Food for fair trade thought....

I came across a 2009 article in the London Sunday Times...which mentions a Danish film called "The Bitter Taste of Tea"

You can watch the film here, at Films On Demand.

An eye-opener.

Caffeine in Tea -- more info

Hey -- even more great  info about how much caffeine is in tea.

Camellia Sinensis -- tea store and importer extraordinaire in Montreal -- did a test of their own and you can find the results here.  They're also included in their book, recently translated in to english.

Available for sale at their site

What I can't discern from the info on-line is how old the tea was that the tests were done on.  I've always assumed that as teas age and flavour fades everything else does too so that older (stale) tea has less caffeine.  I'm also curious about what the results mean for oolong which one usually steeps for a series of short infusions -- 1 minute, then 30 secs, then 45 secs, etc.  But perhaps it's cumulative time vis a vis the oolongs...?  And the Gyokuro they tested is way down the list while the Hujicha was quite high!  Questions, questions.

UPDATE April 2012: I'm going to Kevin Gascoyne's presentation on this subject at the Tea Expo in June and look forward to the opportunity to get more background information.  (He's one of the partners at Camellia Sinensis.)  More later.