Is Green Tea Addictive? Facts, Benefits, and Caffeine Content

One of the side effects of drinking green tea is that you can easily get addicted to it. The caffeine in green tea makes it addictive, and when regular green tea drinkers do not get their daily cup at the same time, it can leave them weary, lethargic, and irritable and bring down their energy levels instead. Some people may even experience headaches and fatigue until they get their daily quota of three to four cups of green tea.

Caffeine is a highly addictive substance, just like what is found in a cup of coffee. Intake of caffeine on a habitual basis can lead to dependency because of the temporary energy boost that caffeine seems to offer; thus, it is not an ideal food to include in your diet when it comes to eating for energy. This is because caffeine delivers a deceitful sense of energy to the body by blocking adenosine receptors, which tell a person’s body when that person is tired. Caffeine also causes rapid blood sugar fluctuations, which can leave a person feeling more exhausted than ever and showing symptoms of tiredness. It is not right to be dependent on any substance to obtain energy, and since caffeine is addictive, habitual drinkers of green tea at an excessive level may also show withdrawal symptoms, such as headaches, when trying to remove it from their intake.

Although tea leaves contain 3.5% caffeine and coffee beans have 1.1–2.2%, making it seem that tea has higher caffeine than coffee, the process of brewing coffee in hot water makes it extract more of the caffeine from the coffee beans. Also, more coffee beans are used in drinking a cup of coffee than the number of leaves used in drinking a cup of tea, so a cup of brewed coffee generally has more caffeine than a cup of green tea.

However, fret not, as due to the unique component theanine found in green tea, the impact of caffeine is very much regulated so that caffeine jittery after effects do not usually happen with tea as they do with coffee; thus, a cup a day or even three to four cups a day will not get you addicted to it. In fact, it will keep you fit and alert the whole day. In a research study conducted by Skrzydlewska, Ostrowska, Stankiewicz, and Farbiszewski from the Department of Analytical Chemistry, Medical Academy of Bialystok in Bialystok, Poland, green tea prevents the changes observed after ethanol intoxication and diminishes oxidative damage induced by cigarette smoking. Green tea also protects membrane phospholipids from enhanced peroxidation. These results indicate a beneficial effect of green tea on alcohol intoxication.

Green tea contains relatively large amounts of polyphenols, and tea polyphenols comprise mostly catechins and catechin derivatives, which are considered to have antioxidant properties.

How Many Times A Day Do You Drink Tea?

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