Nice post, DM. Comments on two points:

Dog Ma 1 (reply w/o spam)> wrote:
> 6. That whole deal is about three days' work on equipment that's standard in
> all sorts of academic, industrial and scientific labs. That's if run as a
> full-factorial series, which no-one does anymore since experimental-design
> software has shown the True Way. It would therefore be a dandy science
> project for an advanced high-schooler or community college student. I'd have
> done it myself years ago, but I kind of enjoy the mystery. And now I'm out
> of the lab, so can't offer.

Hey, factorial designs are nice if you want to know about all combinations
of conditions and types of tea. I presume that the goal of such an experiment
would not be to maximize the yield of caffeine.

> In a more or less unrelated note, since this post isn't yet long enough, has
> anyone ever heard of white tea made by etiolation? (That's light-starving
> plants to bleach them, as is done with asparagus.) Might be an interesting
> effect. Especially since, or so I assume, many of the things we like best
> about tea were put there by God and/or Darwin to keep animals from eating
> the leaves.

So that's what we Wisconsinites are - "etiolated". About this time of year
we all develop a kind of tint between ivory and light green.

The Japanese partially shade their Gyokuro, but that is to increase the
amount of chlorophyll. I suppose that the effect is nonlinear, with a bit
of shade making tea greener.

Best,

Rick.