How much caffeine has black tea? Including comparison
Introduction
In this short article we will give you an overview of how many mg of caffeine black tea has and compare these values with other caffeinated drinks.
Finally, we'll look at why black tea works differently and give you a brief conclusion.
Contents
- What is Black Tea?
- How much caffeine does black tea have?
- Why does black tea work differently?
- Conclusion
1. What is Black Tea?
Black tea is made from green tea. All teas, whether green, black, white or yellow, come from the tea plant Camellia Sinensis.
The difference always lies in the processing of the harvested leaves, which ensures the different tastes and caffeine contents. With green tea, leaves are treated directly with hot steam and then dried with hot air. You can find out more about this in our article Matcha VS Green Tea.
Black tea, on the other hand, is oxidized for some time after harvest. This oxidation is a fermentation process that causes the leaves to turn black. The process changes the taste and the percentage composition of active ingredients in the leaves. We use a similar process with ours Guayusa variety DARK at.
Since we are on Guayusa-Tea Unfortunately, you won't find any black tea varieties here. However, we can give you that Shop Tezen recommend, where you can find a large selection of different teas from Camellia Senensis.
2. How much caffeine does black tea have?
How much caffeine black tea has in the end depends on the region where it is grown, the amount of sunlight it receives and how the leaves are processed.
A normal standard black tea has around 1% to 3.5% caffeine. This percentage is calculated based on the dry matter of the tea leaves.
2.1. How many mg of caffeine does black tea have?
For 1g of tea this is 10 mg to 35 mg of caffeine. How much caffeine a cup of black tea has depends on how much tea you use.
With a glass like our heat-resistant one 400ml borosilicate glass, you would use approx. 2.5 g of tea. A cup of black tea has around 25 mg to 87.5 mg of caffeine.
2.2. Caffeine in comparison?
A cup of regular black tea usually has more caffeine than regular green tea, but not excessively more.
Matcha Green tea, on the other hand, also has much more caffeine than black tea at 44 mg per g.
A 400 ml cup of coffee, on the other hand, has around 90 mg to 120 mg of caffeine, although coffee itself only contains between 1.4% and 3.2% caffeine. However, significantly more grams of coffee are used per cup. 15g to 20g per cup is not uncommon.
You can find a comparison of many caffeinated drinks in our Comparison of caffeinated drinks.
In the following graphic we show you in comparison how much caffeine black tea has. You will see that black tea does not stand out much, but is about on the same level as green tea.
3. Why does black tea work differently?
For many people, black tea is known to have a more intense effect than the “weaker” green tea. However, since the caffeine content is not significantly higher than that of green tea, one might think that the different effect must come from a different active ingredient.
The fact is, however, that the stronger effect comes from the fact that the caffeine can work faster. The fermentation process of the leaves mentioned at the beginning causes the destruction of the leaves Antioxidants, which were previously present in high quantities in the green leaves.
Not only caffeine is found in caffeinated drinks, but also a variety of other active ingredients, such as Theobromine, Theophylline and L-Theanine. You can find an overview of the most important active ingredients in our Contribution to ingredients.
Some of these other active ingredients have a direct and indirect effect. Antioxidants, for example, often have an effect that is not directly noticeable, but if they are missing, the caffeine works faster. For this reason, coffee also works significantly faster than green tea or Guayusa tea. In comparison, coffee only has about 1/7 of the antioxidants of green tea and only 1/14 of Guayusa Tea.
If you would like to find out more about the possible side effects of black tea, you can find them in our article "Side effects of Guayusa-Tea, mate, green and black tea" read up.
Conclusion
How much caffeine black tea has depends on its origin and cultivation as well as the weather conditions.
In comparison, it does not have significantly less or more caffeine than green tea. However, the effect differs due to the changed antioxidant values; these are significantly lower in black tea and allow the caffeine to work faster.
This difference in antioxidants from green tea comes from the different processing that oxidizes the leaves of black tea.
With approximately 10 mg to 35 mg of caffeine per 1 g, black tea has a low to medium content compared to other caffeinated drinks.
