Hello.Kiki said

Teas you can't stomach...

So, since I can’t say with any certainty which brand of “goji berry green tea” I had, I didn’t do a tealog. I had this in a coffee shop/bakery up river. It was looseleaf so she brewed it up for me (probably a tad too long, but not so that the tea was overly bitter. at least it didn’t taste burnt.) This cup started out pleasant enough. Warm and comforting on this horrid snowy day. Then about halfway through my cup I started feeling really nauseous. Granted, I hadn’t eaten much for breakfast owing to the fact that I woke up waaaaaay earlier than I usually do, and the shop smelled overwhelmingly of bacon. I hurried up to grab my things and ran out of that place. I had a granola bar as a snack and that helped but I hated that feeling.

Has this happened to anyone else? Are there some teas you just can’t stomach?

53 Replies
Sil select said

YES! i sent it to terriharplady! bwahahahahaha

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LOL Sil.

Some teas do make me feel sick, but often with me it’s not so much the tea itself as how predisposed I am to a bad reaction that day. I say this because often the same teas that can make me feel ill one day have no effect or actually make me feel good another day. I would love to hear from a biochemist as to whether there’s something about what’s going on in your particular system on a given day that affects how you react, because I strongly suspect there is. My tea logs are rife with “this was heavy on my stomach today” entries and for the same tea they’ll also say “not affecting my stomach today” in a later entry. So go figure.

OOH! My father is a biochemist! I will ask him and report back when he gives me an answer!!

My personal take is that the chemical compounds in tea are reacting to the amount of acid in your gastrointestinal system. (However, that is so utterly vague and based on nothing but my little knowledge from formerly being a pre-med student and from being a tea-ologist :p)

Hello.Kiki said

Can’t wait to hear more! That pre-med degree really serves to give us enough knowledge to make us dangerous, but without really knowing what we’re doing. Lol. I’m hoping med school changes that for me ;)

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ifjuly said

it wasn’t quite like that, but i find a lot of japanese green teas, particularly lemonier senchas, hard on my stomach, and also they seem to make me jittery-er than anything else to a point that’s pretty much unbearable (i thought i was crazy and then discovered thanks to steepster the jury’s still out on caffeine levels vis a vis tea types, and some studies have found the most caffeine in sencha, so maybe i’m not nuts).

Hello.Kiki said

I haven’t seen a study on sencha specifically, however I did read up on one about green vs black vs oolong vs white teas regarding caffeine and polyphenol levels. I’ll have to see if I can dig it up and report back!

ifjuly said

that’d be interesting to read! yeah, i have a feeling part of what makes the caffeine a conundrum is that it’s probably not just how much there is straight up, there might also be consideration about how it’s absorbed given what other stuff’s in different teas at different levels. i’m just guessing, but i get this intuitive sense with green it’s not only that it’s caffeinated, it’s that it’s reacting with something else fresh and green there’s a lot of in it that makes it absorb faster in my system or something.

Ubacat said

I’ve got a sencha and genmaicha that both make me more jittery than normal and couldn’t figure out why since I drink a lot of green teas with no problem.

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Rooibos. Dear wolf gods… rooibos…

(Though that’s not a tea… so… I will also say: every Zheng Shan Xian Zhong I have tried aside from one)

Whoa Tea Pet, what’s that shiny admin badge next to your name there? Did I miss something (probably). Apparently congrats are in order?

If I drink rooibos in the evening I get a headache.

(Also, congratulations!! :D)

Thank you both!

@KiwiDelight Rooibos is a cruel mistress… >:(

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Gene said

Lapsang souchon (sp) is a tea that I just can’t begin to enjoy. It’s just too smokey and intense for me, regardless of the quantity of tea per cup, temperature used, or length of steeping!

It’s still there….just sitting. Glaring at me from the back of the tea cupboard….

Gene

Hello.Kiki said

Oh gracious, I had this one that smelled like, how can I put this delicately? Well, there’s really no good way to say “horse sweat and leather.” I just couldn’t drink that one. I mean earthy is one thing, but who wants to drink something that smells like freshly used tack? Ugh *shudders

teaenvy said

I encountered a puer once that smelled exactly like horse manure. Somehow “freshly used tack” seems a step up!

Hello.Kiki said

Oh gross! Wow, I never would have thought….

Mel said

Cook with it! I hate Lapsang for drinking, but it’s smokyiness is amazing in marinates. I use it to make Chinese tea eggs.

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I don’t think I’ve ever had a tea that made me nauseous directly, but a few have given me headaches to the point of nausea. But it’s like what Morgana said, some days it’s fine, and another time it’ll be like my entire system is rebelling.

From a biochemist standpoint, I have no idea how certain teas that would react with your personal chemistry might react on any certain day, I’m thinking not much because the most active ingredient in tea is usually caffeine, and then it depends on personal tolerance. I’m likely in the wrong field of biochemistry to probably answer that question though. Probably better to ask a naturopathic doctor or your pharmacist.

Some people believe that certain ingredients are ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ and if you have too much of one or the other your natural energy is unbalanced and that’ll make you feel sick. I don’t know too much about that though.

Hello.Kiki said

I will have to see what I can dig up in the medical journals! I’m certainly no biochem expert, but I can read scientific journals with decent understanding.

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You know, for the past few months I’ve been having stomach problems. The problems predate my joining steepster, which is when I started trying a variety of teas in earnest. But I’m beginning to wonder whether black teas are affecting my stomach.

Interesting thing: I’d been having an upset stomach most of the afternoon yesterday, and when I brewed some pu’er, it felt better afterwards. Has anyone else ever noticed pu’er benefiting them like that?

sansnipple said

good shu/ripe puer helps my stomach a ton, very smooth and soothing.

boychik said

I love shu and it cures my stomach problems. But I cannot tolerate sheng especially young. Gives me horrible stomach cramps that I cannot even walk straight. Aged sheng in small amounts is ok.
Another rule: I don’t drink any tea on empty stomach. Makes me nauseous.

mrmopar said

+1 on puerh and stomach calming. Works wonders on my reflux.

Ubacat said

I have not noticed puerh making me feel better but I have noticed black tea making me feel bad. I don’t enjoy the taste as much as other teas and they make me feel a bit off. I don’t get that with puerh which is a strong dark tea too.

I took a course on puerh (and hei cha) and during the course there was a discussion on micro-organismas in puerh. Each factory had various levels of different micro-organisms on the factory floor, particularly asper nigellus. You can actually see it in puerh bricks and cakes as little specks. These are pro-biotics. Typically pro-biotics can’t tolerate heat (most need to be refrigerated) and die, however, there was a study done in China that showed that these strains could tolerate the heat and still have a positive effect. I can’t verify any of this as it was on a slide and I am going from memory and I could not examine the study myself but it is certainly something I keep in mind and I have always noticed that puerh had a positive effect anytime I was having stomach issues.

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I can’t drink any tea on a completely empty stomach. Have to have a little bite of something at least, especially first thing in the morning.

Hello.Kiki said

Yeah I’m thinking this was what happened to me. Not enough food in my stomach and sensory overload with the heavy smell of that bacon (which I’m not allowed to have anymore thanks to “borderline high” cholesterol levels.)

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I noticed that my stomach doesn’t like too many cups of black tea in a row. I usually have only two, one after another, when I start my day. It’s funny, because after that I can have all the oolongs, greens and whites of the world (and some of them have just the same, if not higher, level of caffeine) and I am fine. It’s just the black teas that seem to have this effect. Sometimes I feel slighty nauseous even after these two cups, if they happen to be too strong.

It’s kinda sad, because I love black teas :( But I guess this limit makes me appreciate them more?

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I used to have terrible problems with my stomach that I attributed to caffeine, mostly from drinking 2 cups of coffee all morning with no breakfast (back in my coffee drinking days lol). It got to the point that I went a year without any caffeine (no pop with it, etc) and they cleared up pretty good. Now I am better, but I still will find that if I have too much black tea I either get an antsy, knotted up stomach or a headache. I think it’s the caffeine making me anxious that causes these symptoms, but who knows. Also, any tea with caffeine on an empty stomach is the WORST, I feel very sick.

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