Caffeine and... Not Tea

A while back, I was doing some research on caffeine and tea. I happened upon a blog about caffeine obsession called Energy Fiend. It had a particularly funny entry on the lack of information on the caffeine contents of various energy drinks. It made me wonder (once again) when more tea companies will start providing (accurate) information on their teas caffeine contents. (Few do at present.) I've heard horror stories of tearoom and tea shop employees telling customers that white tea and yerba mate have no caffeine and that black tea has "a whole lot" of caffeine. On a less extreme level, I've also heard people say that black tea always has more caffeine than green (not true), that tea always has less caffeine than coffee (also untrue), and that no tisanes have caffeine (yerba mate and tisanes with cocoa content both do). It's things like this that make me glad I'm a tea educator. Perhaps someday people can go to tearooms without fear of getting the wrong story altogether! Ah, what a nice dream...