Carolyn

Wow, what a bummer. I wonder what it is that they put in there? Perhaps you could write and ask them just for informative purposes?

I probably could ask them but I don’t know that they would know the answer. Typically flavors are alchemy. They’re deep, dark secrets cooked up in flavor labs which do not need to reveal this information and typically don’t.

I’ve been a vegetarian for about 35 years and have learned over time what is likely possible to learn and what is likely not possible. Flavors are typically not possible to find out much about (but they’re usually not made with animal ingredients, either).

I kind of figured they might not… Oh well. As much as I like tea, I don’t know that there are any for which I would be willing to withstand a headache. Maybe I’m a wuss. Or maybe headaches just suck a big one.

Wow, that’s not fun at all! I wonder what they have in them that gives you a headache… too bad there’s no real way to find out.

I’ve never heard of anything like that! But its good to know. That’s what happens to me when I have anything caffeinated. I’ve always assumed the flavored teas are based on plain black tea so I’ve never tried them.

@pinkShaya: The flavored teas are based on plain black tea. It actually looks like a CTC Ceylon tea. The flavoring is added to that. So if you get headaches from caffeine, you’ll definitely get headaches from the caffeinated versions of the flavored teas. You might be able to tolerate the decaf versions, though.

@pinkShaya Disclaimer: I’ve never tried this myself, so if you WANT to test the waters you might want to do it on a day when you’ve got nothing important to do and medication or whatever you use handy. However, I’ve heard from a couple of different sources that if you steep a black tea for around 45 seconds and then toss that out it gets rid of a pretty big portion of the caffeine. I also found this as well, and they explain it in a little more detail: http://is.gd/4w69w

Might be helpful?

@takgoti: Just found this info on Facts and Myths about Caffeine in Tea: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and-reality.html

He says the short steep to remove caffeine is a myth and that it takes at least five minutes to remove a significant amount of caffeine from tea.

(There is a lot of other good info on caffeine in tea in this article/blog post as well.)

Oh wow! Super interesting stuff. Bookmarked that. Thanks for the link.

I’d email them, the person doing the live chat for Q & A probably wouldn’t know, but if you email them, your ? can be forwarded to a person who might. The worst that’ll happen is they’ll say they don’t know. But if you don’t ask, there’s a 100% chance you’ll never find out. Have you tried their straight ceylon? Does it happen w/ their vanilla rooibos chai and bengal green chai as well? What about their spiced green (which is basically a chai type tea)?