I stumbled on a very interesting and well written article recently that explores two common claims about tea, the first being that you can decaffeinate your tea by doing a quick 30-second rinse, and second, that black tea always has more caffeine than green tea, which has more caffeine than white tea.

The arguments are quite compelling, although I noticed something that many comments to the entry also mentioned, which is that the decaffeinating steep experiment seemed to steep the tea for four minutes and calculate how much caffeine had been removed and backward calculate how much caffeine had been removed at 1, 2, and 3 minutes.

Regardless of that method, at 4 minutes, only 60% of the caffeine has been removed, so you are definitely NOT decaffeinating your tea by a 30-second steep either way. This common myth, often mentioned by Joe and I, seems to be fairly accurately busted.

To read the article, click here.

Do you blog about tea? Zhi Tea is giving away samples to tea bloggers, so check it out if you’d like a sample.

http://www.oolong-tea-sample.com/

Your choices:

• Orange Blossom Oolong
• Ginger Peach Oolong
• Wuyi Oolong
• Osthmanthus Oolong (my pick)

*EDIT: Well, I might be getting tea… for some reason when I fill out the form and hit “send me free tea!” it says, “Please enter a ‘Blog URL’ in the propper url format” and I am doing so. A little vexed.

*UPDATE: Apparently “http://” is not part of a ‘propper’ url. Keep this in mind.

Two dukes of earl grey will be duking it out on March 3rd. Are you PREPARED?? I’ll be prepared once Joe gives me my sword back… ;) Click the pic below for another one of our charming promotional videos.

Tired of the winter weather? The endless snow, slush, and blistery winds? Well, STeaP visited the tropics this week, with two tropical-friendly teas. We first tried Mighty Leaf’s Green Tea Tropical (which some of you won samples of, from our Twitter giveaway) with a 3 minute steep in rumbling water, then we gave Golden Moon’s Coconut Pouchong a go with a 3 minute steep in boiled (and then momentarily cooled) water. Take a break from the cold and enjoy our tasting in the tropics!

For more episodes and other tea tidbits, visit STeaPtv.com. Contact Joe and Brandice via steap@steaptv.com.

I try Upton’s Rose Bancha on my way to work/school/I don’t remember. It was pretty good!

Are you ready to go on vacation Monday?? :) Click on the promo image to see a video of the tropical paradise Joe and I are planning to bring you in a few days.

Jessica over at authoritea recently wrote about an interesting use of Stash’s Iced Green Tea Powder. It seems that mixing the dry powder with vanilla bean ice cream creates a tasty frozen treat.

I may have to round up some of this green tea powder, because this idea sounds a lot like some tasty green tea ice cream I had when I was in Japan five years ago. Plus, if my mid-day caffeine kick also included an equally unhealthy sugar rush, how could I be any happier in life? ;)

Joe and I revisit the Dragonwells that battled in our most recent episode to see how they match up with a second infusion. Watch to see if the same tea is the victor!

Today was a battle between two dragonwell green teas: TeaSource’s Dragonwell Wild Mountain (generously donated for review by TeaSource) and Adagio’s Dragonwell (from Brandice’s collection). Each tea was prepared with rumbling water and a 3 minute steep time. Which of these mighty green tea dragons will ‘win’ the battle? Watch and see!

For more info on STeaP, visit STeaPtv.com.

Trying kombucha tea for the first time, a Yogi brand that my friend Laura sent my way a week or so ago. Kombucha is fairly tasty!