Caffeine is considered as a drug because it stimulates the body and makes it more alert. It is produced naturally in the leaves and seeds of particular plants. Caffeine gives drinkers a temporary energy boost and lifts up a person’s mood. Caffeine can be found in tea, coffee, chocolates, sodas, energy drinks and diet pills.
It is available in your reach and is actually all around so you need to monitor the amount of caffeine intake you are having. Caffeine is good for your health only if you take the right amount but if you exceed the caffeine level appropriate for your body you may experience some difficulties. You may experience heart palpitation, rise in blood pressure and problem in sleeping. These are just some of the troubles you may encounter with the exceeding intake of caffeine so you better take control of the ingestion you are having especially that caffeine can be found in many varieties of food.
Caffeine Withdrawal
Caffeine in tea just like in coffee can be minimized. There are ways in the right preparation in order to reduce the amount of caffeine in tea. It is in the steeping process for tea leaves while in the brewing process of coffee beans. But for tea leaves you can actually extract the caffeine in a scientifical process. Extraction is the process of separation of compounds from a mixture of compounds. This is a common process used in experiments, and it really does extract caffeine in tea.
Step 1: Put a 300g tea leaves in a 500mL beaker.
Step 2: Add water and salt. Fill the beaker into half with water then stir it.
Step 3: Boil everything for ten minutes.
Step 4: Let it cool after boiling.
Step 5: Transfer the mixture and filter it with the use of cloth.
Step 6: Boil the content for 10 minutes in water bath to sterilize, use a needle to inject 10mL of dichloromethane.
Step 7: Boil again for another 5 minutes, then transfer the remains into a separating shaft and extract 3-4 times using dichloromethane.
Step 8: Combine the 5-minute layers then add anhydrous sodium sulphate to the combined extracts.
Step 9: Strain the solid particles then let the liquid combination evaporate.
Step 10: There will be residue after the evaporation and that is the caffeine crude. You can purify it by re-crystallization with the use of methanol.
Caffeine is a white crystal like element with bitter taste. This method of extracting caffeine with tea leaves has been done over and over again and is based on scientifical experiments that are used by scientists in extracting caffeine with tea leaves.
Caffeine is good to your health only if taken in moderate amount but if you go beyond the right amount of caffeine per day then it will not give you benefits but instead will give you troubles that will really give you hard times. As many would say too much of anything is bad for you. You need to keep that in mind and deal with the right amount of caffeine your system needs and also the amount your body can tolerate. Not everyone has the same caffeine tolerance so you need to know up to where you can handle.
