This may be a strange question...

22 Replies

Anything with caffeine in it is a diuretic. Coffee is the worst. I’ve heard that for every cup of coffee, you need to have an extra cup of water just to stay hydrated. and that is on top of your standard 8 cups of water per day. but again this is just hearsay.
Me, I never manage to get past about 6 cups of water per day, regardless of how much tea I have had… so if I go too long without water, I start to get a serious dehydration headache. I used to get them all the time, but not as much now that I am vigilant about it.
As for tea, I usually get through 2-4 steeps of my leaves and then have an herbal in the evening. Maybe more if I am at home on a slow day. I tend to have one cup of water per steep, just to be safe though.
I hope this helps! of course I am a little paranoid… and I feel much better when hydrated to! :)

Login or sign up to post a message.

vallalku said

I too get dehydration headache if I don’t drink enough water. It took me a while to associate headache with dehydration. So I drink more water nowadays even if I am drinking 6 cups of tea every day. I also feel that tea makes me even more thirsty and guess it is because tea is a diuretic.

Login or sign up to post a message.

DC said

Actually, tea is hydrating, take a look at this research

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5281046.stm

Maybe it’s cause you drink with milk and sugar?

Yeah, “tea is hydrating” was the impression I was under as well, so I was confused.

After looking around the internet on this topic, I realized it probably is because I’m putting sugar in it, so I came to the same conclusion you’re suggesting here. Hadn’t thought of the sugar.

Oh well. Guess that’s one more reason to try to learn to drink tea clear!

Login or sign up to post a message.

Missy said

I drink quit a bit of tea every day, but I always crave some thing cold. So I drink iced tea! I also have a cup of water now and then. I have a 42 ounce tea pot and I go through 2-3 pots every morning. When my fiance gets home, we normally have another 2 pots. Now I’m sharing this pot so I would only be drinking 1 after he gets home really. 168 ounces of hot tea a day. I think my iced tea cup is 20 ounces.
I still get thirsty now and then. I think it may have some thing to do with my sugar intake.

Yeah, it’s always for something specifically cold! Glad that’s not just me.

Login or sign up to post a message.

There’s another factor to consider here, and that may be prep time. Drinking cups of tea back to back isn’t the same as drinking cups of water back to back, for example. For myself, I only really drink my tea after it’s cooled to just-above-room-temperature, so my tea drinking tends to lower my fluid intake, instead of increase it, due to the timing.

Also, that BBC article doesn’t put it in as plain of terms as I think may be helpful. It mentions that caffeinated drinks result in a ‘net fluid gain’. I read a different article that put it a little more plainly: If you drink straight water, you need 64 ounces of fluid throughout the day. If you drink nothing but tea, you need somewhere around 96.

Haha, well, I’ve never been guilty of drinking cups of water back-to-back! I hate water, and gave up a two-bottles-of-Coke-a-day addiction for tea. So I’m sure I’m still more hydrated than before.

Interesting, re: 96oz of tea. I can actually handily drink that much if I’m at home. Not so much when other duties get in the way, obviously.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.