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You love green tea. You’ve been drinking it for years and can’t imagine your life without it. But what if I told you that you’ve been consuming something terrible for your health all this time? What if I said green tea is high in caffeine and could negatively affect your sleep patterns and weight loss efforts?
Well, don’t worry: those things aren’t true! Green tea does contain caffeine (it’s not as much as black or white teas), but the amount of caffeine isn’t so high that it’ll harm your health. The antioxidants in green tea might help fight disease!
Green tea is rich in antioxidants.
Green tea is rich in antioxidants. Antioxidants are helpful for your health because they help prevent cancer, heart disease, and premature aging. Examples of antioxidants include:
- Polyphenols (like catechins)
- Flavonoids (like rutin)
Green tea has some caffeine but less than a cup of black tea or coffee.
Green tea has some caffeine but less than a cup of black tea or coffee. Green tea’s caffeine content varies depending on the type of green tea you’re drinking:
- Green teas with more buds (young leaves) tend to have higher levels of theanine. These include your and matcha, made from shade-grown leaves picked early in spring before they open up fully into their adult form. They also have more caffeine than other types of green tea because they’re steamed rather than dried; after picking, this process extracts more polyphenols from them, allowing them to retain their moisture longer inside the leaf sheath.
- Japanese sencha has lower levels of both catechins and caffeine than Chinese varieties due to differences in cultivation practices between Asia and Japan; for example, sencha is typically grown under full sun, whereas Chinese types are usually shaded during part or all stages of growth by bamboo mats called “shade cloths.”
Green tea is not addictive.
Green tea is not addictive.
Caffeine is a stimulant that can cause psychological dependence in some people, but it’s not physically addictive. Caffeine is safe at high doses, and it’s usually not a problem for people who regularly drink coffee or black tea (which contain more caffeine than green tea).
The caffeine in green tea may help you burn fat and lose weight.
About half as much caffeine as is found in an average 8-ounce cup of coffee may be found in a cup of green tea. Green tea’s caffeine content may aid in fat-burning and weight loss.
Caffeine increases metabolism by 3 to 11 percent, according to a review published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers concluded that people who drink 4 cups (16 ounces) of caffeinated coffee daily burn more calories than those without caffeine! The same goes for green tea: One study found that drinking four cups increased resting metabolic rate by 4 percent compared with drinking no tea at all over 5 hours, and another showed that those who drank it burned an extra 50 calories per day after their first dose (and even more if they continued drinking throughout the day).
Caffeine also seems to increase feelings of fullness, so you eat less food overall, says nutritionist Jessica Cordingly.”This could be because it boosts levels of serotonin,” she explains.”Serotonin makes us feel happy and relaxed; when we’re relaxed we tend not to crave sugary foods as much.”
You can enjoy green tea without worrying about the caffeine content!
The caffeine content in green tea is lower than that of coffee or black tea, and it’s not addictive. Green tea may help you burn fat and lose weight, but more research is needed to confirm this benefit.
So there you have it: the truth about green tea and caffeine. Green tea does have some caffeine, but it’s far less than black tea or coffee. The amount in a cup of green tea is about half of what you’d find in an average soda can! So feel free to enjoy your next cuppa without worrying about getting too much caffeine; it won’t hurt your sleep or cause jitters like other drinks might do.
