VIDEO: Black tea: let it steep

Black tea and the ingredients

When it comes to duration, how long black tea pull, you should take a look at the ingredients:

• Black tea contains like coffee Caffeine, which is also often referred to as Tein, Thein or Teein. In any case, the substance is chemically identical to caffeine.
• Black tea also contains theophylline and theobromine. These substances have a dehydrating and diuretic effect. They also relax the smooth muscles and relieve asthma, for example.
• There are also polyphenols in tea, which neutralize the effects of caffeine, and the amino acid theanine, which has a calming effect.

You surely guessed that these substances dissolve at different rates and therefore the effect of the tea depends on the time how long you let the tea steep.

This happens when "letting go"

• Once black tea with hot water comes into contact, the caffeine, which is easily soluble in water, dissolves. The tea is very stimulating. The less soluble theophylline hardly gets into the water, so black tea, which you leave for less than two minutes, has a stimulating, but not dehydrating effect.
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• If you let the tea steep longer, theophylline and theobromine, which have a mood-enhancing, dehydrating and stimulating effect, also dissolve. At the same time, the polyphenols, which convert the caffeine into a water-insoluble and therefore ineffective substance, also dissolve. The poorly soluble theanine now also dissolves in the water, it has a calming effect.
• The longer you let the tea steep, the more calming and draining it is. Black tea that you let steep for longer than five minutes can help against diarrhea.

So there is neither a rule how long black tea has to steep nor a specific effect that it has. It just depends on what effect you want to achieve, then depends on the time you have to let the tea steep.