
A newly discovered tea plant is caffeine-free - bookofjoe
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/11/17/a-newly-discovered-tea-plant-is-caffeine-free
======
Brendinooo
Looking forward to trying this someday.

If you need a caffeine-free alternative in the meantime, check out rooibos.
It's not tea, biologically speaking, but it's a great approximation and it has
a really nice red color.

~~~
xutopia
I really dislike Rooibos and find it unlike tea in many ways. It has a grassy
smell and it tastes very tannic and astringent compared to regular tea.

I find my favorite caffeine-free replacement is chaga infusions. You can taste
it isn't tea but it reminds me of a strong oolong mixed with a tiny bit of
orange pekoe.

~~~
frankzinger
I'm drinking real South African rooibos right now and it is sweet and smooth.
Truly, what you and the other commenter comparing it to dung are describing
sounds nothing like rooibos!

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pergadad
My local tea shop tells me it's easy to get near caffeine-free tea: as
caffeine goes quickly into the water you simply pour water once, let it sit
for 3-10 seconds and then throw the water out and pour fresh water on the
leaves. I've not done any kind of scientific test on this but when I do it I
get the impression that there is definitely an effect.

I'm wondering if that's a possibly unrecognised effect of the Japanese/Chinese
"washing of leaves" before use - I always got the impression that's mainly
something they do with Pu Errh tea (which has to "age" for years and is thus
dusty) = because they don't trust that the leaves are clean.

~~~
baldfat
MYTH Sadly

The Truth Behind DIY Decaf Science has not only disproves the idea that you
can make naturally decaffeinated tea with a hot water rinse but, worse yet,
studies have shown that this kind of preparation method removes many of the
antioxidants, but very little of the caffeine.

[https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-naturally-
decaffeinate-...](https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-naturally-decaffeinate-
tea-765280)

~~~
crazygringo
Then it seems like the obvious conclusion would be... to do the exact
opposite?

Steep the tea for just 30 seconds and then drink _that_? Because then you'd
get most of the antioxidants and very little caffeine? (And a very decent
amount of flavor, even if it's not the full palette -- plus very few tannins.)

~~~
gnulinux
But then it'd taste like water. The idea is also for it to taste like good
tea.

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code_duck
My experience making tea from random substances suggested to me that there is
nothing special about the flavor of tea. Many plants taste similar when you
dry and pour hot water over them. I assume the reason it became a popularity
beverage is solely due to caffeine content.

~~~
ryannevius
Have you written about this anywhere (or can you point me toward someone who
has)? I've had teas made from myriad wild/edible plants in the Pacific
Northwest, and am always interested in learning more about others'
experiments.

~~~
netghost
A blend of certain northwest pine needles can make for something that reminds
me of white teas (they served it at my son's preschool).

~~~
code_duck
I’ve purchased a tin of I think fir needle tea while in Oregon. It tastes
like... pine.

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sysalphUS
I like the taste of tea but one of my favorite things about tea is the effect.
Apparently some or all of the effect is the result of the combination of
caffeine and L-theanine. So I'd likely pass on this one and just have an
herbal tea if it's too late. I'm not much of a fan of non alcoholic beer
either.

~~~
baldfat
Caffeine is tasteless so technically it should have the same exact flavor.

~~~
lawlessone
It's very bitter, decaffeinated tea and coffee both taste very mild relative
to normal tea and coffee.

~~~
beagle3
But cold brew (which has same amount of caffeine but less acids) tastes less
mild than decaf, so it’s probably acidity as well.

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seanp2k2
There are lots of herbal teas that don't have caffeine already out there. What
makes anything "tea" beyond putting some type of [dried, possibly ground-up]
plant into a strainer in hot water, then drinking the result?

~~~
Asooka
The tea plant is camellia sinensis, so technically any tea not made with a
plant of that species is not tea by the original definition. All the different
kinds of tea are the same bush that is grown in different conditions, the
leaves are harvested at different times and then processed in various ways.
The significance here is that they have discovered a variant of the tea bush
that is naturally caffeine free, while presumably retaining its other
qualities and taste.

The word tea has been with us for about 4 centuries now, so it's no wonder it
has taken meanings other than its original strict definition. Herbal tea would
have been called a potion before the word tea was introduced.

~~~
mediumdeviation
Now I wonder why nobody has advertised herbal tea as health potions to
gamers...

~~~
jacobush
Not too late! YC 2019?!

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amelius
Coffee makes me feel anxious, but the weird thing is that cola doesn't have
this effect on me, even in large quantities, so it can't be the caffeine (I
suppose; or cola could contain something that mitigates the bad effects of
caffeine somehow).

Does anyone here have a similar experience? How can this be explained?

~~~
throwaway12iii
For me, it's the type of coffee. Often supermarket-bought coffee that's dark
roasted can cause this reaction in me. Maybe it's the pesticide, maybe it's
the carcinogens from burning the coffee... I dunno.

I've mentioned this to a few others, and they can now also drink coffee. If
they avoid such types. Perhaps try some fresh, lightly roasted, and organic
coffee to start with. This way you avoid three possible causes.

Works for me.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Interesting side note, apparently the darker the roast, the less caffeine it
has. Heat denatures the caffeine in the beans. People assume that dark, bitter
coffee is "strong", but light roasts actually give the most pick-me-up.

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atombender
Not quite newly discovered. The plant, camellia ptilophylla, has been studied
for at least a couple of decades, e.g. see [1] [2]:

    
    
      Cocoa tea (Camellia ptilophylla), which belongs to the genus Camellia,
      is a naturally decaffeinated tea plant. For many years, it has been
      widely consumed by local inhabitants in the Longmen area of Guangdong
      Province of China but has only started attracting scientific interest
      since 1988.
    

The tea is also called cocoa tea for the presence of theobromine, the same
stuff you find in chocolate, about 10% by weight compared to about 0.35% in
green tea.

[1] Effect of Dietary Cocoa Tea (Camellia ptilophylla) Supplementation on
High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity, Hepatic Steatosis, and Hyperlipidemia in Mice:
[https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2013/783860/](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2013/783860/)

[2] Aroma Characteristics of Cocoa Tea (Camellia ptilophylla Chang):
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1271/bbb.90752](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1271/bbb.90752)

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setquk
I’ll drink water if I want liquid without caffeine in it :)

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tomalpha
Given that caffeine is a natural insecticide[0] it will be interesting to see
whether large-scale farming of this variety is possible without using
artificial ones.

[0][https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MwpQWcIKMzAC&pg=PA55&red...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MwpQWcIKMzAC&pg=PA55&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
benj111
So what you're saying is, to help the environment, we should be developing
strains of wheat, corn, soya, etc with caffeine to reduce pesticide use?

We could then further help the environment by dispensing with beds and the bed
making industry!

~~~
topbanana
Well, since caffeine is a pesticide, wouldn't it do similar damage?

~~~
cimmanom
Well, since it's inside the plant instead of outside, it's less likely to wash
into runoff. It's also presumably less toxic and carcinogenic to humans and to
plants and animals that aren't pests.

Not that I think this is even vaguely a good idea.

------
bookofjoe
The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee — Honoré de Balzac (1830)
[http://blissbat.net/balzac.html](http://blissbat.net/balzac.html)

Posted on HN last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647098)

------
dawhizkid
I went from drinking 2-3 cups of coffee everyday to stopping cold turkey 3
weeks ago. Big headache for ~48 hours but now feel fine. Biggest benefit for
me is just feeling much less dehydrated - I don't think I was drinking nearly
enough water to counter the diuretic effects of caffeine.

~~~
WhiteSage
When I stop cold turkey I sleep a lot for a couple of weeks (10-13 hours per
day), which is really useful when I'm stressed and cannot sleep. After the two
weeks I behave normally again, but I never have the thought clarity that
coffee gives me, so I end up going back and starting the cycle again.

------
cyrusmg
Is it possible there is going to be a coffee plant discovered that lacks
caffeine ?

~~~
mothsonasloth
Near the end of the article, they said there was discovery of a caffeine free
coffee plant in South America

~~~
ianai
I hope that comes to market sooner than later. Caffeine has its uses, but I
love the hot morning beverage part of it more often than I need the jolt.

~~~
ppseafield
Have you tried dandelion root? It has a similar flavor to coffee. (e.g. Dandy
Blend)

~~~
ianai
Not that I remember but I have had alternatives before and generally like
them.

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jccalhoun
I realize that this article says the plant in example has no caffeine at all
but the headline reminded me of this:
[https://callingbullshit.org/case_studies/case_study_caffeine...](https://callingbullshit.org/case_studies/case_study_caffeine_free.html)
even strong coffee is 99.9% caffeine free.

~~~
sli
I started roasting coffee years ago and something I learned early on is that,
although dark roasted coffee has less caffeine, the difference between light
and dark is practically negligible. Most people just interpret coffee being
bold (as in, dark roast) as being strong, but in reality it's entirely flavor
and not the caffeine content.

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tambourine_man
And also joy free

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projectramo
Isn't a "caffeine-free tea plant" also known as "plant"?

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whitepoplar
When can I buy some?

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theqult
Is called salad

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rootsudo
"Tea"

"Brew"

So, when did it become that a plant leaves that are harvested, cleaned ,and
then put in hot water to make a mix == tea?

It can be anything.

Technically Brugmansia can be made into a tea, it's caffeine free, the tropane
alkaloids may not mix well/death.

Click bait title.

~~~
geofft
The scientists behind this research called it "tea." The actual paper isn't
clear on what the species is but it appears to be genus _Camellia_. The reason
it has no caffeine is a mutation in the caffeine synthase gene, not a lack of
any attempt at a caffeine-producing structure at all (as with brewing other
plants' leaves).

