Are there any good decaf oolongs? Does such a thing even exist? I can’t drink caffeine anymore, and while there are plenty of decaf black teas, I haven’t found any decaf oolongs. I’m really craving a cup of jasmine oolong or Ti Kwan Yin right now. Any help?
I would also love to find decaffeinated Oolong tea. I love Adagio’s Oolong Symphony # 40 and Oolong # 8, but they don’t offer decaf Oolong.
Unfortunately, every time I’ve searched for decaf Oolong I’ve come up with zilch. (So if anybody does know of one, please, please let us know.)
I’ve read on a few tea websites (but I haven’t personally tried it) that you can remove most of the caffeine from tea by yourself. Apparently, most of the caffeine is released during the first 30 seconds of steeping. So, basically, you would pour water over the tea leaves, allow them to steep for 30 seconds, pour out and discard the water, then re-steep the leaves with new water. I haven’t tried it because I can be pretty sensitive to caffeine, especially if I have it after about 4:00 pm. If this works for you, let us know.
Good Luck!
I’ve tried the steeping 30 seconds, discard thing and it does appear to work. I’m moderately sensitive to caffeine and tea prepared this way doesn’t bother me at all.
I buy some really nice decaf black teas online but I don’t think I’ve ever run across a decaf oolong.
I’ll try out the steeping 30 seconds and toss this weekend and see how it works.
[QUOTE=dwyr]
I’ve tried the steeping 30 seconds, discard thing and it does appear to work.QUOTE]
This is the method recommended by the Upton Tea Co. I’ve used this method and also find it very effective.
I’ve never found any good decaffeinated tea, of any kind. Whatever the process is, it removes all the flavor along with the caffeine (or maybe the caffeine is the flavor). I was wondering lately if it didn’t make sense to try to blend tea in such a way that you could get low caffeine, rather than no caffeine. Maybe two-thirds loose decaf tea with one-third caffeinated tea would be about right. Probably worth a try.
If I drink caffeine in the morning, it will most often make me shaky, and often causes symptoms like hypoglycemia (don’t know if it’s just extreme jitteriness, or if the caffeine actually helps my blood sugar spike, then plummet). Bottom line: I can feel the bad effects of caffeine pretty reliably.
I use the 30 second steep method on my Darjeeling, and it works great! I couldn’t tell you exactly what percentage of caffeine is left, but it’s low enough that it never causes the physical reaction a regular caffeinated beverage causes.
I also find the flavor to be far superior to most commercial decaf teas, and of course you can drink any variety this way, which opens up a lot that is unavailable in “officially” decaf offerings.
Reported the spam by NiteGoat.
This zombie was revived by a spammer, but since the conversation isn’t time sensitive I’ll leave it open.
Hopefully, this will be helpful even though it’s coming late in the conversation… I’ve not found any tea that decaffeinates well, but black teas seem to do significantly better than others. Unfortunately, my preference is oolong tea.
I’d been looking for a couple of years, and finally found this at Bird Pick Tea & Herb: http://www.birdpick.com/royal-high-mountain-decaf-oolong-tea.html. Availability is intermittent; it goes in and out of stock - probably not a lot produced. It’s not superb, but not terrible either.
They also offer a decaf oolong in teabags, but, if memory serves me, it’s not particularly good.
Because I’m coming at the decaf thing for medical reasons, I did some digging into decaffeinating tea by pre-brewing. As it turns out, it takes discarding a good long steep to remove any significant amount of caffeine. A good article about it is available here for anyone interested: CHA DAO: CAFFEINE AND TEA: Myth and Reality. It’s fully referenced, and provides information on caffeine as it relates to type of tea, growing regions, etc.
I have located one as well - Amazon.com it is loose leaf decaffeinated oolong. Very high quality. There are not many options but this does the trick. Good luck out there.