Will, our new resident Tea Specialist explains why tea makes an excellent alternative to coffee.

Recently, a number of friends have approached me to ask for my help ‘getting off coffee’ (notice the language of the addict). They tell me that they are addicted, or trapped in a bad relationship with coffee, the most popular drink in the western world. ‘A valiant pursuit’ I tell them, for I too know of the love hate relationship that so many of us are in with coffee. I too once depended on four, five or six coffees to get me through the work day. They come to me because they know that I can offer them a way out, a better option, a drink without the downsides of addiction, dependency, nausea, jitters, withdrawal, and the cost of £3.30 a pop, often several times a day, but with all the upsides, and more – they call me, ‘The Tea Man’ (or sometimes, ‘Mr Tea’).

I think that it is fair to say that a number of us are realising that drinking copious amounts of coffee every day so that we can function normally is not healthy, and not sustainable. If you are in this category then this article might be of interest to you. I propose that we all switch to tea for our daily drink of choice. It is better for the mind and body, it supports you where coffee pushes you, it calms where coffee aggravates, it focuses where coffee scrambles, and it can be drank all day without causing you to feel jittery or nauseous (and it’s much cheaper too).

The first issue to address is the big one, the main reason we all drink coffee – caffeine. It’s a drug, and we are all addicted, but it is not necessarily bad. Caffeine, in moderation, is actually good for us. It helps sharpen the mind, boost our spirits and our energy levels, burn fat, and even help fight diseases such as dementia, diabetes and some forms of cancer. Like all things in life though, moderation is key. Too much caffeine can have serious negative impacts, both immediate, and long term. Most coffee drinkers will likely have experienced such symptoms as ‘the shakes’, an upset stomach, and the feeling of being mentally scrambled and distracted – these are immediate results from too much coffee (yet many of us will insist on doing it all over again the next day). But too much caffeine can lead to anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, stomach problems, high blood-pressure and addiction.

Caffeine intake isn’t an exact science but experts seem to suggest that 400mg of caffeine is the most we should be having in a day, under this amount is not harmful. This equates to either four cups of instant coffee, four shots of espresso or one large Starbucks coffee (415mg). A regular cup of tea contains, on average, around 45mg of caffeine. About half the amount of a normal cup of coffee. That means you could safely have eight cups of tea a day to stay in the recommended limit of caffeine intake.

More importantly than the quantity of caffeine though is the way that it interacts with our body. If we were to look at a graph of caffeine levels in the body after drinking coffee, we would see a sharp spike, quickly followed by a steep slump. If we did the same with tea, we would see a gradual rise leading to a long and gradual diminishment. The reason behind this is the amino-acid, theanine. The caffeine and the theanine work synergistically to gently release caffeine into the blood over a longer period of time, preventing the spike and crash we see with coffee. More than this, theanine and caffeine together produce a calm mental energy, rather than the jittery shaky energy of coffee. This is the reason that monks drink tea during marathon meditation sessions; if they drank coffee they would not be able to focus on their task and they would not have the state of mind needed to find inner peace or to explore the great questions of existence. The Chinese call the energy tea gives us “Cha Qi”. This is the zen like state of calm, focused awareness we gain from drinking tea, and it could help you both in your work and your personal life.

Tea is also great for mental health. As well as the theanine, tea contains beneficial elements such as GABA which reduce stress, inhibit the production of fight or flight chemicals in the body, which cause anxiety (coffee actually increases the production of these, which makes you more alert), and helps with healthy sleep. There is a reason why we always offer a cup of tea to people who are stressed, or have just experienced a traumatic event. In studies where people were placed in stressful situations, the group which had been given tea felt calmer and less stressed, whereas the placebo group’s stress levels were considerably higher and longer lasting. As well as this, tea drinkers are less likely to develop dementia or depression.

My second argument for making the switch is money. If you are in the habit of buying two coffees a day when you are at work you are looking at a spend of £1500 pounds a year, that’s the equivalent to several weekend breaks, or an average months rent in London, or fifty restaurant meals with wine. On the other hand, if you switched to our premium range of large leaf silken pyramid tea bags, a cup of tea would cost you less than 40p. And if you made a small investment into a teapot, our premium loose leaf teas would cost you around 20p a cup, and you would be reducing your environmental impact hugely.

If you are currently working at home, then this is the best possible moment to start exploring the huge range of teas available. At Newby Teas we have over a hundred teas waiting to be discovered. If you own a teapot then now is the time to start buying loose leaf tea and ditch the coffee. Many of us have become coffee connoisseurs, knowing the difference between a Columbian washed and a Kenyan dark roast, but the world of tea is so much bigger, more varied, and more exciting to explore (cheaper too!).

Finally, I want to talk about the role these drinks play in our lives. We have seen that what we drink has an impact on our mind, body, and mood, it shapes who we are in some ways. I made the switch from coffee to tea because the way of coffee is living from cup to cup, a constant craving for a fix, massive highs and lows, I often felt jittery and scattered. Tea is a state of mind, it is calm, centred, peaceful, and content. To drink tea is to slow down, stop and appreciate the world around us, and in these times, more than ever, that’s what we all need.