Green tea

matthias7

matthias7

Well-known member
Hey All:

Quick post on the variation in effect of green tea based on the quality of the green tea leaf.

Here's the story.
I've started green tea because there was an overall biochemical trick I wanted to to pull-off and I needed EGCG.

I used regularly veg caps of the stuff, I dunno like 750mg x3 per day. My idea had limited success. I thought 'well nice try'.

I bought some real Chinese green tea in a shipment of Indian black teas for my family (they are big black tea drinkers - they love the stuff). In case you are wondering tea drinking - particularly Indian tea - is a very British pass time. Its based on the historical commerical links with Indian not on healthy stuff at all.

Anyway 2 pots of Chinese green, particularly Chuan Mee (I think that is the spelling) and I think what I was trying to achieve worked. It could be a placebo of the caffeine - but green tea is supposed to have 4 times less caffeine than black (so 10 cups should be 2.5 cups black). Its at least 6 times less caffeine than esspresso.

It turns out there is a large variation in the EGCG content of green tea. The better teas have more. I wanted to find a leaf type that I happy with. It turns out that the caffeine content of green tea also varies alot but it is claimed that EGCG makes caffeine less bio-available along with theanine (another constituent of quality green tea). Thats what I read at least but it would make sense.

At present I'm loading the stuff into my hydration system so I can drink across the day.

Going to try a load of varieties and see how it works.

My point? The problem with caps is you can't be certain about the quality of the stuff inside. Green tea caps arn't sold on what the tea leaf was, or its quality but just on price and EGCG content. Think the guys who say 'the only supplement is food' could have a point in this case.
 
Okay I'm pretty much into this as you can see.

Here's the green teas I've got to try. If green tea is such an important supplement and veg caps are not cheap, the stuff below is 'quality' green tea, EGCG content unknown but we'll find out on 'effect'. The test is to load 2 pots of green tea into a 2 litre hydration system and drink over the course of the day. I think its 1 part green tea 2 parts straight water.

I'll write the notes as I go through them.

Gunpowder green (China)
Mao Feng (China)
Chun Mee (China)
Sencha (Japan)
Bancha (Japan)
Green Nepal (presumably Nepal)
 
Subb'd.

Never knew about the EGCG content affecting caffeine uptake.
You should check out Gyokuro, it's considered Japan's finest green tea.

The results showed three significant conclusions. One, green and oolong teas have nearly double the catechin polyphenols and EGCG yields when the water temperature was 100oC, compared with 60o or 80oC. Two, total catechin polyphenol and EGCG contents of the green (136mg/g and 78.1mg/g tea leaves, respectively) and oolong (114.4mg/g and 85.7mg/g) teas, brewed at 100oC, were quite similar. Black tea samples had far lesser concentrations (32.4mg/g and 6.8mg/g). Three, brewing at 100oC generated EGCG and catechin polyphenol concentrations that were 10-14 times higher than those teas brewed at room temperature (20oC).
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Okay the thing I've found to date is that the 'green tea leaf' effect looks real when I placeboed against Purple Wraath. Both loaded in to 2l hydration system. Its not simply a straight issue of nutrients/water causing an increase in overall energy.

What could be happening is I'm getting a placebo effect from the caffeine content. I can check this against black tea which has a higher caffeine content (allegedly). Also when I grew up I drunk heaps of quality black tea - so placebo effect possible. I am certain that it is better than taking veg caps.

What might be happening is there is a rapid uptake of caffeine or EGCG because I am rehydrating. At the moment it is too early to say whats going on, but the 'uplift' 'energy' from green tea is real. Whether this is being used with Mucana puriens or not the uplift still happens.

To try and separate the various types of green tea is going to take some doing.

Its a fantastically tasty experiment BTW. Tastes much better than Purple Wraath. It'll be an ongoing experiment for some time to come.... I'm in no hurry :)
 
Here's a few brief notes...
Gunpowder green (China) - not yet tried.

Mao Feng (China)
A good classic green tea. Big leaves, not a bad taste and no real tannins. Reasonable neuro-uplift, reasonable body energy.

Chun Mee (China). Strong neuro-"uplift", weird tannins. I took it on an empty stomach and it made me vomit. Black tea tannin gives me stomach ache on an empty stomach. Err.... I'll pass over this one, last time I vomited I had severe food poisoning (oysters). This just ain't normal.

Sencha (Japan)
Delicious! Fantastic flavour. Okay neuro-uplift, okay to good body energizer. Great stuff! Whole tea leaves only - tea bags were poor.

Bancha (Japan)
Quite alot of tannin for a green tea. Taste wasn't great - but okay. Good neuro-uplift not bad for energizing body.

Green Nepal (presumably Nepal)
Quite average. Taste classic slightly rotten cabbage. Didn't notice anything special and its expensive - its the most expensive tea here. Nothing harmful though.

Jasmine flavoured (I forget the tea will fill in blank). This is a black/green tea.
Superb flavour. No neuro-uplift strangly but strong body energizer. My body loves this stuff. Brain feels nothing however.

Conclusion
I've a strong preference for stuff that tastes good. Its not easy to quantify how 'good' a tea is and this will take a lot of time. It could be the 'neuro-uplift' is simply caffeine. I have a few coffees a week but otherwise not caffeine. What is clear is there is a large variation in outcome depending on the tea: a tea tannin causing nausea is strange particularly as I don't feel sick except when I'm really ill. Equally a great tasting tea with no neuro-uplift is also unusal. ... To be complete
 
You make it sound like it has very profound nootropic/stimulating effects. How does it compare to stimulants, can you make comparisons to mainstream supplements like alcar, geranium etc ?
 
Thats a good question.

Yeah its potent but
1. I'm sensative to strong tannins. It is the only thing that disagrees with me - this is really important, i.e. making you sick - thats had a strong impact. This cannot be generally applied.
2. There's a lot of confounding factors involved....

Here goes...
I forgot to point out. Most importantly it is my sole soure of hydration (2l system). Thus the uptake will be rapid by it is concurrent (boy thats a big non-scientifically accuruate word) with water uptake. At present of course its hot in northern temperate lattitudes so like I'm ... thirsty ;)

What I was looking at was EGCG inhibiting blood-borne dopa-decarboxylase, whether that worked or not ... I'm not sure. It does in vitro (test tube). Mucana puriens raw powder is just yuk so I discontinued. If it did work of course it is a potent ... you can't say nootropic because EGCG shouldn't be able to get into the brain ... potent supplement.

Please be aware ...1) very subjective - I like the taste. The other issue is 2) the impact of the caffeine and theophylin - although green is supposed to be 'low' it is very debatable. Historically I should have a huge tolerance to caffeine. The final thing to keep in mind is 3) normally with a supplement you take low dose. This stuff is high dose (6 full teaspoons per pot) by comparison. 4) Just to repeat again grean diluted 1 in 3 is the sole source of water.

Finally the tests are considered in the morning ... the time of the day I've most dehydration.

Finally I'm so use to the rest of my stack Q10, mito supplements, ALCAR (which has no effect on me), vit Bs, vit C and so on ... that I notice very little from it. The teas however are constantly changing.

Basic conclusion
Green tea is very different depending on the plant, the production and leaf quality. Okay the production and leaf quality I know from black tea (life time of drinking) - which is Indian and is all basically the same stuff smuggled originally from China.

Application
When buying herbal supplements we have to be careful using the variation in green tea as a metaphor or prototype. It ain't all the same stuff not by a long, long way.
 
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to matthias7 again.

hmm lol well I dont think this helps any decision making for me ;)
 
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