Tea Guardian: How many cups of tea can I drink each day?

How many cups of tea can I drink each day?

Dr John Weisburger drinks 8 cups of tea a day. He specifies them to be green tea. He is President Emeritus for Research of American Health Foundation and is now 90 years of age. Dr Marvin Edeas, President of International Society of Antioxidants in Nutrition and Health, recommends 6. Some cohort studies in the health effects of tea conclude that even 2 cups a day makes some difference.

Indeed, the quantity of intake is proportional to how likely one is benefit from tea. However, it is rather the amount of quality tealeaves one consumes that matter, because the quantity of salutary substances in tea, such as tea polyphenols and L-theanine, is related to the quality as well as the amount of tealeaves, not how many cups of tea. Studies show that their health benefits is proportional to the natural quantity intake. The more the merrier.

The upper limits of consumption is rather tied to the safety amount of caffeine and fluorides your body condition allow, as we have discussed in the respective pages in this site.

To recap here, for fluorides safety, as long as you are using finer loose leaf teas rather than those from instant mixes, regular teabags, ready-to-drinks, or low quality compressed tea etc, you are pretty safe.

The pregnant woman, who should avoid excessive caffeine to prevent the baby from underweight, should keep to 6 x 220 ml cups, or about 9 x 150 ml cups. That is to say she is not excessive in chocolate, cola drinks, energy drinks etc, and avoid coffee. (refer to the caffeine page)

In terms of tealeaves amount, that is 13 g of tealeaves for the pregnant woman and double that for the 'average' person, with plenty of safety bracket.

Many people who are not allergic to caffeine, or those who use tea quality naturally lower in caffeine, actually use a lot more tea a day.

My advise is, as with a balance in the diet, it is much more beneficial to use teas from a couple of categories of tea a day, and prepare some lighter infusion, as in the USDA or FSA (UK) surveys, 1 g to 100 ml, or even lighter, if you feel thirsty. But prepare a round or two (or more, like I do) of stronger ones, 2 g to 100 ml (or stronger, like I do). As long as you keep to the amount of tealeaves used each day, and the quality is not that bad, you can benefit pretty well from this Nature's greatest gift.