Is it possible to drink too much tea?
We English love a good cuppa. Starting the day with a cup of tea, drinking it in the office, there’s even a meal dedicated to it in the afternoon. But how much is too much?
Tea contains natural antioxidants called polyphenols, which have many positive effects on the body. For instance, drinking more than three cups a day has been found to reduce the risk of a heart attack.
The 40mg of caffeine per cup (roughly half as much as coffee) won’t have any impact on your health until you get to at least eight cups per day – so you should probably stop at that point. But it’s possible to take anything to extremes. In 2013, a US woman lost all her teeth due to fluoride poisoning from tea. She was drinking a pitcher of iced tea every day for 17 years, and each pitcher was reportedly brewed with 100 to 150 tea bags!
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Authors
Luis trained as a zoologist, but now works as a science and technology educator. In his spare time he builds 3D-printed robots, in the hope that he will be spared when the revolution inevitably comes.
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