TeaChat

I tried to do some research on this, but I only got articles on negative side effects if you drink a ridiculous amount. I also read something about how it's not recommended to have 6 cups per day.

Thing is, I have 6 cups per day sometimes, and my cup is not a small teacup, it carries around twice the size of what a small teacup holds.

Here's the thing though, I only use around one tablespoon of Oolong tea, and I just keep reusing the same leaves. What I do is get the hot water from the kettle and pour it over the leaves in the pot with the infuser. I then drink the contents of the pot (which make two big cups) and I do this two more times never changing the contents of the infuser. Making it a total of 3 pots of tea, each giving 2 big cups, totaling to 6 big cups of tea per day.

Btw, the tea I usually do this with is Ali Shan.

As long as the tea makes you happy and you feel ok, there's really not a clear 'too much' for any C. sinensis tea, unless you have specific problems with caffeine, or maybe blood pressure.

To be honest I don't drink that much every day, but this morning I did drink 6 cups. I actually did get a headache for the rest of the day, and it's at night now and I have taken a two hour nap thanks to the headache and now my head feels much better, though hurts very slightly. It's worth noting that I had not eaten anything today save some small all natural rabbit cookies, because the headache kind of killed my appetite. That is, until just a tiny while ago I had my first meal.

I also drank the tea with several different types of honey as well as plain. In total it could be said I consumed 3 table spoons of various kinds of honey with the 6 cups of tea.

I guess it's because of the caffeine content of the tea. Kind of funny though cuz sometimes I drink 3 big cups of black tea like breakfast earl grey and I do not get this effect, when black tea should be stronger when it comes to caffeine. I drink earl grey with brown sugar though, not honey.

Well, I'll have to exercise more moderation. Maybe spread them out in the day.

i find it good to eat before drinking. i make it a point to have breakfast before touching any tea at all.

Yes, it's sometimes not good to drink on an empty stomach. For me, a headache usually points to using lower quality tea though. With my tea club, we sometimes drink A LOT of tea over sessions which can last 4-6 hours, but it hasn't been a problem since we are drinking good stuff.

I was drinking Ali Shan that I bought off of adagio's store. Would that be considered a lower quality tea?

I'm kind of new to Oolong teas in general, so I can't tell what's supposed to be good. I buy most of my stuff from places like adagio, rishi tea, red leaf tea, and I recently ordered Oolongs from pu-erh shop but they've yet to arrive.

ali wrote:I was drinking Ali Shan that I bought off of adagio's store. Would that be considered a lower quality tea?

Well it's not top notch by any means, but it wouldn't fit into my "suspect" category either. Everyone has different sensitivities. Has this happened on more than one occasion, or just once? If only once, then chalk it up to drinking on an empty stomach and don't worry about it.

Everything I've read seems to suggest that the negatives of drinking tea are far outweighed by the benefits. If you get a headache, my suggestion is ibuprofen.

tingjunkie wrote:Well it's not top notch by any means, but it wouldn't fit into my "suspect" category either. Everyone has different sensitivities. Has this happened on more than one occasion, or just once? If only once, then chalk it up to drinking on an empty stomach and don't worry about it.

Oh ok, yeah it happened to me three times, but all were on an empty stomach as I usually drink tea first thing in the morning and skip breakfast. I might have a biscuit or something with the tea, but more often than not it's just tea and honey.

ali wrote: Oh ok, yeah it happened to me three times, but all were on an empty stomach as I usually drink tea first thing in the morning and skip breakfast. I might have a biscuit or something with the tea, but more often than not it's just tea and honey.

I really try to avoid drinking strong tea on an empty stomach, even if it means just eating a plain bagel or a steamed bun or something.

Yeah same here but I was thinking Oolong had a lower caffeine content than something like coffee, although I did drink 6 cups. It's just I thought that by using the same leaves 3 times for all 6 cups the amount of caffeine in them would have mostly gone in the first steeping, leaving me with the rest of the 4 cups almost caffeine free.

I agree with a lot of the points that others are making.

I find that low-quality tea (which is not the same as low-price tea) often makes me feel rather crummy, especially if I drink a lot of it. Also, improperly brewed green tea (with too high a brewing temperature) often makes me feel pretty bad. High-quality oolong is probably the type of tea that I can take the most of before I feel any unpleasant effects. But too much of anything can be bad.

With oolong tea, I notice that a single cup tends to be milder on my body than black or green tea of similar-tasting strength. However, if I sit there and make many infusions of an oolong, it can get to be too much.

I think the important thing is to listen to your body. Different people have completely different tolerances to caffeine, as well as to the acidity of tea (all tea is somewhat acidic), and probably to the other chemicals in the tea. It likely depends on what you've eaten and other factors in the tea.

I've found that there's no general rule about how much tea is too much. From my experience, there are some times when I don't even feel like drinking a single cup of tea, whereas there are other times where I can happily drink cup after cup with no adverse effects. It's usually the caffeine that eventually gets to me, but other times my stomach feels off before I notice any adverse effects from the caffeine.

Just stop drinking it if you start feeling like it's too much.

Personally, I have no Idea what you guys are talking about? I have never felt sick from drinking too much tea. I have a pretty good stomach though so it is probably just me.

I usually stop drinking tea when I feel like I have had enough. I don't typically have head or stomach ach's.

fracol wrote:Personally, I have no Idea what you guys are talking about? I have never felt sick from drinking too much tea.

Try drinking 10g of high fire wuyi in a 100ml gaiwan at 6am. That will screw almost anyone up.

tingjunkie wrote:

fracol wrote:Personally, I have no Idea what you guys are talking about? I have never felt sick from drinking too much tea.

Try drinking 10g of high fire wuyi in a 100ml gaiwan at 6am. That will screw almost anyone up.

Haha!

That's what I had for breakfast. Well, except I used a zisha teapot.

I think too much of a good thing is bad, but I drink an insane amount of tea every day. I should probably cut back, but I just don't want to!