Precautions for Nourishing Health through Tea Drinking

Drinking tea for health preservation is beneficial to physical and mental well-being, but improper consumption can also be harmful. Therefore, here are some precautions for drinking tea to ensure that tea can give full play to its advantages and better benefit humanity.

1. Tea can be classified into several major categories, including green tea, black tea, oolong tea, scented tea, and dark tea. Although all referred to as tea, their properties, flavors, and effects vary significantly. Therefore, regular tea drinkers should select the appropriate type of tea based on their physical constitution, preferences, personality, mood, financial situation, health condition, as well as seasonal, climatic, geographical, environmental, and temporal factors. By employing suitable tea brewing methods, they can achieve the effects of health preservation and an enhanced quality of life.

The amount of tea consumed varies greatly. Some people drink tea only once a day, with 2 to 3 cups each time; some drink tea 2 to 3 times a day, with 2 to 3 cups each time; some constantly savor tea throughout the day, drinking more than 10 cups of tea daily; Tibetan compatriots in China drink about 20 bowls of tea per person per day, equivalent to around 4 kilograms. Based on years of practical observation, the author finds that although drinking tea has many benefits, it is important to consume it in moderation. Excessive tea consumption can increase the body’s water content,加重 (jiāzhòng, increase the burden on) the Heart and Kidneys, and also cause an accelerated Heartbeat, emotional excitement, insomnia, frequent urination, and indigestion. It may even lead to signs of imbalance of “tea intoxication” such as dizziness, palpitations, weakness in the limbs, and unsteady standing. Therefore, under normal circumstances, it is advisable for healthy individuals to drink 4 to 6 cups of tea per day. If drinking tea of moderate concentration, with 3 grams of tea leaves per cup and 150 to 200 milliliters of water added to each cup, consuming 4 to 6 cups of tea daily requires only 5 to 10 grams of tea leaves per day.

Tea should be brewed and drunk fresh. If tea is brewed for too long, its aroma will dissipate and its taste will no longer be fresh. Therefore, it is not advisable to drink overnight tea. Especially in summer, when the temperature is higher, overnight tea can spoil and turn sour, so it should not be consumed. As for the popular claims in society that drinking overnight tea can cause cancer or supports cancer, these statements lack scientific basis and should not be believed. Seriously speaking, in cool or cold seasons, for overnight tea that has been left for 10 hours, under normal circumstances, the chemical composition of the tea does not change significantly. It will neither produce a large amount of carcinogenic substances (such as nitrosamines) nor generate any extraordinary effective therapeutic components. Therefore, drinking some warm overnight tea generally poses no harm.

1. It is advisable to drink tea warm rather than scalding hot. Scalding hot tea can burn the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. According to several years of survey statistics from China’s esophageal cancer research group, long-term consumption of excessively hot food and drink is also one of the factors contributing to cancer. Therefore, when drinking tea for health maintenance, avoid drinking tea that is too hot.

5. It is not advisable to drink excessive tea before meals; otherwise, it will dilute digestive juices, reduce appetite, and weaken digestive function.

6. Avoid drinking tea before bedtime, especially strong tea. Drinking tea can easily stimulate the brain nerves and cause insomnia.

7. Do not drink excessive strong tea. Strong tea contains relatively high levels of caffeine and theophylline. Drinking excessive strong tea is highly stimulating and can easily cause headaches, palpitations, elevated blood pressure, irritability, etc.

Patients with gastric ulcers, coronary Heart wellness, atrial fibrillation or premature beats, and hypertension, as well as pregnant women, infants, children, and the elderly, should avoid drinking strong tea.

9. It is not advisable to take medicine with tea. Tea contains a large amount of tannins, which can be decomposed into tannic acid. Tannic acid can combine with many drugs to form precipitates, hindering absorption and affecting the efficacy of the drugs. Particularly, when taking traditional Chinese herbs such as Tu Fuling (Smilacis Glabrae Rhizoma), Wei Ling Xian (Clematidis Radix et Rhizoma), Shi Jun Zi (Quisqualis Fructus), Ren Shen (Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma), iron supplements for supports anemia, as well as atropine and ephedrine, one should be especially careful not to drink tea to avoid affecting the drug efficacy and causing uncomfortable signs of imbalance such as abdominal pain and diarrhea.

10. Tea is rich in fluorine. Brick tea can leach 0.25 milligrams of fluorine per gram, while tender tea leaves leach only 0.06 milligrams of fluorine per gram. Generally, consuming 3 to 10 grams of tea per day, based on the above data, clearly does not result in excessive fluorine intake. However, excessive consumption of strong tea can lead to an overdose of fluorine, which may cause intestinal and rectal wellness, reduce muscle elasticity, impair Kidney function, damage teeth, and even exert toxic effects on bones, leading to fluorosis.

In recent years, fluorosis caused by tea drinking has been found in some areas with low fluoride content in Sichuan and Xinjiang, China. For example, in a wellness-affected area in Xinjiang, the fluoride content in water is only 0.15 milligrams per liter, but residents consume more than 20 grams of tea per person per day, resulting in a large number of cases of dental fluorosis in the population and the emergence of a group of typical patients with skeletal fluorosis. A small number of people who are fond of drinking strong tea consume as much as 40 grams of brick tea per day, leading to severe skeletal fluorosis and loss of labor capacity. After identifying the cause and stopping tea consumption, the patients gradually improved. Therefore, tea should be consumed in moderation to avoid the harm of tea fluoride to the human body.