You're a teaholic, tea-lover, tea-obsessed, tea-drinker, tea-o-phile, whatever you want to call yourself, and suddenly your world has come crashing down.
Caffeine is no longer your friend.
At least in the afternoon or evening, that is.
While your morning cup of tea holds pride of place and will continue to do so, the night-time effects of caffeine demand you uncover and eliminate all sources of caffeine. And find a substitute.
You're on a mission.
Where is that pesky caffeine coming from?
What can I drink instead?
In this article, we'll go through your most asked tea and caffeine related questions and what life-changing caffeine-free alternatives are available.
Table of Contents
- Caffeine in Green Tea
- A Cup of Green Tea Contains More Caffeine When:
- A Cup of Green Tea Contains Less Caffeine When:
- Life-Changing Caffeine-Free Tea
- Limonada Rosa
- Lemon Ginger
- Licorice Basket
- How Much Caffeine in Black Tea
- How to Minimise the Caffeine in Your Cup of Black Tea
- Caffeine in Chai Tea
- Does Chai Tea Latte Have Caffeine in It?
- Caffeine in White Tea
- How Much Caffeine in Jasmine Tea
- How Much Caffeine in Milk Tea
- Is There Caffeine in Earl Grey Tea?
Caffeine in Green Tea
You may already drink green tea to lift your energy. Studies show that drinking green tea enables you to engage in physical activity for more prolonged periods.
That's great if you're about to hit the gym.
Not so great if you're about to go to sleep.
The energy attributed to drinking green tea could be traced back to the theanine content. It could also be traced back to energy-giving caffeine.
Green tea leaves contain a healthy dose of caffeine. And as caffeine occurs naturally in green tea, the caffeine content varies, depending on a variety of factors, including how it is brewed(1). Indeed, an 8oz cup of green tea can hold anywhere from 35 to 70mg caffeine (compared to 100-700mg caffeine in a cup of coffee).
A cup of green tea contains more caffeine when:
- the tea leaves are younger when they are picked
- the leaves are more finely cut e.g. teabags, matcha
- it is brewed for longer
- it is brewed at a higher temperature
A cup of green tea contains less caffeine when:
- the tea leaves are older when they are picked
- it contains other ingredients e.g. herbs, flowers, dried fruits, see Rose Moscato Green Tea
- the tea leaves are large, leaves, often in loose leaf form
- it has a shorter brewing time
- it uses a lower brewing temperature
Life-Changing Caffeine-Free Tea
That's why Tielka has created three life-changing caffeine-free herbal blends that will bring a ray of joy to your evening.
Shop Life-Changing Caffeine-Free Tea
Let's start with my personal favourite:
Limonada Rosa
Heaven looked down with grace when this blend was first created.
It was effortless, breathtaking, and instantly a success. Limonada Rosa contains locally grown, freshly harvested lemon myrtle (great for anxiety relief!) blended with lemongrass, hibiscus, rose and not a hint of caffeine.
It also makes a pretty spectacular iced tea, no sugar required, 100% naturally caffeine-free and is one of Tielka's favourite herbal blends. Loose leaf tea or plant-based tea bags available online.
Lemon Ginger
On evenings when I crave less fruit and more spice, Tielka's Lemon Ginger hits the spot perfectly. It also has some surprising sleep benefits.
Again, this blend features locally grown, freshly harvested lemon myrtle, which creates a lemon ginger blend, not as you know it (and far more interesting).
And... it's 100% naturally caffeine-free tea. Loose leaf tea or plant-based tea bags available online.
Licorice Basket
So you're a sweet tooth but are trying desperately to eliminate sugar from your diet.
This will change your life like no other tea. And it's 100% naturally caffeine-free.
Tielka's Licorice Basket consists of licorice root and a bunch of other beautiful herbs. Although this blend doesn't have that strong aniseed flavour you would expect, it slowly releases a beautiful sweetness that increases to the point where you wonder if you may have dropped in five teaspoons of sugar or more.
No sugar, sweet taste, sweet dreams, one of Tielka's lesser known, but well loved herbal infusions. Loose leaf tea available online.
Check out Tielka's entire caffeine-free range.
How Much Caffeine in Black Tea
Black tea has the highest level of caffeine when compared to all the other tea varieties. Even so, there is significantly less caffeine in an 8oz cup of black tea (25-100mg) than coffee (100-700mg).
How To Minimise the Caffeine in Your Cup of Black Tea
If you love black tea, but want to keep the caffeine levels to a minimum, shorten your brewing time, decrease your cup size, or use a blend with herbs, flowers, or dried fruits.
Black tea leaves will also release less caffeine when the leaf is larger, compared to the fine cut of black tea leaves you find in a typical supermarket teabag.
Caffeine in Chai Tea
Chai tea comes in more forms and varieties than a ladies size medium t-shirt. No sugar, way too much sugar, spices, vanilla, cinnamon, with or without turmeric, the list goes on.The caffeine levels in chai tea purely depends on whether it contains real black tea or not and if so, how much black tea it contains.
Powder chai tea rarely has any caffeine because it rarely contains any real ingredients, including black tea or love. Powder chai tea should take pride of place alongside your tin of instant coffee and supermarket teabags - preferably in the bin.
Real chai, like Tielka's stunning South Cloud Chai, made with black tea leaves and real spices, contains around half the caffeine of a cup of black tea.
If you like real chai, but want to cut your caffeine intake, find a rooibos based chai with real spices. Rooibos is a beautiful caffeine-free alternative to tea.
Does chai tea latte have caffeine in it?
It depends. If we are talking about sugar laden chai powder brewed on milk, the chances are there is no caffeine, which is great if you are trying to avoid caffeine and have no sense of taste or style.
If you make a chai latte on real chai, the chai tea latte will have a little caffeine, around half the caffeine of a cup of black tea and your soul will be better for it.
Caffeine in White Tea
Whoever said white tea has no caffeine has either never drunk a good cup of white tea, or is too lazy to verify what is found on Google (which is most of us).
White tea, if it's worth drinking, is made from the youngest, most delicate buds and leaves, and we all know (well, we do now), that the youngest buds and leaves contain the highest levels of caffeine. Unlike the caffeine in coffee, the added benefit of theanine in white tea will lift your mood and ensure anxiety is not triggered.
If you find a white tea that consists of old leaves, yes, it will have less caffeine than other tea varieties, but it will hardly be worth a second glance.
How do I know? When Tielka receives the new harvest of Moonlight White Tea each year, an evening cup keeps me up until all hours. Moonlight White Tea consists of the most prized young buds and leaves picked in early Spring harvest. And of course, you're not doing Moonlight White Tea or yourself any justice if you only brew it once, which means even more caffeine is released (yes, the longer you brew, the more caffeine is released).
How Much Caffeine in Jasmine Tea
Again, it depends.
Are you referring to just jasmine flowers? Jasmine blended with other herbs, spices, fruit, or flowers? Jasmine flowers blended with tea? Tea scented with jasmine?
Jasmine flowers have zero caffeine content, but don't let that fool you.
The most common "jasmine tea" is green tea scented with jasmine. And we all know that green tea contains caffeine (well, I hope you know this by now). Adding a scent to a green tea has no impact on the existing level of caffeine, so the question remains, how much caffeine is in green tea?
The answer is remarkably inconsistent (you'll need to go back to Caffeine in Green Tea to see why). For the sake of your sanity (who wants to wade through hours of articles looking for boring facts?), jasmine green tea has around half the caffeine of a cup of black tea.
How Much Caffeine in Milk Tea
Milk tea is this whole new craze where you add milk, tapioca pearls and a tonne of sugar to black tea, and make it seem really hip and cool.
Not my cup of tea.
But you don't want to know about my personal preferences, do you? You're interested in caffeine here.
Adding milk, sugar, or even super-cool tapioca pearls, will not have any impact on the level of caffeine black tea brings to a cup of milk tea.
A cup of milk tea has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of black tea with milk. Nothing ground-breaking.
Is there Caffeine in Earl Grey Tea?
Yes. The biggest ingredient in Earl Grey tea is black tea. Indeed, sometimes Earl Grey tea consists only of black tea that is scented with bergamot flavour.
Tielka's Earl Grey tea (otherwise known as Earl Royale), also has sweet organic peel, cornflower petals, natural bergamot oil, and uses young, fat, black tea leaves which means the total caffeine level will be lower than a regular cup of finely cut Earl Grey tea.
It will also completely blow your mind as possibly the best Earl Grey tea you have ever tasted.
I highly recommend you try some today, or even the Earl's great cousin, Lady Betty Black Tea (Tielka's dark horse and best kept secret).