Brent said

How much tea is too much tea?

This is a follow-up discussion to the “How much tea do you drink in a day” discussion.

Some points were made about there being such a thing as too much tea, for various reasons. While it is certainly possible to have too much of anything (including water), many of the warnings often leveled against tea are not really well-founded.

Caffeine:
The medical community generally recommends cutting back if one consumes more than about 500mg per day (with noted deleterious effects only up in the 1000-1500mg range). The American Academy of Pediatrics sets that at about 100mg for adolescents and recommends against caffeine on a regular basis for younger children.

An 8oz cup of tea ranges in caffeine content from 14-61 mg for a fully oxidized tea, and more like 24-40 mg for a green tea. So, let’s just call it 40 mg per 8 oz, to keep it simple – loosely averaging.

So, the math suggests that it takes somewhere around 12 8oz cups to exceed the recommended limit. That’s almost 3 liters. But, it’s important to consider something else. If you are steeping the same leaves repeatedly, the caffeine content decreases each time. Some studies have shown that 80% of the caffeine is extracted in the first 30 seconds, but I’m suspicious of any attempt to quantify this. It would depend greatly on the type of tea, temperature, and even the mineral content of the water.

Let’s be conservative and say that each steeping contains 50% of caffeine content of the previous steeping. And, let’s say that you brew 2 cups (16 oz) each time. So, if you started with a high-caffeine tea (let’s say 60 mg per 8 oz), and steeped 3 times for a total of 6 8-oz cups, here’s what we’d get:
Cups 1&2: 120mg
Cups 3&4: 60mg
Cups 5&6: 30mg
Total: 1.42 liters and 210mg of caffeine

Even if you repeated this with a fresh round of tea, you’d still be under the 500mg guideline – and that’s a LOT of tea.

Compare this to a generic brewed coffee, which contains 100-200mg per 8oz cup.

Myth: Drinking tea will not hydrate you (or will dehydrate you).
I’ve even seen people recommend that you increase your water consumption if you drink tea – to offset the diuretic properties of caffeine. Bottom line is that this has never been proven or even strongly suggested in a study. It’s just something that sounds true, so gets repeated.

Caffeine does have a measurable (but mild) diuretic effect (i.e. increased urination), but regular caffeine consumers quickly build a tolerance to this effect. It hasn’t been shown that caffeine has any appreciable diuretic effect at all in regular caffeine consumers.

So, while it hasn’t been shown conclusively that 1 liter of tea has an equivalent hydration effect as 1 liter of water, studies suggest there isn’t much (if any) difference.

Flouride concerns: Well, I have concerns about fluoride in general, but I just haven’t seen any credible study that demonstrates that there is any real danger with tea in particular. The risk, if any, seems to be in making tea with water which is heavily fluoridated to begin with – effectively ensuring a high dosage of fluoride. And, the studies both for and against fluoride are, generally, dubious and/or incomplete.

Finally, there is the aesthetic question – should tea be savoured, or is it OK to just drink it? There is only opinion here, but it would appear that the world, in general, thinks that we don’t have to savour every cup. Tea is second only to water in world consumption. So, that says something.

For myself, it depends. I keep my daily-drinker going all day, and pretty much chain-drink it until the leaves give out. At certain times, particularly in the evening, I’ll slowly sip something else, depending on my mood.

Cheers.

8 Replies

Thank you so much for this mini-article!

I am always getting kind of upset when I read anything that might suggest my 5-8 cups of tea might be too much (and not good for my health). Because you know what? I love cheese and I had to stop eating it because it wasn’t good for my health (I am somewhat allergic to dairy, it seems). I have to watch out how much beer I have too, even though I love it (especially malty super full bodies stouts!). I also have to take care that I don’t eat too many sweets… for obvious reasons. And tea was this only little thing that I absolutely love and that I know is generally good for me (rather than bad), so… I just have it ALL THE TIME, in a way, instead of all these other foods and drinks I cannot have as often :) And I am glad it is generally OK for me to do this.

Very informative and uplifting. Chicken Soup for a Tea Addict’s Soul :D Thanks, Brent!

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Thanks for the explanation! I have often been asked this same question, about too much tea being bad for my health, and logically it makes sense that it would be challenging to “overdo” it on tea based on the concerns you mentioned. It amazes me how few people realize that unsweetened tea is just a step up from water, and it would take most people concerted effort to get up into harmful levels of caffeine intake with it.

Sensitivity to caffeine (as a stimulant and/or becoming dependent), that is another story, and differs from person to person. That is usually what most people who are amazed at how much tea I drink are amazed at…that I have a level of tolerance they do not have!

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Kamyria said

Excellent post Brent! Thank you!

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Pandeme said

This was great, I love how in depth your explanation was. It definitely made me feel better about the amount of tea I drink in a day.

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said

Great topic! I always go with listening to your body. I’m one of those guys who are sensitive to caffeine and I can drink quite a number of cups before I get to that point where I know I should have a cup more (although I rarely get to that point). I see nothing wrong of consuming an abundance of tea, and this topic confirms it.

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I really enjoyed reading about this! I think most of the points you touched on were very true, but what about the sugar intake? If you don’t sweeten your tea that isn’t really a concern here though.

Brent said

I can’t really comment on sugar. We never add anything to tea, so I can’t even speculate about how much would be a normal amount to add. And, if I was compelled to add a sweetener, I would use either loose-leaf stevia or something like agave nectar or honey.

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Why, thank you! I do believe that I’ll go brew up another pot of tea!

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