Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday!  This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which have changed as we've proceeded. (As things have settled down to a nice steady conversational pace, for example, I've deleted the rules about only one tip per person per week and about limiting the length of comments; I was worried early on about people flooding the forum with too much too fast, but I think we're past that risk.)

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

Re: Coffee and Tea

[ecosophia]

I can't drink coffee -- it gives me migraines -- and so tea has been my caffeine source all through my life. By and large, black tea has more caffeine than green or white; a good strong English tea will give you a proper jolt when you need one.

Re: Coffee and Tea

[(Anonymous)]

I've got my first 250g of matcha arriving in the post today, so have been looking at caffeine and total phenolic content of various teas and coffees:

Here is a general guide to the approximate caffeine content in a typical 8-ounce cup:

Double espresso: 120mg caffeine
Coffee: 80-100 mg of caffeine
Matcha tea (1 teaspoon): 60-70 mg of caffeine
Black tea: 40-60 mg of caffeine
Oolong tea: 30-50 mg of caffeine
Green tea: 30-50 mg of caffeine
White tea: 25-40 mg of caffeine

The Mayo Clinic recommends no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine daily, for healthy adults. It is best to consume these amounts in divided doses, to avoid negative side effects.

I've just spent a few minutes trying to looking at specifically the epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) (mostly as it's effective against covid) content of green tea vs. matcha, and find very varied quantities for mg/g of EGCG in matcha, ranging from 17.5 to 95.5 mg/g...so who knows what the actual content of any given cup is, but it seems to be generally the case that matcha contains significantly more EGCG than green tea.

the total polyphenolic content found in coffee beans was 10 mg/g
the total polyphenolic content found in matcha tea was 220 mg/g (the shading of the matcha tea plants inhibits polyphenol synthesis)
the total polyphenolic content found in green tea was 550 mg/g

I think the conclusion for me is that, as ever, variety is the spice of life, and a cup a day of each of espresso, green tea and matcha tea is the ideal, though if I were aiming exclusively for health benefits, I'd replace the espresso with green tea.