Excessive drinking of tea and health issues

[KaiRong]

What is considered to be the "normal" daily tea intake, and what is an excessive one?

I have been drinking Chinese and Japanese teas regularly for five years now. My body can't tolerate coffee, so I drink tea for the daily caffeine intake, and of course for the taste as well However, my girlfriend (Chinese) said that I drink too much tea and it's not a good habit, as according to TCM tea exerts your body, especially your kidney and can cause irreversible damage on thr long term. I understand her reasoning, however I don't think that I drink too much. I usually start the day with a matcha (usucha - for me, 110 ml water with 3 grams of tea works the best), and if I have time to est breakfast at home (which I usually don't do - bad habit, I know) I also drink a sencha, gyokuro, Longjing or other milder Chinese green after the matcha, brewed for four/five times (let's calculate with half litre in total). In the office I only have time for a quick green after lunch, prepared in a very Western way (0.35 litre of water with 4 grams of green brewed twice). If I have to work overtime or prepare for some exams, presentations, etc. I tend to drink a roasted oolong or shu puerh late evening. So I drink a little more than a litre of tea every day, accompanied by 2-2.5 litre of water. I hate Coke, sweetened juices, sodas, etc., so my fluid intake consist only of tea and water.
What do you think about it? How much tea do you drink on a daily basis?

[mcrdotcom]

It seems every enjoyable beverage or food in this life has a downside!

I don't think you drink very potent tea by your parameters, and I know plenty of people drink that or more tea daily (including myself at times). I think you should enjoy tea as part of a healthy life style, get checked by the doctor at regular intervals and if they don't notice anything wrong, don't change anything

[Bok]

What’s to say? Life is deadly!

Drinking tea is still a lot better than smoking, alcohol or sugar!

And as long as you don’t save on the tea and buy cheap ones, it should be not an issue. Maybe you throw in a few slightly more oxidized teas, like oolongs or even roasted ones. they tend to be easier on the stomach than the raw greens. In Taiwan a lot of (old)people swear on aged oolong for keeping one healthy til old age, expensive though… That guy I was talking to had a huuuuuge pot every day, must have been different prices back in the days, well, and he owns a teashop

[jayinhk]

I drink 4-8g of Japanese sencha every day, along with assorted other teas (usually two Chinese or Taiwanese ones). I dunno about negative effects, but sencha has got my belly fat moving like nothing else...

[john.b]

This is a subject I've been considering lately, how much tea is too much. What I drink varies but it's often two or three infusion cycles of several grams of tea each time, so maybe around 10 substantial size cups of tea a day, with the weekly average per-day consumption a good bit less than that, based on roughly 10 ounces of loose tea.

It's a good bit of tea. It's not enough that it should be dangerous, I wouldn't think, combined with consuming water, but I'm not sure what the threshold is. I've not even heard anyone speculate about that. You see those articles on people that drink crazy amounts of tea, triple that, and their kidneys do start to fail, but I'm not sure what happens in the middle.

[kyarazen]

What’s to say? Life is deadly!

Drinking tea is still a lot better than smoking, alcohol or sugar!

And as long as you don’t save on the tea and buy cheap ones, it should be not an issue. Maybe you throw in a few slightly more oxidized teas, like oolongs or even roasted ones. they tend to be easier on the stomach than the raw greens. In Taiwan a lot of (old)people swear on aged oolong for keeping one healthy til old age, expensive though… That guy I was talking to had a huuuuuge pot every day, must have been different prices back in the days, well, and he owns a teashop

no single solution for all human beings, different people have different states of health.

[cain1983]

I've had people in Taiwan tell me that as well. Every time they are only referring to the bubble tea and iced teas sold in the tea shops all around. They're actually usually worried about the sugar intake. No one has ever mentioned drinking too much non-sweetened loose leaf teas as a problem to me and I drink probably between 10 and 20g of loose leaf tea a day.

[chingwa]

There can certainly be caffeine related issues that go along with constant tea drinking. I've wrestled with my own sensitivity for a couple years. It's also possible it can interfere with digestion and mineral/vitamin absorption, as well as building a mild addiction. It will also stain your teeth

So, as the saying goes, Everything in Moderation. (especially moderation!)

[Tead Off]

What is considered to be the "normal" daily tea intake, and what is an excessive one?

I have been drinking Chinese and Japanese teas regularly for five years now. My body can't tolerate coffee, so I drink tea for the daily caffeine intake, and of course for the taste as well However, my girlfriend (Chinese) said that I drink too much tea and it's not a good habit, as according to TCM tea exerts your body, especially your kidney and can cause irreversible damage on thr long term. I understand her reasoning, however I don't think that I drink too much. I usually start the day with a matcha (usucha - for me, 110 ml water with 3 grams of tea works the best), and if I have time to est breakfast at home (which I usually don't do - bad habit, I know) I also drink a sencha, gyokuro, Longjing or other milder Chinese green after the matcha, brewed for four/five times (let's calculate with half litre in total). In the office I only have time for a quick green after lunch, prepared in a very Western way (0.35 litre of water with 4 grams of green brewed twice). If I have to work overtime or prepare for some exams, presentations, etc. I tend to drink a roasted oolong or shu puerh late evening. So I drink a little more than a litre of tea every day, accompanied by 2-2.5 litre of water. I hate Coke, sweetened juices, sodas, etc., so my fluid intake consist only of tea and water.
What do you think about it? How much tea do you drink on a daily basis?

Many people report severe gastric problems with green teas. It's a known irritant. You've probably read on Teachat that a number of green tea drinkers have become nauseated after drinking matcha or green tea on an empty stomach. It's happened to me numerous times. One time, I passed out after having a sencha on an empty stomach. I woke up in a pool of blood. I needed 11 stitches on my head to close the wound. Needless to say, I became very aware of what and how I was drinking tea.

Granted, mine was an extreme case, but many people drink neurotically. Tea becomes something more than just a beverage. It becomes fetishistic, compulsive, and a form of escape. Substituting water for tea drinking during the day can be very beneficial to your health.

[xabi]

Hi there!

I agree with others that the potential health issues depend on the particularities of one's health condition. I have seen many kinds of people who seem to be able take large amounts and various kinds of (high quality) tea in one day.

In my case, i suffer a bit of an irritable bowel, although I have been drinking tea for a long time knowing that it is not completely good for my bowel (but it is certainly better than coffee). When I lived in US/Europe/Japan, I drunk mostly commercial blacks (red) and Japanese sencha/gyokuro. Over the past few years, in China/Taiwan, i switched to oolong and pu-erh (both sheng and shu).

For about a year, I was on a daily session of shu plus two more sessions of oolong/green/white. With such a high intake, I started having regular digestive trouble and had to decrease the dose to two sessions daily. Lately, I am down to one solo session per day (in the morning, after breakfast and never on an empty stomach), although some days i dare to have two or more if there are people joining in.

I stopped drinking my daily shu because the more I got into tea and tea culture, the more serious concerns I started to have about the way this tea is produced and its long term health effects. Although it is possible find relatively clean shu, it is not so affordable/easy to come by.

However, as I grow older, i noticed that it has gotten harder for me to drink very green stuff. And it is hard to find good aged pu-erh that you can drink everyday... At this rate, I worry whether the only tea my system will be able to tolerate are fairly oxidized oolongs, with occasionally some aged sheng and clean shu, as well as red and green/sheng thrown into the mix, to break the oolong diet...

[gaaah]

I discovered whole leaf teas about a decade ago and was drinking quite regularly until recently.

I tend to like the 1st flush Darjeelings, Dian Hong, Tie Guan Yin, Bai Mu Dan, and anything naturally floral or fruity. The greens I take unsweetened occasionally when I feel I must moderate, but oolongs and blacks I sweeten big time --say 6 teaspoons of honey per the 16 oz I drink per day. (BTW, talking of floral, be sure to try a white Darjeeling, yes white.)

And that's what I think is overlooked here: the sugar. They're recommending your average 150-lb person consume no more than 9 teaspoons added sugar per day, so I'm getting over 2/3 of my sugar from one cup. So that's one health concern.

Another is the extra psychoactive compounds in tea, other than caffeine. Yes, I get an energy boost from the caffeine and sugar, but unlike coffee, I get this wonderful centered high and mental clarity. I just want to love everyone. Then, like any drug addict will tell you, you keep on taking just to maintain normal. A price I pay is constipation. I tend to overeat at this point as well. When I stop drinking, I come down: I feel listless, indifferent, unmotivated and otherwise mentally dead for about three days.

So really, as much as I love tea, I'm much more even-keel (and regular) without it. I mentioned this to a cousin (who was much more familiar with my kin going way back) and she said "Tea? Oh, we drink that only when we're sick." So maybe there's a genetic element in play as well. (I'm of Czech ancestry.) Still, I can't help but indulge once every week or so.

Tea also inhibits your absorption of iron. You won't hear about this unless you search for it. All the more reason to eat a lot more chocolate.

[Bok]

I discovered whole leaf teas about a decade ago and was drinking quite regularly until recently.

I tend to like the 1st flush Darjeelings, Dian Hong, Tie Guan Yin, Bai Mu Dan, and anything naturally floral or fruity. The greens I take unsweetened occasionally when I feel I must moderate, but oolongs and blacks I sweeten big time --say 6 teaspoons of honey per the 16 oz I drink per day. (BTW, talking of floral, be sure to try a white Darjeeling, yes white.)

And that's what I think is overlooked here: the sugar. They're recommending your average 150-lb person consume no more than 9 teaspoons added sugar per day, so I'm getting over 2/3 of my sugar from one cup. So that's one health concern.

Another is the extra psychoactive compounds in tea, other than caffeine. Yes, I get an energy boost from the caffeine and sugar, but unlike coffee, I get this wonderful centered high and mental clarity. I just want to love everyone. Then, like any drug addict will tell you, you keep on taking just to maintain normal. A price I pay is constipation. I tend to overeat at this point as well. When I stop drinking, I come down: I feel listless, indifferent, unmotivated and otherwise mentally dead for about three days.

So really, as much as I love tea, I'm much more even-keel (and regular) without it. I mentioned this to a cousin (who was much more familiar with my kin going way back) and she said "Tea? Oh, we drink that only when we're sick." So maybe there's a genetic element in play as well. (I'm of Czech ancestry.) Still, I can't help but indulge once every week or so.

Tea also inhibits your absorption of iron. You won't hear about this unless you search for it. All the more reason to eat a lot more chocolate.

Well I guess around here the sugar is not overlooked- it is simply not added! I doubt many of the frequent chatters will add anything to their teas... for me sugar only has a place in the likes of Turkish cai or other Samowar prepared teas. Only bad or average tea can be improved by milk and sugar, good tea just gets ruined and is too expensive to add anything! But then different people, different tastes...

[john.b]

I got around to doing a research oriented post on the effects and limits of caffeine last month, related to this subject:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.co ... feine.html


There isn't really one standard limit for caffeine intake since people's natural tolerance varies but the guideline limit typically referred to seems to be around 400 mg per day. The amount of caffeine in a cup of tea also varies by lots of factors, but the general typical range would be 30-40 mg per cup, so ten cups of tea a day should still be on the right side of that limit (with that implying Western style brewing and consumption, but it could be translated to other forms).

Since I posted on this same thread last year I've cut back a little to stay on the safer side related to that, to typically less than 10 cups a day. I suspected some fatigue issues I was experiencing could have related to overdoing it with consistent long-term tea drinking, specifically related to caffeine consumption.

But then all of that could be way off, really; any studies making any general claims are few and far between. I cited what did turn up in that, some interesting input, but even if it's completely accurate (as much as that even makes sense). It's my impression that people vary a lot related to tolerance and effects, and that people tend to not build up a tolerance to the same degree they do to other drugs. I'm not completely convinced there aren't long term effects related to Theanine, but there is next to nothing easy to turn up about that, so I'd have no guess if that would be positive, negative, varied by person, or most typically inconsequential.

There was a good study cited about the effects of withdrawal in that post, and for what it's worth dependency is easy to get started, on very little caffeine intake over a relatively short period of time. The most interesting point about negative effects, to me, was that aside from anxiety or typical sleep problems--insomnia--it's possible that caffeine intake could throw off the normal REM / sleep cycle patterns, without disrupting time spent sleeping. There could be relatively serious side effects even without an obvious cause.

[gaaah]

Well I guess around here the sugar is not overlooked- it is simply not added! I doubt many of the frequent chatters will add anything to their teas... for me sugar only has a place in the likes of Turkish cai or other Samowar prepared teas. Only bad or average tea can be improved by milk and sugar, good tea just gets ruined and is too expensive to add anything! But then different people, different tastes...

Sugar use would make for an interesting survey. I was trying to confirm what you said searching the posts for "sugar" and didn't find much, which is probably confirmation enough. Sugar or honey --always in my tea since childhood, so it's a habit that's difficult to shake. Plus I'm down south. It's often in place of dessert.

[Bok]

Sugar or honey --always in my tea since childhood, so it's a habit that's difficult to shake. Plus I'm down south. It's often in place of dessert.

As you say it’s a habit. I guess most Westerners are used to have tea with at least some sugar and/or milk. Once you stop there is no way of going back! With coffee as well. The thought of sugar in either of them makes me gag and I used to have at least a spoon in my espresso! Habits…

The more important point for me is that sugar alters the whole flavour profile, most high quality teas are simply ruined by sugar, in the end you could drink anything it wouldn’t matter much if it is a tetley tea bag or Ruby N.18…