Jen's Tea House

A cup of tea has many celebrated health benefits, but if you want to sleep, both tea and coffee are likely to keep you awake—unless they are decaffeinated.

Caffeine in tea however impacts the body differently than it does in coffee, a fact of nature that could make a big difference to your wakefulness. With coffee, the body receives an immediate jolt, whereas with tea, the stimulating effects cover several hours. Here’s why:

The tannins in tea bind together with the caffeine and this acts to slow the dissemination down. In coffee, with no tannins, the caffeine is free. It penetrates from the stomach into the blood vessels and reaches the brain almost immediately. Tea takes much longer because the tannins-caffeine-complex must be broken up in the intestines first.

This is why a cup of coffee has a stronger effect than a cup of tea at the same volume. The caffeine effect from one cup of coffee normally lasts less than one hour. On the other hand, the effect from one cup of tea can last more than three to four hours, with a slightly lower impact.

The decaff solution

“Tea continues to fascinate researchers with its potential health benefits and while waiting for conclusive reports on such findings, it’s good to know that top-quality decaf tea allows you to drink as much as you like,” says Alan Hargreaves at one of Britain’s leading brand, Typhoo Tea.

“Indeed, safeguarding our reputation for superior taste was of utmost priority in the decaffeination choice,” he explained. “And we achieved this with the most advanced techniques, with precision, and as imortantly with far more tealeaves per cup.

“Too little tea in the teabags makes the brew watery, weak and unsatisfying. Instead, in the decaf development stage, the Typhoo researchers insisted on the decision to pack as much tea into the teabag as possible. By comparison with other decafs in Canada, this is up from the average of 2 grams per teabag, to ours at 3.12 grams.

www.newscanada.com