On 2005-08-21, Scott Dorsey > wrote:
> gomper > wrote:
> Yes. That time is related to the solubility of the caffeine. Now, it will
> affect the taste more for green teas since it's now longer in proportion
> to the total steeping time, but it still works well and doesn't make much
> of a change.

I seem to recall Dog Ma musing about whether caffeine's solubility
relative to other flavor components in colder water might let you
steep in cool water long enough saturate the leaf to get caffeine out,
with more thorough decaffeination and less flavor loss than discarding
an initial steep in hot water. If so, green teas might be more
amenable to this kind of treatment.

(As I don't keep HPLC gear in my basement and am not overly sensitive
to caffeine, I filed this away under "interesting ideas that I will
never investigate".)


N.