Decaffeinated Tea: Properties and brands

One of the most interesting qualities of tea for many consumers is its low theine content (or caffeine, which is the same as we have already seen in this article), but that does not mean that it has none.

Tea has theine, and its stimulant effect is the same, albeit dampened for different reasons, as the stimulant effect we can get from drinking coffee.

For consumers who cannot drink caffeine, as well as decaffeinated coffee, we also have caffeine-free tea.

And the truth is that more and more users are encouraged to buy decaffeinated tea and thus not give up their favourite drink, even if for some reason they have to avoid the stimulant.

There are many varieties of caffeine-free tea on the market, although some are more common than others. Luckily, unless you’re looking for a very rare kind of tea, you won’t have any trouble finding your theine-free tea on Amazon or in the supermarket.

How do you decaffeinate tea?

There are really two ways to get a decaffeinated tea. One is cheaper but results in a poorer quality tea, and the other is more expensive but effective.

The first method is to use solvents that naturally separate the caffeine molecule from the tea leaf. It is quick and easy, but the problem with these solvents is that they leave an aftertaste in the de-caffeinated tea that is different from the original tea.

The second method is cleaner and does not affect the quality of the tea. It involves spraying the leaves directly with carbon dioxide (CO2). But of course, it is more expensive, and not all producers are willing to make such an investment.

If you want to get a good quality decaffeinated tea, you should check that the theine has been removed by CO2 and not by solvents.

There is a third way, perhaps less effective, because it is not easy to remove 100% of the theine, but quite affordable, to decaffeinate tea at home.

If you want to obtain theine-free tea at home, you take your normal tea and brew the first infusion with it. Instead of drinking it, wait about 30 seconds and discard the water. Take the leaves and infuse them again, this time to drink as usual.

The technical explanation for this process is that almost all of the theine in the tea (which has already passed into the infusion) is discarded when the water from the first infusion is discarded.

It is also possible to remove all the theine from the tea at home simply by artificially lengthening the brewing time (e.g. up to ten minutes). Still, the result, in this case, will be a very bitter tea, and even if it does not contain theine, it will not be very pleasant.

Here are some of the most popular types of theine-free tea on the market.

Caffeine-free green tea

Caffeine-free green tea is one of the favourite varieties of tea for consumers who need to avoid theine. The reason is that, even without caffeine, green tea is one of the teas with the lowest concentration of theine because it hardly undergoes any oxidation process.

This is also the reason why it is one of the varieties (green) with the largest number of alternatives and brands that market theine-free green tea, as you can see below:

Does caffeine-free green tea really make you slim?

It is true that the green tea variety is the most suitable for slimming diets and that it is often used if you want to lose weight. However, this property is not related to the presence of theine, so in principle, green tea without theine helps lose weight (or as a supplement to a slimming diet) as green tea with theine.

Caffeine-free matcha tea

Many consumers seek to buy Matcha tea without theine, possibly due to lack of information. There is no such thing as de-tea matcha, for the simple reason that matcha tea is made by directly crushing or grinding the leaves (without even discarding the stems), so it is not possible to further process it with any of the de-tea techniques we have seen at the beginning of the article.

Caffeine-free red tea

If we are looking for red tea without theine (not to be confused with Rooibos, which is also red and does not contain theine but is not really tea), we can also find numerous alternatives on the market. It is similar to what we have said before about green tea: it is a low theine tea in itself, so when you detoxify it, the process is much more effective and safer.

The most important thing when buying your theine-free red tea is not to make a mistake with the variety: make sure that it is a genuine red tea (Pu Erh) and not a “Rooibos red tea”, as many manufacturers mistakenly call it.

Caffeine-free black tea

Here we go to the opposite extreme: black teas are famous for their intensity, their taste… but also for their high theine content. For this reason, they are usually consumed mainly for breakfast.

If you want to enjoy all the intensity and aroma of the purest black tea but don’t need the stimulant, you can turn to any of the varieties of caffeine-free black tea that we offer below:

Caffeine-free white tea

White tea is not as popular or consumed as red, green or black tea, and it is also a variety that is very low in theine, so in this case, it is not at all easy to find varieties of de-terminated white tea on the market.

Perhaps if you ask in a specialised shop, you can get it, but it is not the most common.

Caffeine-free Rooibos tea

Rooibos tea is one of the preferred alternatives for consumers who choose to buy caffeine-free tea for the simple reason that… it’s not tea.

Rooibos is a different plant from tea and therefore never contains theine, nor does it need to be detoxified. If you want to try Rooibos tea without theine, here are some options for enjoying it at home:

How much theine is in decaffeinated tea?

To find out how much caffeine is in decaffeinated tea, the answer is simple. If the process is well executed, decaffeinated tea has no caffeine (unlike decaffeinated coffee, which retains a very small amount of caffeine).

If you opt for the variant of making decaffeinated tea at home, then the result will be different. Here it will be more difficult to remove all the theine from the tea, and the result will be all the better, the longer you prolong the first infusion before discarding the water.

But it is not possible to give an exact figure because this is a home brewing process and is carried out manually.

Properties of decaffeinated tea

One of the great advantages of caffeine-free tea is that it retains all the properties of the original tea.

Some of its benefits and disadvantages (in particular, all those related to the presence of the stimulant molecule) disappear. Still, the health properties are maintained: antioxidant effects, improved circulation, evacuation of toxins, etcetera.

So the properties of decaffeinated tea are broadly the same as those of normal tea. Of course, one or the other will be present depending on the type of tea we are drinking.

Are there infusions without theine or caffeine?

Yes, of course. Apart from tea without caffeine, if you cannot ingest stimulants, you can always opt for other infusions that are very similar to tea but which do not come from this plant and therefore do not contain any theine.

We have already seen one of them before: Rooibos, but there are many others, such as chamomile, horsetail, ginger and wild berries, to name but a few of the most popular.

We cannot strictly call them non-theine tea infusions because none of them come from tea, but they do have similar nuances, and several of them also have very different properties and health benefits to those found in tea.

Does tea without theine cause constipation?

Under certain circumstances, tea can cause constipation, depending on the variety of tea and the amount of theine it contains. However, there have never been any conclusive studies on this subject.

What does seem clear is that the alleged link between tea and constipation (as with coffee) has to do with the presence of the caffeine molecule.

So, if there is any risk in certain organisms, we can say that it will disappear or be greatly reduced if the tea we drink is theine-free tea. Conclusion: there are no clear arguments to say that caffeine-free tea is constipating.