Can you drink too much tea?

[Kestrel]

Joe -

I occasionally drink a blenderized drink of frozen strawberries with tea. It makes a nice smoothie. Does that count?

[passerby]

Tea is very good for a person's health as we all know; however, if you have anemia then drinking too much tea can be dangerous. Especially when drunk with meals, tea has been shown to affect the body's ability to absorb iron. Something to keep in mind, but not a significant problem i am sure.

Brian

[Joe]

Kestrel,

I hate strawberries more than I can tell you....actually I'm kind of afraid of them. But your strawberry smoothie thing isn't quite what I'm talking about, but that's okay, I won't hold anything against you. But seriously, you should try some fresh juice first drink of the morning. It's energizing, and gets you ready for the day. after that nothing but tea seems like the way to go. Oh well, I hope you try and enjoy.

[yresim]

Your best bet to avoid caffeine side-effects and still drink as much tea as you want is to re-brew the leaves at least once.

Since most of the caffeine is lost in the first brewing, every other cup you drink will be virtually caffeine-free. So you can drink twice as much tea as your individual caffeine tolerance allows.

The AMH states that moderate caffeine consumption (300 mg, or about 7.5 cups of tea, per day) is not a health concern, provided that one leads a healthy lifestyle. If you are re-brewing the leaves at least once, that means you can drink about 15 cups of tea per day before the AMH thinks you could even start to have problems.

According to medic8.com, if you are drinking more than 10 cups of coffee (~20 cups of tea; 40 if you re-brew) per day, you should seriously consider reducing your consumption:
http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/artic ... feine.html

--------------------------------

People have died from caffeine overdose, but I think that resulted from mixing massive amounts of coffee with caffeine pills. I don't think you can drink too much tea, your body will give you clear signs that you are overdosing on caffeine and you won't want to be drinking anymore once you start to feel them.

The average lethal dose of caffeine is around 10 grams. For the metric-challenged, that's 10,000 mg.

The average cup of tea contains about 40 mg of caffeine.

Thus, the average person would need to drink 250 cups of tea to get a lethal dose. Assuming that it takes 24 hours for the caffeine from the first cup to leave your system (although my experience indicates it is much faster), you would have to drink 10 cups per hour every hour for a day to reach that dosage.

Of course, the problem when working with averages is that they don't apply to everyone. Just like very few people actually have an IQ equal to 100 (the average IQ), very few people will actually have a lethal dose at exactly 10 grams. And most cups of tea will not have exactly 40 mg of caffeine. So 5 cups an hour every hour for 24 hours might do you in.

If you start feeling negative side-effects of caffeine (stomach ache, twitchiness, etc), then, FTLOG, stop.

That said, I used to belong to an organization (which will remain nameless) that distributed caffeine in 1g packets (~25 cups of tea). The only time we ever had a problem was when a young man took 7 of the packets, and combined them with a large quantity of alcohol. He was sent to the hospital after he passed out and was found to have an irregular heartbeat. He survived, thankfully.

--------------------------------

Some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others. I am one of those people that has to ingest a lot of caffeine to notice any effect whatsoever. However, if you have IBS or any condition like that, you will notice stomach aches if you start drinking an inordinate amount of tea.

That doesn't mean that you need to stop drinking tea! Just reduce your quantity of black teas, replacing them with green or white, and be sure to double-brew (you can even triple brew on some teas).

If that's not enough, there are also tisanes (herbal teas), which are great for drinking in between cups of tea. Or you can toss the first brewing (or use decaf tea) to cut down on your caffeine consumption.

[WhiteTeaWizard]

About 80% of the caffeine in tea is released in the first 30 seconds of steeping time. With a minimal loss of flavor you can toss this 30 second water out and then brew up regularly afterward with most of the caffeine gone.

I haven't done this yet, so I can't speak from experience though. Haven't any desire to remove caffeine. I like it!

[Guest]

I drink 2 pots of tea a day and don't have any noticable side affects. Normally it is top qualities- Castleton FTGFOP1 first flush, Gyokuro, Silver Needle, Yin hao,etc. I also have to taste tea for work because I am a tea blender.


D.

[Vector]

can I work where you work?

[conglomo]

Hello, my name is conglomo, and I am a...wait, this isn't a support group! (well, maybe)

I recently told my friends and family that I have a drinking problem and they all looked at me funny. They didn't realize it was possible to have a problem with drinking too much tea, so naturally they thought the worst...but if it is possible, then I'm guilty. I live in Arizona, so it's iced tea or water all day..and since converting to tea a few months ago, water tastes kind of unpleasant without something in it. So at work, I consume at least 6-8 cups of reasonably low quality tea (no lipton or nestea garbage, but the free Keurig instant-cup things my office stocks).

Then I come home, and the binging starts.

First, I brew a batch of black tea. Five tea bags/scoops per batch. It makes about 64 ounces. Being a good Arizona boy, I can handle drinking a half gallon in a few hours. It has consequences, but I won't die when it's 120 degrees out.

Then, a couple hours before bedtime, I need to wind down, so I make a new batch of iced chamomile. I know, taht's not technically tea....

Anyway, I would say that I average at least the equivalent of 15 cups. Yes, I have a drinking problem. But at least it's a healthy one! The caffeine doesn't affect me because I used to do a lot worse with a 44 oz Dr. Pepper each morning, plus whatever I needed throughout the day to maintain my blood sugar after the 11:00 am crash. Bad times. Now I feel healthier, sleep better, and...well, taht's about it. But that's pretty good!

[Vector]

meh, you're a lightweight, I drink it by the liter, and I usually have about 4 to 5 liters per world of warcraft session, which can average to about less than half a day

[reddeer]

I wouldn't worry about the caffeine, but too much tea can have other effects. Pointed out already was it's ability to block the uptake of non-heme iron, so those prone to anemia shouldn't drink too much. And like any plant or animal, tea plants accumulate minerals and other substances, some of which are not so good to get substantial doses of over a long period of time (e.g., manganese, flouride, aluminum). The tannins can also reduce absorption of minerals, which seems like it could ameliorate the effects of the last part I pointed out, but can affect absorption of vitamins and essential minerals that can lead to declining health. This type of effect would be a gradual thing that you might not notice for a long time. Moderation.

[reddeer]

Just a couple other things - too much fluoride can cause skeletal fluorosis, which causes bone and joint damage and is reportedly very painful. I read of a case of this from someone who drank copious amounts of green tea for several years. Also there are kidney stones, from excessive oxalates in the diet. Black teas have a lot of oxalates. Again, try moderation, and lots of plain water between to help flush the system. You'll probably look forward to that cup of tea more if you don't have it quite so much! Don't be afraid - be moderate!

[IPT]

Can one drink too much tea.....

If it was possible, I'd be dead years ago.

So drink up!

[SirBlot]

I had to sign up because I read this on wiki yesterday,

Toxicology

In several studies, application of high concentrations of some brands of bergamot oil directly to the skin was shown to increase redness after exposure to ultraviolet light,[17][18] however this should not apply to ordinary oral consumption of Earl Grey tea. Bergamot is a source of bergamottin which, along with the chemically related compound 6’,7’-dihydroxybergamottin, is believed to be responsible for the grapefruit juice effect in which the consumption of the juice affects the metabolism of a variety of pharmaceutical drugs.[3][19]

In one case study, a patient who consumed 4 litres of Earl Grey tea per day reported muscle cramps, which were attributed to the function of the bergapten in bergamot oil as a potassium channel blocker. The symptoms subsided upon reducing his consumption of Earl Grey tea to 1 litre per day.

... this can have some pretty bad effects on many drugs people take if you read further.

RE: caffeine.. Teas negate the bad effects of caffeine with L-Theanine, esp. green tea.

Sugar and lactose are probably the worst things in Tea, but if you drink without milk or sugar then...

[Dresden]

Everything in moderation.... Including moderation.

Vague enough?

[rabbit]

According to the Death by Caffeine Calculator it would take about 218 cups of tea to kill a 150lb person.