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You hate coffee or can’t stomach it? Or maybe you like it but get the jitters after just one cup?
How about tea then?
Coffee’s arch-rival is the most popular drink worldwide after water, and it (still) rules the roost in regions like Asia. Indeed, from Riyadh to Vladivostok, through Istanbul, Isfahan or Islamabad, tea is social glue no. 1, and its therapeutic virtues have been praised for millennia.
On other continents, its status is more contentious. For the Irish or the English, there is nothing quite like a “nice cuppa” to cure anything – from a tummy ache to a broken heart. In contrast, older French people won’t touch the stuff with a barge pole, unless they are seriously ill… and you will struggle to find a decent cup of tea in the Italian provinces.
So, what’s the deal with tea? Can it take on coffee when it comes to health and longevity claims? Or is its “panacea” reputation more folklore than hard science?
Before plunging into the potential health benefits of tea, we should emphasise that the overall picture is muddied by several factors.
First and foremost, whether labelled as green, yellow, white, oolong, pu-erh, lapsang souchong or regular black tea, the fact is that most tea varieties stem from the same “camellia sinensis” shrub. However, their geographical origins, the particular blend of leaves, their processing – through e.g. drying, oxidising or fermenting – may have a significant influence on the type, amount and bioavailability of their potentially healthy compounds. And that is without going into popular additions such as (non-)dairy products, lemon, sugar or spices, which may further complicate the issue.
Irrespective of their colour or processing method though, the dominant biochemical compounds in tea are (poly)phenols. These come mainly in the shape of flavonoids that are distributed in varying amounts due to the processing style that, in turn, affects the colour spectrum. While all teas contain tannins (black tea has the most), catechins are mainly found in green and pu-erh tea, teaghrelins in oolong tea, and thearubigins and theaflavins in oolong and black tea. Additionally, tea contains smaller amounts of other flavonoids such as quercetin, myricetin, rutin and kaempferol. While all these polyphenols account for varying degrees of bitterness and/or astringency in your favourite cuppa, their main contribution is their antioxidant properties that help the body fight the free radicals that foster ageing and disease.
Polyamines such as spermine and spermidine are another class of healthy substances found in tea that promote cell growth, proliferation, and overall cellular health. Here it is green tea that takes the crown, especially when it is processed as matcha powder. In this case, because the whole leaf is ground and prepared as a suspension – instead of the steeping method used in standard tea preparation – overall nutrient levels are considerably higher than in other teas. This of course includes a significant amount of controversial “star catechin” epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), famed for e.g., reducing inflammation or promoting weight-loss, but suspected of provoking liver and kidney damage when ingested in high amounts – especially via supplements.
So, should you just go for regular green tea?
Well, it is too early to tell… Until now, there has been more research on the benefits of green tea based on East-Asian cohorts, who traditionally prepare local teas in more homogeneous ways than in other regions of the world. But research on black tea is slowly catching up, while research on other varieties is still in its infancy.
But, whatever its colour, in (until now mostly) animal studies, tea’s high phenol content appears to make it a significant longevity promoter by potentially fighting cellular and organismal ageing, through autophagy, reduced inflammaging, as well as the modulation of both the immune system and the gut microbiome.
Moreover, human studies have shown that green tea’s strengths lie in cancer prevention, oral and brain health as well as blood sugar management. Emergent results for black tea highlight its importance for heart and gut health as well as stroke prevention.
Does that mean you should be drinking tea all day long to reap the most benefits?
Well, like coffee, tea is also considered a psychoactive stimulant due to its caffeine, theobromine and theophylline content. So, some caution should be exercised. Tea, however, has much less of the former but more of the latter two substances − making it more appealing to individuals sensitive to caffeine. Also, the amino acid l-theanine contained in tea can, to some extent, counterbalance the effects of caffeine since it is known for its relaxing influence on neurotransmitters in the brain – without causing drowsiness.
This could make tea a better choice for people seeking a milder but more sustained attention and productivity booster. But as with coffee, you may want to reduce your consumption towards the end of the day to avoid jeopardising your sleep!
Finally, we come to the million-dollar question: is tea generally healthier than coffee?
Well, science is still on the fence about the respective benefits of the two most popular hot beverages.
The most obvious reason is that they are hard to compare. Indeed, since it remains difficult to compare the respective benefits of various teas, it makes it even harder to compare tea (which tea?) with coffee. Moreover, factors such as amount, gender, age and overall health (or individual biology) make the design of longitudinal comparative studies a particular challenge. And, as if this were not enough, local or individual preparation and consumption style variables, not to mention the parallel consumption of both beverages further complicate the endeavour…
Hence, we would advise you to be adventurous and test the short- and long-term effects of these popular drinks for yourself but, above all, listen to your taste buds as well as your body’s other cues!
And if neither tea nor coffee does it for you, you can always experiment with another popular Asian tradition: drinking a nice cup of hot water…
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Sources and further reading
“List of countries by tea consumption per capita”. Wikipedia. 2016. Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consumption_per_capita
Gerden, Eugene. “The French Tea Sector Moves Toward Premiumization”. World Tea News, 28.10.2024. https://www.worldteanews.com/supply-chain/french-tea-sector-moves-toward-premiumization
“Tea”. Wikipedia.Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea
“Tea processing”. Wikipedia. Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_processing
Fairbank, Rachel. “Why tea drinkers live longer”. National Geographic. January 9, 2025. Online: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-tea-affects-body
“Tea”. The Nutrition Source / Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Last reviewed April 2023. Online: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/food-features/tea/
O'Brien, Sharon. “Green Tea vs Black Tea: Which One Is Healthier?”. Healthline, Nov 4, 2024. Online: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/green-tea-vs-black-tea
Kodagoda, Gethmini & Wickramasinghe, Indira. (2017). “Health benefits of Green and Black Tea: A Review”. International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science. 4. 107-112. doi:10.22161/ijaers.4.7.16. Online : https://ijaers.com/detail/health-benefits-of-green-and-black-tea-a-review/
EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food (ANS); Younes M, Aggett P, Aguilar F, Crebelli R, Dusemund B, Filipič M, Frutos MJ, Galtier P, Gott D, Gundert-Remy U, Lambré C, Leblanc JC, Lillegaard IT, Moldeus P, Mortensen A, Oskarsson A, Stankovic I, Waalkens-Berendsen I, Woutersen RA, Andrade RJ, Fortes C, Mosesso P, Restani P, Arcella D, Pizzo F, Smeraldi C, Wright M. Scientific opinion on the safety of green tea catechins. EFSA J.2018 Apr 18;16(4):e05239. doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5239. Online: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7009618/
Gunnars, Chris. “4 Stimulants in Tea — More Than Just Caffeine”. Healthline. Written Apr 4, 2022 and updated April 18th 2023. Online: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stimulants-in-tea#TOC_TITLE_HDR_6
Sharma, Rohit, Diwan, Bhawna. “An update on healthspan and lifespan enhancing attributes of tea amidst the emerging understanding of aging biology”. Human Nutrition & Metabolism, Volume 28, 2022, 200149. doi:10.1016/j.hnm.2022.200149. Online: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666149722000123
Xiang Y, Xu H, Chen H, Tang D, Huang Z, Zhang Y, Wang Z, Wang Z, Yangla, Han M, Yin J, Xiao X, Zhao X. “Tea consumption and attenuation of biological aging: a longitudinal analysis from two cohort studies”. Lancet Reg Health West Pac. 2023 Nov22;42:100955. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100955. Online: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10700389/
Inoue-Choi M, Ramirez Y, Cornelis MC, Berrington de González A, Freedman ND, Loftfield E. “Tea Consumption and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in the UK Biobank : A Prospective Cohort Study”. Ann Intern Med. 2022 Sep;175(9):1201-1211. doi: 10.7326/M22-0041. Epub 2022 Aug 30. Erratum in: Ann Intern Med. 2023 Jun;176(6):882. doi: 10.7326/L23-0138. Online: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10623338/
Tian, W., Zhang, Y., Wang, S. et al. “Association of tea consumption with life expectancy in US adults”. Nutr J 23, 148 (2024). doi:10.1186/s12937-024-01054-9. Online: https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937-024-01054-9#citeas
Van den Brandt PA. „Coffee or Tea? A prospective cohort study on the associations of coffee and tea intake with overall and cause-specific mortality in men versus women”. Eur J Epidemiol. 2018 Feb;33(2):183-200. doi:10.1007/s10654-018-0359-y. Online: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5871637/
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