People who had successfully cut down coffee from their daily diet are more to go for tea as an alternative beverage. But many questions if there is caffeine present in tea. The answer is yes, anything that has leaves from the tea bush-whether black, green or white contains caffeine but tea contains lesser amount of caffeine rather than coffee. Caffeine is one of the world’s most widely used psychoactive stimulant or drug. It gives you a very fast lift to be active but a similar sharp decline in your energy is felt later. It may help you stay alert for a while but sooner or later it just increases stress hormone cortisol in the body which causes you to be more stressed than you are already are. In short, too much of it can damage your health. That is why most people are particularly worried about the content of caffeine in their tea.
Caffeine is mostly present in both beverages but tea has considerably less. Caffeine content is more or less 130 t0 220 milligrams per cup while green tea has only 40 to 45 milligrams of caffeine per cup. The amount of caffeine in tea usually depends upon the type of leaf and the method of how it was prepared. Tea leaves usually contain 3% caffeine by weight and ranges to 4.5%. The larger the leaf the less the caffeine so you opt to go for a larger leaf and leaves picked from the lower part of the bush have less caffeine than those on the higher bush. The colour of the leaf also matters, black tea contains the most so green is a better choice. Green is widely known as a healthier alternative because of its extremely high levels of anti oxidants. It has also an element that counteracts the caffeine it contains which is called as amino acid theanine. Theanine has an ability to make a person get more relaxation without getting sedated, so it has overall calming effect. The preparation of the tea also matters. It depends upon the amount of leaf, size, water temperature and steeping time. Also, the longer the brew the higher the caffeine.
Unlike coffee, tea does not give you a sharp decline; it decreases in a manner that you don’t feel negative effects of the decline in the way it is felt with coffee. Caffeine in small dose can be very beneficial according to a study. The caffeine found in green tea is an active ingredient that helps your system absorb antioxidants. This only leads to the fact that there is no harm in drinking tea and that switching from coffee to green tea is a wonderful idea. Green tea is acceptable but coffee isn’t and being addicted to it might cause you serious damages in your health.
So now you can stop worrying about making a choice on whether to cut down coffee or not and switch to tea instead (green tea preferably). You just got to know the right kind of leaf to choose and the right preparation method. A little of it won’t do harm!
