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Caffeine content in tea?

I like to drink Earl Grey tea when I study. Being a college student, I can't exactly afford to use a whole bag on each 8 oz. cup, plus I like it a tad weak. What I do is heat the water to just below boiling, then pour over the bag. I usually let it steep for about 10-15 seconds the first time. By increasing the time it steeps for each following cup made with the bag, I find I can make about three decent cups of tea off just one typical tea bag.

What I wonder is, what is the caffeine content of my tea? Are my subsequent cups lower in caffeine than the first? How would it compare to, say, an 8 oz. house coffee?

Update:

No, I don't have highly specific details like when/where/how it was harvested. It's just a generic, grocery store teabag of Earl Grey (as I stated), containing maybe about a tablespoon of leaves.

I steep it about 15s first time, 30s second, 1 min 3rd.

Again, this is hardly a measured scientific process. I'm just curious about what I'm drinking.

2 Answers

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  • Amanda
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    The caffeine content of your tea is, for many reasons, impossible to calculate from the information you have provided. You didn't specify what type of tea was in your bag, where it is from, when it was harvested, how it was harvested, your steep times...

    However, some things are definite.

    Your tea, all three cups together, has less caffeine than an 8-oz house coffee.

    If you kept the steep time constant, the first cup would have the most caffeine. However, since you increase the steep time and the first steep is so short, I would guess they are all about the same.

    Edit: If you read the link I posted, you'll understand why you need such specific information. Tea from the same area of just one plantation can vary fourfold in caffeine over the course of a year - imagine then mixing it with teas from other plantations at random times of year. All you're going to get is vague qualitative answers rather than specific numbers without your own mass spectrometer.

    I don't know the exact mathematics behind extraction, unfortunately, but my impression is that the first two steeps are about equal in strength and the third is likely to be the highest in caffeine.

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    Coffee has on average 2-3x the caffeine of tea. So if you drink enough tea it could keep you up. So many things have caffeine, that something else may be adding to your problem. In fact, a 5oz bar of extra dark chocolate has as much caffeine as 1 cup of coffee, so if you're eating chocolate that could do it too. See the link below for the caffeine content of many things you may be consuming.

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