Green tea is a great pick-me-up, with more and more people choosing it as their go-to drink. This green brew has a rich history and has been revered across Asia for well over 1,000 years, with many learned ‘tea masters’ extolling its virtues.
While coffee might now be thought of as people’s pick-me-up of choice, green tea also enjoys a rich history as a stimulating drink. According to popular legend, an Ethiopian goatherder stumbled across coffee in around 850 AD, when he spotted his goats, having eaten coffee beans, prancing in a field. But it was 3,500 years earlier when Chinese Emperor Shen Nong discovered the delights of green tea . Let’s lift the lid on your caffeine-related green tea questions.
Does green tea have caffeine?
It does! Green tea comes from exactly the same plant, the camellia sinensis, as all other ‘true’ teas – black, white and oolong, all of which contain the stimulant caffeine. Caffeine is a naturally occurring substance and can be found in around 60 plant species including tea, coffee and cocoa.