been the power of suggestion, after the previous night.

The only thing I could figure was the caffeine. A while ago, I decided to cut caffeine out of my life, where possible. I drink caffeine free pop and I drink decaf coffee. If one cup of tea can give me a caffeine buzz, I guess it’s working! I searched the box for information about the caffeine content, but I didn’t find anything. I can only assume this means it has the regular amount of caffeine, that is, it is caffeinated, but not ridiculously so. In fact, it is white tea, which I understand to be the least caffeinated tea.

So my question to the tea drinkers out there is, how much caffeine is in tea? Has any one else come across this? Is there something else in there besides the caffeine that could be hitting me?