Tag: Factoids

What is Aspalathus Linearis and where do I buy some?

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There’s a lot of buzz about the plant known as Aspalathus linearis, but you might not realise it is the scientific name of the South African plant otherwise known as Rooibos or Red Bush. Surrounding a well-understood therapeutic plant with an aura of mystery by using its Latin name feels a bit like the usual woo-woo scam to us, but wait: Aspalathus linearis – that is, Rooibos or Red Bush – is amazing and here’s why.

Apart from having an amazing light, sweet taste that is easy on the palate and which you feel you can drink all day, every day, Rooibos from the Aspalathus linearis has a few secrets too.

Aspalathus linearis is rich in flavonoids, which are believed to be responsible for its reputation for health benefits. Evidence is yet to be gathered that indicates without doubt that dietary flavonoids of the kind found in Aspalathus linearis affect cancer risk in general, but observational studies and clinical trials on hormone-dependent cancers (breast and prostate) have shown benefits. For example, analysis of 14 observational studies that examined breast cancer incidence in 369,934 women found an overall 11% reduced risk of breast cancer with the highest versus lowest intake of some flavonoids.

Meanwhile, a recent review has suggested that dietary intake of flavonoids is associated with a reduced risk of different types of cancer, including gastric, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer.

The focus of investigations into the health benefits of Rooibos or Aspalathus linearis is Aspalathin, the plant compound that may help protect against free radical damage that leads to conditions like diabetes, heart disease as well as, potentially, cancer.

You can buy Aspalathus linearis here, rather than pay the inflated prices that come with its mystified Latin name at a health food store.

The benefits of Aspalathus Linearis

With its aspalathin, if you’re looking for a naturally occurring substance that can help improve your health, Aspalathus linearis could be a good option for you. Science itself has marked Rooibos and its plant compounds as warranting further investigation. Some of the purported benefits of Aspalathus linearis include:

  • Reducing inflammation
  • Improving digestion
  • Supporting the immune system
  • Lowering blood sugar levels

There is growing scientific evidence to support these claims and more research is needed

What’s the difference between Aspalathus Linearis, Red Bush and Rooibos?

When it comes to Aspalathus linearis, Red Bush and Rooibos, they are one and the same a plant that is native to South Africa, a naturally caffeine-free, shrub-like plant grown on the Western Cape. The leaves of the Rooibos plant are cut and are either oxidized (fermented), producing what we know as Red Rooibos, or are unoxidized (not fermented), producing what we know as Green Rooibos. Green Rooibos has more aspalathin than red.

Drinking Aspalathus Linearis

If you’re looking for a delicious and healthy drink, look no further than Aspalathus linearis. native to South Africa. It has a refreshingly sweet taste and is rich in antioxidants.

The Rooibos tea that is made with Aspalathus linearis is available here at I Love Decaf and it’s available in eight different flavours:

If you are looking for a flavoursome way to kick caffeine or try more interesting tea that is as refreshing (some say more refreshing) as a cup of ‘normal’ tea, why not give one of them a try and see if you enjoy the taste of health Aspalathus linearis as much as we do.

What Kind of Coffee Grind Do I Need?

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Ground decaf coffee comes in such a broad range of different forms, the labels display a hot barrow-load of information from decaf method to body, roast and origin. You’re willing to believe the coffee ‘does exactly what it says on the packet’, if only you could work out exactly what it does say on the packet. As well as body and roast, one of the most important bits of information is how fine or coarse the grind is. 

How does grind affect my coffee?

Grind is a measurement of how ground the coffee is. That wasn’t a surprise, was it? What might be new information is how much grind affects the taste of the coffee you drink. As well as the coffee you absolutely refuse to drink because it came out with notes of battery acid, warning claxons and flashing lights. If you’ve had one of those cups of decaf recently, you’ve either just come out of Costabucks, or you have got your brew all wrong and that may have something to do with putting the wrong grind in your coffee-making equipment.

Different coffee-making machines and makers make coffee in different ways and at different speeds. To work its magic, your chosen weapon of decaffeination needs a specific size and grade of ground coffee. 

Espresso fine grind

Espresso machines, for example, extract all of that yummy super quick – in usually less than 30 seconds. The same goes for pods and capsules. The hot water is in contact with the coffee for such a short time, it needs to extract flavour quickly. A fine grind presents more surface area than a coarse grind and the high-pressure water squeezes more of the flavour out. Using a coarse ground in an espresso machine will lead to a sour cup of under-extracted decaf.

French press coarse grind

A French press, by comparison has minutes to work its magic as you steep the grounds for much longer. Brewing fine grounds in a cafetière for minutes on end will over-extract flavour and lead to a bitter brew.

Between the two extremes, you’ll find that medium ground works best with auto-drip filter machines or pour-over coffee makers, like those that come with a jug or carafe.

Match your machine with grind

It is very important to match the decaf grind you buy with the coffee-making gear you already have. If you suffer from disappointing cups of home-brewed decaf, it could be something as simple as buying the right coffee for your machine.

We try to make this as straightforward as possible at I Love Decaf. Our coffees come in different grinds for different methods of coffee-making. Rather than tell you on the bag the grind is medium-fine, we state what kind of machine the grind is suitable for. Sometimes, to save label space, we use a letter instead.

B Beans (not ground at all)

These are unground beans – perfect if you own a bean-to-cup coffee machine or you grind your own beans separately (perhaps you have a Moka pot and a French press and want to control the grind for optimum results in each piece of equipment). 

C Cafetiere/French Press

A cafetiere or French press is a tall jug with a plunger that holds back the grounds from your brewed coffee. You fill it with very hot (not boiling) water and let it steep. When the brew is done you push the plunger slowly down to compress all the grounds out of suspension behind a metal screen.

E Espresso

Espresso machines in the barista-style have become more popular over time, but espresso was originally brewed in Moka pots – stove-top percolators in which you boil water under pressure forcing steam and water through coffee grinds. When the grinds are saturated, the pressure forces brewed coffee up a funnel through a filter to the top chamber. When you hear the characteristic gurgling your coffee is ready. Whatever kind of espresso making equipment you have, this grind is the optimum for brewing your coffee.

P Pods/Capsules

Some modern coffee machines use a sealed pod system to make your coffee. The idea is you throw away each pod after you have used it once and the environmental cost gets picked up in a third world country steadily filling up with aluminium and plastic capsules. Not good enough. Fortunately, you can get refillable pods and systems for most of the proprietary coffee makers. We sell one of these on ilovedecaf, but others are available elsewhere.

F Filter/Aeropress

The simplest method of making coffee is to drip feed or pour very hot water over ground coffee which sits in a cone of filter paper held over a large jug. There are many variations of this technique from pour-over to the new Aeropress machine which can even make espresso-like coffee on the go.

Rooibos or Red Bush: Tea or Not Tea?

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That is the Question

Rooibos or Red Bush tea is not, strictly speaking, a tea at all. True teas – from Breakfast to Earl Grey, Typhoo to Tetley and many more besides are all variations on a theme based on a type of camelia, the tea plant. The ‘tea’ leaves of Rooibos (Afrikaans for ‘Red Bush’) are the leaves of a Southern African shrub – Aspalathus linearis – that have been fermented and sun-dried to an autumnal red.

Red Bush Teatime

South Africans have been drinking Red Bush tea for over 300 years, since Europeans settled the Cederberg area of the Western Cape. 

There are no records of pre-colonial Rooibos use, but someone must have shown that picking leaves, thrashing them against a rock and leaving them out in the sun to dry was a fantastic idea and not, as logic would suggest, a spectacular waste of everyone’s time.

Green and black tea from India and China were expensive to import for European settlers, so Rooibos taken with milk and sugar (or honey) was adopted as the next best thing. I Love Decaf sells a classic South African Rooibos that has bags of character, is naturally sweet and slightly nutty but – like all red bush teas – contains no caffeine and very little tannin.

White with one lump or two isn’t the only way to drink Rooibos. The sweet, malty notes of red bush blend very well with all kinds of fruits and spices for an exceptional, often sublime, cup of un-caffeinated tea.

2 Birds in a Red Bush Tea

A bird in the hand is worth two in a bush, right? If it’s a Red Bush and the bird is the notoriously demented South African Ostrich, things can get out of hand fairly pronto. On the other hand, a cup of this sweet and slightly nutty Rooibos tea is worth more than all the barking mad ostriches you can carry. Stay grounded and smooth, with an earthy caffeine-free drink that makes you unflappable.

The Red Bush Melting (Tea) Pot

As if South Africa isn’t already a global crossroads, Red Bush has some inspirational cross-cultural blending going on. While the colonial powers were moving tea from east to west, Europeans were spreading vanilla – slowly – in the opposite direction from Aztec Mesoamerica to Asia and Africa. Nowadays, vanilla is grown in Madagascar off the east coast of continental Africa, but in the settlers’ time red bush and vanilla was nothing but a wild and fragrant dream. Wake up and smell the vanilla.

Vanilla Flavoured Rooibos Infusion

A gorgeous and subtle mix of sweet orange and light clove notes make for a naturally caffeine free, delicious and bright infusion with excellent antioxidant properties.

Meanwhile, mixing cool peppermint – often used in North African cuisine – with Rooibos tea grown in the Cederberg area of the Western Cape unites two Mediterranean climates half a world away from each other.

Minty Rooibos Tea

Make sure your everyday is as good as it can be with this delicious tea. Adding a sweet minty flavour to the malty, earthy Red Bush, this tea is perfect for an afternoon pick-me-up or a relaxing evening drink. Get your hands on our 1kg bag of Minty Rooibos tea and enjoy a cup whenever you want.

From pick-me-up to put-me-down, Rooibos is the perfect calming blend. After a hard day shouting at ostriches on the veldt, the Red Bush drinker wants nothing more than to relax into the evening, rejuvenate and wind down for the next day’s ostrich intimidation. Fortunately, Rooibos is versatile enough to mix beautifully with aromatic herbs, fruits and flowers for a soothing cuppa.

Aromatic Luxe Red Bush Tea

Find your perfect night-time tea. This delicious infusion is the perfect partner to help you relax and rejuvenate after a hard day. Blended with soothing Rooibos and aromatic lavender, apple and orange, it’s a wonderfully warming tea that will help you to both relax and rejuvenate. Our Tea Masters add just enough apples to complement the earthy notes of the rooibos, making for a deliciously clean but comforting cuppa with warming aromas.

Rooibos Tea Cosy Blend

This winter blend of red bush tea, cinnamon orange, almond cloves and cornflowers is a tea cosy for your mind. An inspiring brew to battle the cold with confidence, so you can go about your day.

We have yet more delicious blends of Rooibos tea on the way, from a pirate-inspired blend of spiciness to a liquid gold infusion as lavish as watching the sun set over the Great Karoo.

Spiced Pirate’s Rooibos Tea

A Rooibos pirate blend that it is one-part ahhh and one-part arrrr! With cinnamon, blackberry leaves, orange blossom, safflower petals, clove buds, cardamom and ginger extract, this treasure chest of Rooibos and spice is a pirate’s punch of flavour where X marks – but T hits – the spot.

All Seasons Luxe Red Bush Tea

A deluxe wrap-around warming blend of Rooibos, with the added spicy tang of cinnamon orange, the sweet, smooth textures of almond cloves and cornflowers. A comforting, tranquil cup for all seasons.

Another Mother Nutty Rooibos 

Still naturally caffeine-free, Another Mother is a nuttier alternative to our flagship South African Rooibos infusion. With excellent antioxidant properties and a delicious, sweet orange and light clove character, Another Mother pours as a liquor as bright and rich as a South African sunset.

The Best Instant Decaf Coffee is the One You Don’t Have to Drink

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Approximately half of the coffee grown in the world is produced to make instant coffee. It’s tempting to believe that this fact may be at the root of all the world’s misery, not least because instant coffee, decaf and caffeinated, is both an abomination and an affront to the senses. 

An early version of instant, known as Essence of Coffee, was produced briefly for soldiers during the American Civil War and was said to have had the consistency of axle grease. As the French – who can tell you a thing or two about coffee, often without being asked – would say plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more that things change, the more they stay the same. Essence of Coffee was rapidly discontinued, owing to popular demand. It probably helped that its customers were heavily armed.

Less than a century later, during the Second World War, instant coffee had become ever-so-slightly less revolting, and it was American GIs who popularised it wherever they were stationed. The upshot is that, in Britain, instant accounts for three quarters of all coffee sold. That compares to 10% in the US and France and just 1% in Italy.

Fast forward another 80 years and you would think that, with all the advances in drinks tech over the decades, the best decaf instant coffee would at least be passable, but no.

Best decaf instant i love decaf

Instant decaffeinated is best avoided

When you consider the pains that the growers, the roasters and blenders go to in selecting varieties of beans to grow and methods of roasting, fine-balancing tastes and textures along the way, it does seem absurd to then throw all of that into an industrial process that values quantity over quality. The best instant decaf is bound to be a shadow of its former self. 

Another thing to consider is that instant coffee production is more carbon intensive than simple ground coffee, a fact that the multinational food companies that control almost all the instant coffee market, conveniently omit from their green-wash eco-babble. Ignore all the Aztec and Mayan imagery and sustainability messages printed on plasticized labels and just drink better coffee instead.

Kick the instant habit

In a world where everything seems to be on-demand and instant, we have got used to streaming music and entertainment almost instantly. We’ve gained a lot of convenience but lost some of what makes music and film so special. In the case of coffee, deferred gratification is always better. Serious academic papers have felled a few trees to conclude that the ability to delay gratification can improve a host of other positive outcomes, including academic success, physical health, psychological health, and social competence. It turns out that patience is a virtue, after all. In other words, a simple cafetiere or pour-over reusable filter is not only easy to use but gets you the best decaf coffee and gets it quick. It may not be instant, but considering the care, craft and ability of the growers, roasters and blenders, three minutes of brewing in your kitchen is not only more sustainable, better for your wellbeing and tastier, but also pretty damn quick.

What is Bubble Tea?

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And do you have the tapioca balls for Boba? 

Bubble Tea, or Boba, shops have become the High Street’s latest fashionable infestation and the kids – not forgetting men-children with messenger bags and grown-gurls – are loving it too. Here at I Love Decaf, we support the wilder edges of tea drinking where our broad selection of decaf and no-caf can bring something extra to the mix.

What is Bubble Tea or Boba?

Bubble tea is evolved from iced white tea – a popular drink in East Asia – but also contains a measure of tapioca. Before Boba, tapioca was a common ingredient of hot desserts in Asia, but sometime in the mid to late 1980s a dessert merchant in a Taiwanese night market added it instead to chilled milk tea – a local favourite often made with condensed, evaporated, whole or soya milk. The new drink quickly became popular and spread rapidly to other Asian countries. 

It’s a craze that has taken quite a long time to get to the west. While the first bubble tea was brewed in Taiwan in the mid to late 1980s, it took until 2003 for London’s Chinatown to get its first Boba shop. The most recent spread now sees Boba bubbling up in every city in Europe and North America. And that just means it’s time to bring it to the decaf mainstream right now.

Flexi-bubble tea

One of the best things about bubble tea is that it is very flexible. Those first brews of Boba were made using black, green and oolong tea varieties. But there’s nothing stopping you from trying almost any tea or infusion in your own bubble tea. In Boba culture, creativity and experimentation is encouraged – it’s how the entire world of bubble tea came into being, after all.

Bubble tea with tea oil

One option is to flavour your bubble tea with tea oils. I Love Decaf has dozens of flavours of tea oil with many organic choices. You should use a single drop per pot – tea oil is super concentrated – but it’s one of many ways to put your own stamp on bubble tea.

There are no rules to decaf bubble tea

There are no rules, there are infinite recipes, but there are some guidelines. The bubbles in bubble tea aren’t really bubbles as you probably imagine them. For one thing, they are slightly chewy and that’s because they are made of black tapioca pearls. You can get these from any Asian supermarket, or they are also readily available online. They need to be lightly boiled for 5 minutes to get that perfect slightly chewy texture – sometimes known as ‘QQ’. 

Generally, the process is as follows.

  1. Bring the tapioca pearls to boil and simmer for five minutes
  2. Steep the tea at the same time
  3. Sieve the tapioca and sweeten it in a bowl (or leave as is)
  4. Let everything cool to ambient room temperature.
  5. Add a spoonful of tapioca pearl mix to the bottom of a cup or glass
  6. Add a single drop of tea oil to a full pot
  7. Pour in the tea over the tapioca, leaving room for milk, coconut, soya or regular milk
  8. Add a few cubes of ice 
  9. Add milk, cream, condensed or evaporated, nut milk, soya milk, whatever floats your boat.

What milk, how you sweeten the drink and what tea you use are all up to you. You could try a red berry fruit tea or bubble-up an odd cuppa of lemon and apple. Or stick with standard black, oolong or green decaf, it’s entirely up to you.

The Art of Making Tea in a Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas

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Japanese cast iron teapots and dragon’s breath:

Japanese cast iron teapots are known for their beauty and quality. But what many people don’t know is that they are also hand-forged by ancient ninja warriors. That’s right, these pots are so tough they can withstand the heat of a dragon’s breath. Not only do they make excellent tea, but they also come with a lot of personality. If you’re looking for a teapot that will make you stand out from the crowd, a Japanese cast iron teapot is a great option.

How to brew mystical decaf tea in a Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas

The perfect cup of tea is all about taking your time and enjoying the moment. Whether you’re enjoying a soothing cup of decaf tea or a reviving cup of coffee, let the Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas help you create a mystical brew that is just perfect for you. To start, fill the teapot with hot water and let it steep for a few minutes. Add your desired amount of tea leaves and steep for an additional few minutes. Finally, pour your tea into a cup and enjoy!

Why to use a Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas

There are a few reasons why you might want to use a Japanese cast iron teapot hand forged by ancient ninjas. First, cast iron is a very sturdy material that will last for many years. Second, the metal retains heat well, so your tea will stay hot for a longer period of time. Third, the metal distributes heat evenly, so your tea will taste the same from beginning to end. Finally, the pot has a very unique and cool aesthetic that will make you stand out from the crowd.

How to clean a Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas

To clean your Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas, first make sure it is completely dry. You can then use a soft cloth to wipe it down. Avoid using harsh chemicals or abrasives, as they may damage the pot’s surface. If you need to remove any stubborn stains or marks, you can use a diluted bleach solution or gentle cleanser. Be sure to rinse the pot thoroughly after cleaning to remove any traces of the cleaning solution.

Should Ancient Ninjas be Forging Teapots?

So, the big question is—should ancient ninjas be forging teapots? The answer is, of course, yes! They’re skilled ninjas, so they’re perfectly suited for the task. Plus, they’re known for their attention to detail, so you can be sure that each and every teapot they create is of the highest quality. Not to mention, they have a flair for the dramatic, so your tea-drinking experience will be all the more enjoyable. If you’re looking for a unique and special teapot to drink your tea out of, then be sure to check out our Japanese Cast Iron Teapot Hand Forged by Ancient Ninjas. You won’t be disappointed!

Why drink non-caffeinated or decaf tea

Many people don’t realise that there are many different types of tea that don’t contain caffeine. In fact, many people enjoy drinking decaffeinated tea because it still has all the flavor of regular tea, but without the caffeine. So if you’re looking for an afternoon pick-me-up that doesn’t involve caffeine, why not try a delicious cup of decaffeinated tea? I Love Decaf has a wide variety of delicious decaffeinated teas to choose from, so you’re sure to find one you love.

Does Decaffeinating Your Life Make It Better?

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Decaffeinating your life is one of many approaches and strategies you can try on a journey to better health. Broadly, it’s an element of ‘detox’ – while caffeine is a mild stimulant in moderation, your body and brain still get used to it being in your blood stream. Your brain, in particular, does not tolerate chemical change well and this is where withdrawal comes in. Fortunately, the most common symptom of caffeine withdrawal is a minor tension headache, and the cravings are quick to subside.

With decaffeinated tea and coffee you can even mask some of the cravings and continue to enjoy the same tastes and aromas you have become accustomed to.

So: so far, a small amount of sacrifice to decaf your body, but can it make your life better in a meaningful way? 

The narrative of detox is intertwined with lifestyle woo-woo. That’s a term we just made up to describe a big wicker basket of good-intention ideas like veganism, holistic spirituality and Eastern systems of thought. Nothing wrong with any of it, but decaffeinating your life is about restoring a chemical, not spiritual, balance in your body.

You know us – we are hardly the type of people to go all yoga-crystal-dreamcatcher-mindful-woo-woo on you. As far as we are aware, we have no chakras and feng-shui is not so much a way of life but more of a storage solution. Neither do we store our socks to the west of a lucky rabbit’s foot. Think about that for a moment: It wasn’t so lucky for the rabbit, was it?

Trust us when we say, we have no woo-woo.

Your body doesn’t need caffeine

The best reason for drinking less or no caffeine is that your body doesn’t need it. Like nicotine, heroin and strong painkillers, your body has just got used to it being around. Caffeinistas claim that it helps attention and focus, and they are both right and wrong at the same time. Scientific trials have concluded that, at best, caffeine helps attention and focus get back to where it was before you became withdrawn. And that’s what caffeine withdrawal looks like – a craving for a big mug of coffee in the morning to escape the tug of withdrawal and restore the world to where it should have been. It’s not restoring the world; it’s restoring your brain chemistry. Your brain in this instance is acting like a wilful, truculent teenager. It’s refusing to get its act together until you do something nice for them. Your teen asks you for money, chocolate or the latest tech before they clean their room. Your brain won’t move until it gets a chemical leg-up. Like your teen, your brain is lazy and used to the good life of drip-fed feel-good. The good news is that the brain has its own feel-good chemistry, caffeine is a cheat code that robs it of achieving its own balance.

Your brain is the most complicated thing you own. Indeed, it is among the most complex things in the known universe. It is capable of extraordinary calculation and every minute of your waking day, it perceives, renders and constructs your entire world. Throwing additional stimulants into the sentient bucket of porridge that exists between your ears is like lighting a campfire in an art gallery.

Decaffeinating your life is one part of restoring the natural balance of this most sensitive instrument. Once the minor withdrawals are over it will make your life better simply by re-establishing its unaided potential.

Decaf Peppermint Tea – What’s That About?

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The crisp and sweet, airy tang of peppermint tea is one of the most vibrant and punchy of all herbal infusions and, like all such teas, proper peppermint tea is decaf. You will find a few peppermint brews around that are tributes to the way North Africans always added mint to their food and drink. When Europeans first took tea across the Mediterranean to Morocco, the locals blended it with mint, making it as Moorish as it is moreish. Tea blended in this way will be caffeinated to some extent, depending on the blend.

Pure peppermint tea is as it should be, made only with Mentha piperita leaves from the world’s freshest corners. Proper peppermint tea, which is properly pepperminty contains no tea at all. 

Got it. So, peppermint tea is decaf? Right?

No. Not quite. Peppermint tea is un-caffeinated. Peppermint has no caffeine in it at all. You can’t decaffeinate something that has no caffeine in it in the first place. That’s just silly.

All that aside, the purity of peppermint tea is important because it has been shown to have several benefits from digestive problems to relief of migraines, as well as its ability to help with blocked noses. That little wafer-thin mint on your plate after a restaurant blow-out is not there by accident and neither is the menthol oil that relieves nasal congestion like a boss. We can’t make health claims because of ‘the man’, but we all know what’s right.

Peppermint tea is not tea either

Strictly speaking, it is a herbal infusion. Tea is different: Black, green, white and oolong tea all come from the leaves of varieties of a kind of camelia bush or, rather, rows and rows of camelia bushes. Camelia sinensis is an evergreen shrub, native to Southeast Asia. Blend those leaves with mint leaves and switch the kettle on and you’ll have a caffeinated drink, just like those Europeans taking tea across the Mediterranean. It’s a bit like those pan-faced telly chefs who insist on adding ‘a twist’ to traditional recipes by sprinkling balsamic vinegar, yuppie sauce or liquid nitrogen into the pot.

We have shown decaf peppermint tea cannot be decaffeinated because it contains no caffeine at all, and it cannot be said to be tea because there is no tea in it. Which only leaves the crisp and sweet, airy tang of peppermint behind.

If you’d like your own crisp, sweet and airy properly pepperminty peppermint ‘tea’, then take a look at I Love Decaf’s ballistic Intercontinental Peppermint Tea – as well as our Moorish blend of peppermint and decaf, Menthol Health Tea. Get yours while it’s cool.

Does Coffee Have More Caffeine Than Tea?

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We’ve all heard the old chestnut that tea contains more caffeine than coffee, but is it true or false? The answer is that it is both true and false at the same time. We should explain.

Before it is brewed, a tea leaf typically contains about 2-3 times as much caffeine as a coffee bean. Once you compare the average caffeine content of a cup of tea and a cup of coffee, however, coffee wins hands down with approximately twice the amount of caffeine than black tea. 

What about different kinds of tea and coffee, eh, eh?

Keep your knickers on, tiger. Perhaps you should be cutting down on caffeine. Not all coffee is created equal. Fine ground coffee as you might use in a high-pressure espresso machine will yield five times more caffeine per ml than coarse ground coffee from a French press. But, unless you double-shot your way through the day, your caffeine intake from a 30ml espresso will be less than a full mug of French press brew.

Tea gauge

There are differences, also, in tea brews – from the cup of tea that your partner drinks, where, ideally, a tea bag is wafted over the cup in a less-than-vigorous fashion, to Yorkshire builders’ tea that looks as though it has been drained from the engine of a rusty Transit van.

The secret of soap opera tea

Whenever there’s a soap opera crisis brewing, the aftermath will always feature a pot of tea. There’s a lot of truth in the observation that a nice, hot cup of tea will put the world to rights. Tea contains its own stimulant, L-theanine, said to help ease stress and anxiety as well as reduce insomnia. Sipping on a fresh cuppa really can be relaxing.  A study even found that people who experienced higher blood pressure discovered L-theanine helped reduce the increase in blood pressure. And because L-theanine stimulates without raising cortisol, the body’s natural stress hormone, the way that coffee does, tea can even help you sleep more soundly. The welcome surprise is that tea’s L-theanine is not removed by decaffeination. Decaf can still be used to dramatic effect after your pub landlord has gone postal with a baseball bat, the hospital has exploded, or there has been a murder or similar feature-length episode of festive trauma and ill-will.

Apart from L-theanine, your decaf cuppa also contains plenty of antioxidants which may well lower the risk of diabetes and strokes, as well as combat free radicals and slow the wear and tear on your DNA. Any tea is a healthy choice because of its antioxidants, but herbal teas that are naturally uncaffeinated are the best choice of all. As far as drinks are concerned, only tea made from the leaves of the tea plant camelia sinensis contain L-theanine, but a cup of chamomile is a great aid for restful sleep, well known, as it is, for its relaxing effects. 

To find out more about I Love Decaf’s teas and herbal teas, look around our online shop.

How to Make Coffee Without a Coffee Maker

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You woke up this morning and your coffee maker has croaked. Despite what it sounds like, this isn’t the start of a modern blues song penned by Blind Grapefruit Jefferson, but it is potentially the start of an awful, dismal day.

Expect the car not to start, a piano to fall out of the sky or to for work to end up as an eight-hour PowerPoint presentation. Before all of that, you must achieve normality and that means you must have the cup of decaf that starts the day. Nothing else will help.

Making decaf coffee without a coffee maker is not an art

Fortunately, whatever Bob the barista at Cost-A-Few-Bucks says, making coffee is nowhere near an artform. It’s hot water over ground coffee, a little brew time and Bob has stopped being your barista and is now your uncle.

Honestly, I can’t believe I have to spoon-feed this to you. When we were out all day on the ranch, we could make coffee using only a primus stove, a length of rubber hose and a homemade moka pot fashioned from a Land Rover carburettor and a ship’s compass. It wasn’t too difficult, but it also wasn’t too nice either, so here’s how to make decent coffee without a coffee maker. You will need a kitchen or a designated area you prepare grub at least.

Sock coffee maker
“In Costa Rica, this type of coffee is colloquially known as “agua de medias” (sock water)”

Using ground decaf coffee

  1. Add ground coffee into a heat-proof measuring jug. 1-2 tablespoons of ground coffee per 250ml cup.
  2. Boil the kettle.
  3. Pour the hot water over the ground decaf coffee as slowly as possible until you reach the amount of coffee you want.
  4. Let it brew for around 3 minutes, then stir and leave for another three minutes. Adjust these timings to your own tastes or how long it is until your train to work leaves.
  5. Pour into a mug through a tea strainer.

Using home-made coffee bags

This sounds a bit Blue Peter, but if it’s a filter coffee make that is broken, you are likely top have some spare coffee filters, an old sock, a used stocking or thick kitchen towel to hand. These can be made quickly into coffee bags with just a single piece of string.

  1. Place 2 tablespoons of ground coffee in the centre of the coffee filter, old sock, used stocking or kitchen towel.
  2. Draw the edges of the filter paper or whatever it is (see above) together to make a bag shape.
  3. Tie a length of string or twine tight around the neck of the bag, leaving one length of the string long enough to hang over the side of the cup.
  4. Boil a kettle.
  5. Place the bag in the cup and pour over the hot water.
  6. Remember to remove anything floating from the mug of coffee if it’s for a guest.