[embodiment] ... tea?

[kaberett]

So as part of this "cook (almost) everything in the book" project, I have been Contemplating Ingredients. There isn't much I can do about the salad with integral grapefruit (this being both unpalatable and Not Best Practice given my medication regime), but I decided it was worth idly poking at decaffeination some more.

The background: I have long since established to my satisfaction that the Swiss water process removes enough caffeine that I can safely ingest coffee that has been thus processed. (I have the kind of caffeine sensitivity where I sometimes need to be careful about dark chocolate.) I have even longer ago (like, in 2008) established that decaf tea wasn't worth it to me because it Tasted Wrong.

For most purposes (tiramisu! chocolate coated coffee beans!) I have SWPed (sorry about the acronym) whole beans. But there's a recipe in the current book that demands instant, and there are several recipes in Sweet (which I'm considering making the next Culinary Project) ditto, so completionism compelled me to go hunting.

Alas the only SWP instant I could find that's readily available in the UK is Nestlé, which: no. But a little more digging introduced me to the supercritical CO₂ decaffeination process, which I'd somehow not previously come across despite its having been patented in the 1970s, and which apparently removes about as much caffeine as SWP. Clipper sells a fairtrade instant decaf! So I got a jar of it and there's a rapidly decreasing amount of the coffee ice cream that kicked this whole search off in the freezer.

... and while hunting details on how exactly this new-to-me method worked, I found an offhand mention that while tea can't really cope with the SWP, it is (more or less) okay with supercritical CO₂ processing. And I could find UK sellers, which in turn made it theoretically possible to actually cook another recipe from the book, this time involving cooking chickpeas in black tea! And since I was placing an order anyway, I also acquired a sample of their decaf Earl Grey.

... Adam informs me that it does taste Wrong, but at this point it's well over 15 years since I've consumed actual proper tea when not in the throes of migraine, and you know what? This will do.

Comments

[mme_n_b]

Decaf tea does taste wrong :( Are you able to tolerate crassicolumna?

[kaberett]

... never heard of it!

[mme_n_b]

It's one of the best smelling things in the world, when dry, but once you pour water over it it tastes and smells exactly like tea, because it's the leaves of a tea-near-relative plant.

[mme_n_b]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19128040/

[alexseanchai]

tea! yay!

[steorra]

Yay tea!

[chiasmata]

Aw, I’m so glad you’ve found something that works for you!

[ludy]

Awesome!

(My Dad (who is very caffeine-sensitive while I’m very (but not entirely) caffeine-insensitive) happy drinks caffeinated tea first thing in the mornings then decaffeinated tea for the rest of the day. Guessing for him the taste difference is either small enough to ignore or classifies them as noticeably-different-but-both-are-acceptable.

I rarely drink tea as a beverage (I much prefer coffee) but chickpeas in black tea are delicious :)

[mme_n_b]

That said - decaf tea may taste "wrong" in comparison, but it tastes plenty good enough on its own, if one doesn't try to compare it, and it's really impressive that you stuck with the search and got something good for it :)

[machiavellijr]

Good to know that Clipper's decaf is sufficient, I will recommend to my stepmother.

[davidgillon]

the supercritical CO2 decaffeination process

Meh, I'm sure you could whip something up with superheated HF ;)

OTOH, yay for coffee icecream!

[jesse_the_k]

I'm a low-caffeine-er.

Weakly brewed very tasty tea is giving me joy.

Sencha, Genmaicha, Dragonwell -- pour 700ml of 75°C water over 15ml leaves for 45 seconds. I get three steeps.

Harney offers a decaf Sencha that's truly tasty! (But it has some caffeine--I don't drink it after noon.) Their hearty decaf Assam stands up to plant milk.

[kaberett]

Unfortunately weakly brewed tea is still enough to (in quantities of a mouthful or so) burn off a benzo I've decided has served its purpose, or (in the absence of sedatives) turn me into an utter wreck. I am extremely mournful about this because I have and adore some genmaicha. :(

So sorry

[jesse_the_k]

to go on at length about something that's inaccessible.

(Genmaicha is amazing.)

Re: So sorry

[kaberett]

No worries. <3

[recessional]

It kinda tastes wrong but tbh not more wrong than shitty black tea anyway. XD And if it'll DO, then THAT'S FINE because yeah there's a bunch of quite decent decaf tea out there.

[azurelunatic]

Oh, fantastic!!!