How Much Green Tea Should You Drink Per Day?

by Miguel A. Leon
(Valencia, Spain)

I heard that the benefits of green tea can be perceived only if you drink such amount as one liter per day, but otherwise I read about the risk of anemia.

I am mostly vegetarian, so how much tea is advisable in my case?

Answer:

Miguel, the most important measure of tea's health benefits is the amount of catechins you are ingesting, and not the widely quoted number of cups.

This is because scientists have found that the antioxidant potential of green tea correlates mostly highly with its catechins content.

The problem, of course, is most green teas sold in the West are tea bags, not loose-leaf, and so contain little antioxidants.

If you are drinking a quality green tea, in loose-leaf form, you only need to drink 3 to 6 cups a day.

I will suggest you start with 3 cups.

Anemia is something long term tea drinkers get used to (see link below). That's why I suggest to start slowly.

Avoid drinking tea with meals. In-between meals are recommended.

Green Tea and Anaemia

This means 3 grams of leaves infuse 3 times.

One gram of leaves would probably yield 10% catechins, giving you 300 milligrams of catechins a day, which is enough for most people.

This is assuming you are drinking a quality tea produced in China or Japan.

How do you know which tea is giving you health benefits?

It will be difficult to chemical test the product. Few farmers have the resources to conduct chemical testings. Tea quality is dependent on soil, climate and storage.

For this, I would recommend you look at the richness of flavors and how you feel afterwards.

Also, avoid flavored teas because they prevent you to taste teas "as it is" and they are usually made from poorer quality leaves.

Further information can be found at

How Much Green Tea to Drink for Health Benefits?

I hope this helps.

Julian

Green Tea Health Benefits - How Many Cups Are Enough?

I have read that 4 to 9 cups of green tea is needed on a daily basis for health benefits. Does this mean 4 to 9 8oz cups, each with a teabag in it? Or does one 16oz cup with 1 bag count as two?

Answer:

The thing that really matters is the antioxidant content, not the number of cups. The higher the tea quality, the less you need to drink.

The highest quality tea are those young tea buds harvested during a short window of 6 weeks in spring. Numerous scientific studies have shown that 1 gram of such tea buds contain 100 milligrams of antioxidants or more.

3 grams can be infused 3 times to make 3 cups of tea. In other words, if you are drinking quality, 3 cups will give you 300 milligrams of antioxidants.

Now, this is equivalent to the amount of antioxidants found in 1.5 liters of red wine and 3 kilograms of apples!

So in summary, if you drink quality, 3 cups of tea buds per day will be sufficient.

Also, like all things in life, green tea is best consumed in moderation. This will protect you from the side effects of drinking green tea.

Many tea sellers claim that you need to drink many cups of green tea to benefit from it. This is not true, as scientific studies have shown that even a couple of cups of green tea a day can make a difference.

Check out some findings at the bottom of this page:

Green Tea Cancer Benefit -
Unproven And Yet Valuable?

In conclusion, the best strategy is to seek out the highest quality tea leaves and drink in moderation.

You should notice that these tea leaves taste good, look good and feel good. You will feel refreshed and energized all day long. There should be no guess work as to whether the green tea is working.

Please click on the following links to see which teas are my top recommendations:

Amazing Green Tea Shop - Directly from the Source

I hope this helps.

Julian

Green Tea Diet Weight Loss - How Much To Drink?

by Anonymous

How much Green Tea should one drink per day for the best affects of weight loss such as 2 or 3 cups? Also, is it better to drink the tea alone or during the time you are eating? Thanks so much.

Answer:

There is no easy answer as to how much green tea to drink. Generally speaking, the higher your tea quality, the less you need to drink. This is because higher quality tea contains higher amount of EGCG and caffeine which has been shown to promote various weight loss effects, of which fat burning and fast metabolism have been found to be particularly significant.

In the following article, I concluded (as a layman would) from various green tea human trials conducted so far that an effective dosage of EGCG is 300 to 700 milligrams per day, with the lower end requiring significant amount of caffeine. This level of recommendation is no different from other sources when consuming green tea for general health purposes.

Green Tea Extract Weight Loss

The question is, how much does each cup of green tea contain?

The answer really varies. For high quality loose green tea, you are talking about 100 milligrams per gram. That means 3 grams of tea leaves multiple-infused 3 times (i.e. 3 cups) will give you 300 milligrams. 3 to 6 cups a day will do the job.

(This is what Ellen did when she lost 25 pounds in 6 months, and still do.)

Green Tea Burn Calories - How I Lost 25 Pounds In 6 Months

Different types of loose tea will do different things. Those harvested earliest in spring (i.e. the highest grade) will contain a lot more EGCG and caffeine than a late harvest. But you have to factor in the price. A high quality Dragon well green tea will be better than Sencha, which is harvested later, but will cost more.

Dragon Well tea - Best In the World?

Which loose green tea you choose to drink is a matter of personal choice. The thing to remember is not to fall into the classic consumer trap of buying flavoured teas, decaffeinated teas (unless CO2 decaf) or instant or bottled green tea. As this article shows, EGCG content can be as low as 10% of loose green tea if you drink the wrong type of tea.

Healthiest Green Tea - What Brands Rather You Not Know

I would also avoid teabags as EGCG is a highly active antioxidant, and when leaves are broken into small pieces and packed into teabag, EGCG doesn't keep for long.

To give you an example on how vulnerable EGCG is, HQ's Dragon Well tea is packed in airtight bag and kept in a freezer straightafter harvesting. If his loose tea were to expose to ambient, it would lose its favours in just 2 months.

So the short answer to your question is 3 to 6 cups (or 3 to 6 grams) of high quality loose green tea, and much more if you are drinking lower quality tea.

Drinking green tea with meals is done in human trials and have been found to help weight loss. My guess is that it helps to block nutrient absorption and may also neutralise any free radicals that may be generated during the digestion process (as it has been found that eating red meat with wine is good for health).

My only concern is that green tea does upset the stomach and if that is a concern, it probably makes more sense to complement your meal with an oolong tea (especially a more oxidised variety), which is more soothing to the stomach.

This is usually done in Southern China, where people drink jasmine tea or oolong tea with their meals.

In addition, oolong tea has been discovered to help fat excretion and also promote other weight loss effects.

Oolong Tea Weight Loss

My daily routine consists of 3 to 6 cups of green tea in the morning plus oolong tea later in the day (usually with a meal), together with a low fat diet and regular fruit juices.

Hope it helps.

Julian

How Much Tea Leaves To Use For Maximum Health?

by Matt
(Italy)

When several studies suggest that to reach health benefits we should drink more than four cups of green tea every day, does it mean that for each cup we have to use new leaves or is it enough a multiple infusion of the same leaves?

Thank you again.

Answer:

Matt, a lot of health benefits studies were conducted in Asia, where the people drink loose green tea and makes 3 infusion out of the same leaves.

The most important consumers can rely on for health benefits are their taste buds. If the tea tastes rich and flavourful, chances are there are nutrients.

This is because caffeine tastes bitter, catechins taste astringent, and theanine - the most prized chemicals of green tea that is the most closely correlated with its quality - tastes unami, which may be described as along the line of brothy, fresh, sweet and lively.

Hope this helps.

How Much Green Tea to Drink for Health Benefits?

by Claude

I want to try to lose some weight the healthy way and I read to drink green tea..but don't know how much is enough...hope to hear from you soon :)

Answer:

Hey, various weight loss studies using green tea generally found that you need to consume 300 to 700 milligrams of EGCG, preferably with caffeine, to have the desired slimming effect.

How much green tea you need to drink obviously depend on the quality of the tea. The higher the tea quality, the less you need to drink (say only 3 to 6 cups a day), the more you enjoy the beverage.

Further information on tea dieting can be found at

Green Tea Diet

and the different types of tea beverage at

Green Tea Beverage Brands

Hope it helps, and thank you for visiting :)

Julian

Green Tea, Fat Burning and Dosage

Hi, I have Now Foods Green Tea where 1 400mg capsule contains a minimum of 99% Total Polyphenols, 80% Total Catechins, and 50% EGCg.

As I have seen the capsule formulation for weight loss is not as good as they say, I want to use natural green tea like yours, but I don't know which grade contains how much polyphenols, EGCg and Catechins.

Jipin Grade 50 grams Sampler
Golden Wizard

What ingredients per 1 gram this tea has?

Is 1 gram of Golden Wizard like about 2.5 capsules?

I want to take 400mg of Green Tea daily that means I will use about 0.5 Grams of yours Tea? Or there is another measurement?

I'm interesting in weight loss. If you have any recommendations, can you tell me?

Answer:

Jim, thank you for your question. I will try to help the best I can.

The Golden Wizard is an oolong tea, so it is probably not what you want.

I understand you are looking to consume the equal of about 400 milligrams of green tea extract for weight loss.

For high grade green tea, the rough rule of thumb is that 1 gram contains approximately 10% antioxidants - about 100 milligrams.

So the equal of 400 milligrams of catechins is about 4 grams of tea leaves per day.

This is a rough guide, higher grades harvested early in the season, which have richer taste, will contain more antioxidants.

This is because the Chinese and Japanese scientists have long discovered that the youngest tea buds contain the highest concentration of catechins and caffeine - both compounds are very good at promoting weight loss.

I can recommend three green teas for you to experiment:

Tribute Dragon Well tea - this green tea comes directly from a tea garden serving the Chinese White House... very classy and popular. Past customers have found it promotes weight loss.

Dragon Well Tea (Longjing) - Finally! World's Best Green Tea
Revealed

Zhejiang Biluochun - this green tea has very tender tea buds - known to be very rich in catechins and thus good for weight loss.

Biluochun Tea (Piluochun) - Introducing Zhejiang AAA Grade

Yellow Mountain tea - this green tea is lower budget and is harvested later. But it is good for beginners because it comes pre-packed (3 grams each). A good starting point. Will also have weight loss effects.

The 2009 crop has not been harvested yet and will only be ready to ship end of this month.

Huangshan Maofeng Everyday Grade
(Yellow Mountain Tea) - Could You Have Guessed?

My suggestion is that you get yourself any one of the above three teas and start enjoying it.

Learn to recognise green tea's rich favors (because they are a sign of quality signalling the presence of catechins and antioxidants).

Over time, you should feel more energy. Weight loss and fat burning would also come with other health benefits.

I hope this helps.

Julian

How Much Is "One Cup of Tea"?

by Imi

I have problems with my digestion after drinking green/white tea. I used to drink 1 liter per day for 3 weeks.

Now I read that you recommend 3-6 cups as totally sufficient, but how much is one cup??

Greets

ImI

Answer:

ImI, the 3 to 6 cups recommendation for green/white tea usually refers to an 8 ounce cup, about 250 millimeters.

When drinking a quality loose green tea, this usually goes with 3 grams of leaves, which would yield (depending on the quality of tea leaves) about 10% antioxidants.

Infused over 3 times, this comes up to about 300 milligrams of antioxidants.

This is a standard recommendation. The actual brewing wiil depend on the type of tea. Many Chinese practioner recommends a ratio of 1 to 50 i.e. 3 grams of leaves to 150 millimeters, or 5 ounce cup. Personally I found this too much leaves, too little water.

You need only to drink a smaller of amount of higher quality tea leaves, as they have greater durability (infused many times) and taste flavorful and fresh.

I hope this helps.

Julian

Bottled Green Tea - Lipton - Have Too Much?

by Alica
(Memphis, TN)

I have been drinking between 33 and 67 ounces of green tea for the past couple days. Is that too much? It is between 2 and 4 bottles of Lipton's Green Tea with citrus at 16.9 oz each.

Answer:

Alica, most official guidelines recommend drinking 3 to 6 cups of green tea a day, where 1 cup is 8 ounces. So what you have is not excessive.

My only concern is that you are drinking bottled green tea - high processed containing little health benefits.

Bottled Green Tea and Canned Drinks - Why More Harmful Than Healthy

The risks of drinking highly processed green tea is illustrated by the extreme example of this Lipton Iced Tea real life case study:

Fluoride in Green Tea - Danger in Lipton Instant Iced Tea!

Too Much Green Tea

by Wayne

I drink 2 litres of bottled green tea daily. Is that too much?

Answer:

2 litres of tea is roughly equal to 8 to 10 normal size cups a day. This is not unusual for a seasoned tea drinker (their bodies have adjusted to it), and I myself do drink that much daily. So the number of cups are fine, but it is the quality of green tea that I have a concern.

Bottled green tea can contain a lot of chemicals and quite little nutrients. Drinking too much can also lead to too much caffeine and fluroide.

Have a read at the Healthiest Green Tea article, and also Shen's article on Green Tea Energy Drinks.

Drinking 2 litres is not a concern as long as you are drinking quality, such as a good loose tea.