On 23 Aug 2005 09:21:43 -0700, "Space Cowboy" >
wrote:

>The different rates of
>solubility for any perceived tea taste is a meaningless factoid
>argument.

How is it meaningless? If there is more or less of something in the
extract over time there is a corresponding influence on taste.

>The fundamental fallacy on which your argument really hinges
>is they turn on at different times so you can claim a taste like
>'sweetness' not present in the first cup. That sweetness is present in
>the first cup along with any other tasting component you wish to
>describe.

Jim, it is proven that tannins for example extract later than other
components, steep a cup of black tea for 8 minutes and see for
yourself. I said that the sweetness was there all along, only in early
steeps it is masked by stronger elements in the tea. Once the
concentration of the stronger elements, as a ratio of the total, is
reduced the sweetness is simply more perceptible. This was documented
on a Taiwanese site (858tea I think) but I am still looking for the
exact link.

>I only argue that caffeine is part and
>parcel of the complete taste spectrum in tea. If no taste no caffeine.

I do not disagree with this a bit, If no taste whatsoever exists you
probably don't have any caffeine either because you would probably
taste something bitter if there was any, but that is the flip side of
your previous argument. I do not agree that caffeine is a prerequisite
for flavor, there are too many other flavor components.

>However that roughly leaves most of the leaf weight to
>something else.

BINGO! Roughly 30% of that something else is Polyphenols (see
http://www.fmltea.com/Teainfo/tea-chemistry%20.htm) which greatly
contribute to flavor. If you extract just the caffeine there are still
these Polyphenols left to give flavor. Granted "some" of them probably
have solubility rates in water that are to similar to caffeine, but it
has been proven that many of them don't.

> I also claim the caffeine percentage is also
>'proportionally' distributable among infusions according to taste if
>the tea supports it.

But this is where the solubility factor comes in, the solubility of
caffeine is NOT linear with respect to all of the other taste factors.
Everybody knows that tannins affect flavor, unfavorably in high
concentrations, that's why you don't steep black tea more than 3
minutes. Hence the ratio of tannins to caffeine changes the longer you
steep. This was documented in
http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclec...apter-vii.html Notice
that after 10 minutes the concentration of caffeine only increased by
10 percent but the concentration of tannins increased by 25 percent.
This proves that the 2 are not linear over time, and both affect
taste! This debunks you proportional theory.

>And putting on my
>science cap I don't see much analysis of the multiple infusion style
>tea compared to a single infusion style tea noted in your footnotes so
>anecdotally I stick with my claim of proportional taste and caffeine.

No, I have not seen any either but
http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclec...apter-vii.html clearly
shows the non-linear relationship over time. I think one could infer
that the results of multiple steeps would be similar.

Mike
Mike Petro
http://www.pu-erh.net
"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed."
Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.