Pu-Erh Caffeine

I don’t drink it late at night except for Numi’s Chocolate. A bag of that doesn’t affect my sleep- but then again unless I chug black tea all day, caffeine really doesn’t affect me. There may or may not be much caffeine per gram, but I use a lot of leaf (8g/8oz cup which Is why I don’t drink 8oz cups of pu erh lol) and high temp (almost boiling) short (20 sec) steeps so I have a feeling that the caffeine may be released over the span of the infusions more so if you’d resteep, say, a green tea. But then again I also do a 20 sec rinse so maybe most of the caffeine doesn’t even hit my mouth. As you said, there’s so much conflicting info about caffeine and I get annoyed and frustrated I don’t even bother to try to figure it out. If I find that it keeps me up, I don’t drink it late. Every person is different anyway:)

Most people seems to believe that shu puerh has much less caffein than most other teas, and the older a sheng is, the less caffein in it. But I agree it’s hard to find scientific information about it. Sometimes when I read a research about caffein content, I notice the researchers don’t care much about specific type of tea and how the tea is “supposed” to be brewed in real life (instead of lab extraction).

Here is one of the best summaries I’ve read about caffein content in tea.
http://chadao.blogspot.com/search?q=caffein

Besides, I think that if a tea can yield 10-20 infusion from the 7 gram tea leaves, it should be deemed as a low-caffein tea considering the total caffein/water ratio in the tea drinking :D

I personally got very buzzed brewing a little cake of puerh black tea one night. I think it also depends on the tea type in the puerh…white vs black vs green.

Funny…I don’t feel anything waking about shou or sheng puer. I feel nice and full afterwards…but that might just be the probiotics taking effect. (heh)

thanks everyone! If anyone has an idea for language I can use on packaging a pu-erh blend, to get across to folks who may not understand the caffeine issue, something more interesting than: “lowish caffeine, depending how good of a steepster you are” let me know.

thanks Jaime! although, I need something that takes up less space on a label. send me your address, will send you sample of blend. heading to post office tomorrow for tea swap folks.

Just thought of something- are there reputable companies that sell pu erh (preferably direct from China if they aren’t in China themselves) that you could contact and ask? Get as many opinions as you can. I go to Den’s Tea for all my Japanese greens questions even if it isn’t a type they sell- hopefully you can find “the Den’s Tea of Pu Erh”

if you “wash” it first there is less than 3% caf says 3 different plantations I have visited in China.

Most people argue that Puerh generally has a high caffeine content. To be completely honest, I find Green tea affects my sleep more than Puerhs.