Green is the New Black: Making the Switch to Green Tea

Even if you currently enjoy drinking coffee, maybe you should be considering a switch to green tea. You may not get the same caffeine boost as you do by drinking coffee, but you will be gaining more health and nutritional benefits.

Most importantly, green tea contains more of the antioxidants that are known to promote good cardiovascular health, reduce the occurrence of chronic disease, and control blood cholesterol level. The most famous of these antioxidants are known as catechins, and they have been shown in lab and animal trials to have hugely positive health benefits.

These antioxidants mop up free radicals known to cause disease, and they also help to promote a process that shields cells from stress. In some cases, they even help to repair damaged cells. In some studies, they’ve even been shown to support the control of blood cholesterol levels.

The case for switching from coffee to green tea is even stronger. That’s because the amount of caffeine in coffee and green tea is vastly different. A cup of green tea has between 9-50 mg of caffeine, compared to 80-115 mg for a cup of coffee. That’s right – you may be ingesting nearly ten times as much caffeine with coffee as you do with green tea.

And green tea has something that coffee doesn’t, and that’s an amino acid known as L-Theanine. It actually changes the “caffeine high,” smoothing it out and inducing much more of a sense of calm, focus and concentration. You don’t get the caffeine shakes or the sharp crash after the caffeine wears off. If you’re planning a long, extended period of work, it’s often preferable to have the heightened awareness that comes from drinking green tea.

There’s another big advantage of green tea, and that’s the hydration benefits. When you drink green tea, you are hydrating your body. Since a cup of brewed green tea is 99.1% water, you are essentially drinking a full cup of water. With coffee, it’s the opposite. You are actually parching the body of water, which is what leads to that dry coffee mouth sensation.

From a purely budgetary perspective, it’s simply more economical to drink green tea than it is to drink coffee. Think of the average tea bag – you can steep it once, and then re-steep several times. That’s extending the life of your box of tea. In contrast, once you brew a cup of coffee, that’s it.

While the gap between green tea and black tea may not be that great – they do come from the same Camellia sinensis plant, after all – the gap between green tea and coffee is extensive. By drinking green tea, you are capturing all of the healthful antioxidants, you are hydrating your body, and you are getting a longer, more concentrated period of focus, thanks to the L-Theanine.

Plus, if you follow a true tea ceremony, you are also making the act of drinking tea a much more social process, to be enjoyed with your family and friends. The act of preparing tea for someone to drink is a process that dates back to millennia, and that’s why there has always been something almost mystical about enjoying a good cup of green tea.

Switch today. Green is the new black!