Monday 10 May 2010

How much water do you drink?

Tell me something, will you?

Do you all drink water? How much?

I drink pot after pot of tea. When I was a coffee drinker, the dehydration was much more pronounced and water-drinking was incredibly necessary. I'm sure the same is true when it comes to tea, but that it's more subtle.

Study after study shows the caffeine levels in tea. And that it dehydrates you. Right? I mean...I'm far from a scientist. I'm very curious by nature, but don't have the follow through to go and research every hare-brained thought that jets through my cranium. That's where you lot come in.

Someone who comes here regularly can inform us: does tea, in fact, dehydrate us the same way coffee does? Really?

Is it necessary to drink water to counter-balance the tea you've consumed? How much? 1 part tea=1 part water? Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Not that I'm drinking that much water. Not by a long shot.

I drink a pot of black and a pot of Oolong before I've even transitioned from pj's to human clothing (business attire). And my normal schedule entails carrying either one or even two thermoses of more black tea, which I down before the clock has even struck twelve.

By early afternoon, I'm easing into lighter Oolongs or even white tea, and by evening, I've easily consumed 6 or 7 full teapots. Easily.

My worry? Do I really need to be drinking that much water? Really? Please tell me it isn't so.

I mean, water's ok. But it's certainly not tea. Hot, delicious tea. I think I'll have one more cup before going to bed.

Mmmmh...

5 comments:

  1. Tea is over ninety percent water as it is. And while yes caffeine dehydrates you, There is (proportionally) very little caffeine in a cup of tea.
    I don't think you should be worried at all. Drink up =]

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  2. If I am not too busy, I usually try to drink at least 2-3 liters of water, tea included. When drinking strong tea, I also push to as many infusions as possible, then even if the caffeine is more in the first a few infusions, eventually it's diluted by water in the later infusions.

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  3. I don't think that drinking too much water can harm you in anyway.
    If one drinks more than he/she needs, it will just be eliminated from the body.

    And nowadays, 95% of the water I drink comes from tea and I am still here.
    The conclusions are...

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  4. Reading this post inspired me to do some research and write an article...I suspected that what you were saying here had some scientific study / basis behind it, and it did. So thanks very much for your post.

    Here is the result:

    Caffeine and Dehydration

    I found an overwhelming scientific consensus that, just as you suggest, caffeine in tea does not dehydrate you. Seems this is one of those oft-repeated myths, and I'm glad to see people writing to dispel it!

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  5. Actually, I wasn't nearly that clever, Alex. The Germans differentiate between the caffeine in coffee and what they call tee-eine in tea. I had no idea if they were fooling themselves, but what I know about Germans is that they wouldn't normally make something like that up.

    So I was aware that when I drink a lot of tea, I didn't *feel* as dehydrated as when I drank coffee. But I didn't have any hard scientific data to back up my assumptions.

    Thanks for the link to your blog. It's a testament to the high quality of your writing that one can learn something new nearly every visit. Keep it up.

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