#cafix

A long-time patient asked me today if I had any advice about making the switch from coffee to tea, and I realized, wow I have a lot of passion on this topic, so here goes: 

Making the Switch from Coffee to Tea

First up: Why ever would you want to do this?

Good question, incredulous person! You’re rarely going to find me being dogmatic about anything, and this is no exception. Coffee has pros and cons, and whether it’s net positive or negative has everything to do with you - your own biology, taste buds and preferences. There are plenty of studies that toot coffee’s benefits - like reducing your risk of dying from any cause (A review on the topic is here - Je & Giovannucci 2014), so don’t make the switch because you believe tea is “better”. It’s different. It has different advantages and disadvantages. Tea also has plenty of documented health benefits like high levels of antioxidants, as well as anti-inflammatory, nerve cell building and anti-cancer properties (Hayat et. al 2015). 

So here’s why you might want to do so - 

1. You experience a fair amount of anxiety

2. You have sleep issues

3. You get irritable or jittery with coffee

4. You want to experience a wide new world!

What’s the difference between coffee and tea (besides taste)

1. Coffee has more caffeine per cup (63mg for espresso - 95-200mg for drip coffee) than even the most caffeinated tea (~40mg, but this ranges). This can lead to increased anxiety, sleep issues and jitteriness. 

2. Coffee can be a harsher experience of caffeine, even mg to mg than tea - this is because tea also contains other phytonutrients like l-theanine, a natural calming compound, that buffers the effects of the caffeine

So if you’ve decided you want to make the switch, or you’re just interested in a broader experience of tea drinking, read on.

A brief overview of Tea 

Tea is a broad category of beverages that involve steeping some herbal/plant/fruity component in water, usually hot water, but sometimes we cold steep tea. There are as many types of tea are there are types of plant-components you can toss into hot water - and that’s a boatload. Thousands.

However, when we say “Tea” and don’t specify, we mean the beverage produced by steeping the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant (an evergreen shrub native to Asia). A wide array of teas are created just by different curing methods or growing regions. 

All teas made from C. sinensis contain caffeine, but the amount varies depending on preparation, especially oxidation level. In general, the darker, more oxidized teas (blacks, oolongs) have more caffeine than the lighter teas (green and white). In fact, white has the least caffeine of all the C. sinensis teas. 

Teas - the real stuff - made from Camellia sinensis include:

Black tea (the most oxidized tea leaves) - English Breakfast, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Ceylon, etc. -most caffeine

(Pictured here: English Breakfast tea - a robust, dark, unflavored black tea & Aged Earl Grey, a black tea flavored with bergamot)

Oolong (slightly less oxidized than black teas)

Green tea - Bancha, Sencha, Gunpowder green, Genmaicha (brown rice and green tea), Jasmine tea (green tea plus jasmine flavoring/flowers), Matcha (specially made powdered form - this is the exception to the caffeine rule - it contains more than the average green tea because of the preparation), etc. These should generally be drunk just after steeping, and without milk (with the exception of matcha). Tea leaves should be removed from the brew after you’re done steeping, otherwise the brew can become bitter and unpleasant.

(Pictured here: Japanese ceremonial grade Matcha, a loose leaf Chinese green tea, Genmaicha, and a Tazo green tea that has been processed to become decaffeinated)

White tea (youngest, un-oxidized form of the C. sinensis leaves)  - least caffeine. Again, milk would just crush this delicate tea, so these are drunk unadulterated.

Yerba Mate - the caffeinated alternative to the C. sinensis teas

In addition to the caffeinated C. sinensis teas, there are also teas made from other plants that are also caffeinated, most notably Yerba Mate from South America. Yerba Mate, depending on how strongly you prepare it, has about the same amount of caffeine as in black tea - ~40mg per cup. It’s smoky, if you get the smoked variety, and usually smooth and drinkable. It can hold its own as a latte as well. Generally less bitter than C. sinensis teas and can hold up to a wide range of steeping times, although traditional tea shouldn’t really be bitter either unless you’ve just steeped them too long or gotten poor quality tea. 

Herbal Tea

Any other tea you buy, if herbal, is generally not caffeinated. This includes all the fancy Traditional Medicinal and Yogi Teas (that are not above-mentioned), many of the Celestial Seasoning teas, etc. These are generally better and better the longer you steep them.

So where do I start if I’m switching from coffee?

That depends, but generally speaking I’d say with

Black Teas

Yerba Mate 

Matcha

(I’m a fan obviously. Here we have pictured my go-to daily matcha, Do Matcha, as well as two ceremonial grade Japanese matchas)

They all have higher caffeine content, so they’ll be more comparable to your regular cup of coffee in that way, and all taste good with added milk (or milk substitute) if you’re a regular cappuccino or latte drinker. They also do not require the finesse of green and white teas in regards to water temperature and steeping times, so less places to go wrong. 

Important notes:

Get high quality tea. Just like how regular coffee drinkers don’t roll on into a donut shop and expect to get the same quality coffee as in the fanciest of individual cup drip coffee shops, all tea is NOT CREATED EQUAL! It makes a huge difference, so don’t skimp and get the cheapo teas. 

The temperature and length of time you steep tea is important. There’s even a whole wisdom around bubble size and boil temperature, and which are appropriate for which types of teas straight from ancient China. Check it out for fun if you like. Fish in Your Kettle: Chinese Water Temperature Method. 

If you’re considering black tea - try a flavored black tea if you’re not yet sold on the taste of tea. Earl Grey is a morning favorite for many, and is brilliant with milk. 

If you like iced teas, consider Yerba Mate, which actually brews cold in about 5 minutes. As in, just dump some room temperature water into a tea pot with Yerba Mate leaves in it, and five minutes later I’m not kidding, you have excellently brewed tea. Pour it over ice and you’re done. 

If you think you’d be drawn in by the ritual and find it a fun morning routine (like I do), consider whisking up some Matcha tea. It doesn’t need to steep, so you pour hot water on, whisk it for about 20 seconds until it foams, and you’re done. I like adding a touch of milk to my Matcha tea as well. It cuts some of the bitterness, especially if you didn’t splurge on the ceremonial grade matcha. (This is about the 10th time I’m raising the point of adding milk to your tea. Obviously I’m a fan of that preparation in addition to the unadulterated approaches). 

Also, you don’t need to buy the fancy whisk - for many months I just used my metal hand whisk - the one you would use for eggs. Once I realized that I loved matcha and was regularly drinking it, I made the purchase. 

(Pictured here: Traditional bamboo whisk for matcha tea ceremony from Japan. I use it every morning I make matcha. I also use a good ole cereal bowl rather than a mug as it works better with the whisk.)

Finally, if you’d rather just drink something that is naturally uncaffeinated, besides herbal teas you could consider:

I absolutely love chicory root (Cafix is a chicory root, malt and barley beverage). It’s a roasty, yummy hot beverage which, you guessed it, goes great with milk. I love drinking it at night when I’m in the mood for cozy. Rooibos is a favorite of some. I’ve never gotten as into it as most of the other hot beverages we’ve discussed here, but it is a legitimate neutral naturally caffeine free tea-alternative that makes its way into many herbal tea combinations when they want to richen up the flavor. It’s good by itself as well. 

I hope that helps some of you take some new adventures with tea! 

Hayat K, Iqbal H, Malik U, Bilal U, Mushtaq S. Tea and its consumption: benefits and risks. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2015;55(7):939-54.

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