Coffee Not Your Cup of Tea? Mine either. I recently decided to expand my current beverage selection to include hot tea. Winter is beginning to settle in the Midwest and I figured it would be a good time to enjoy a hot beverage on a regular basis.
Formerly, I have only been a water drinker (and the occasional glass of wine!). No juice, No pop, No coffee drinks, No energy drinks and Not enough milk. Being that tea and coffee are made of water....which is the best beverage choice for our bodies considering we are made up of nearly 70% water....I decided that flavorful teas would be a good addition to my daily liquid consumption. For several weeks now I have enjoyed one cup of tea per day. I've only ordered tea away from home twice as I have been concentrating on brewing tea in the morning or evening at my home. My tea consumption has been plain tea...no additives and no caffeine (you don't want to see me on caffeine!). They key to enjoying a hot beverage without guilt is to avoid adding cream and sugar. This defeats the purpose of drinking calorie free water. The average Starbucks specialty tea or coffee latte will run you over 300 calories...which is nearly an entire meal's worth of calories. In addition, if you choose a caffeinated version your body is actually losing a portion of the hydration!
Since water is our ideal beverage choice, coffee and tea should definitely be considered a good source of hydration as long as they are sans caffeine and sweet creamy additives. So, if I had the choice between a cup of brewed coffee or tea...I would choose tea! Why? Well, the cranberry/orange/peach/mint combinations available as tea flavors satisfy my palate....much more than coffee which only makes me want to add french vanilla, sugar cookie or hazelnut sweetened creamer to the drink. Plus, the health benefits of the herbs are plentiful. Vitamins C & E, flavonoids are naturally present in tea. These are powerful antioxidants that have an important role in our bodies to prevent the damage that oxidants cause to our cells. Tea is a rich source of flavoniods but the levels vary among types of tea. On average, the flavonoid content in black tea is 180 mg per cup and green tea has approximately 160 mg per cup.
Flavonoid Content from the USDA Database for One Cup of each Food Listed:
Black tea - 180 mg
Green Tea - 160 mg
Cranberry Juice - 52 mg
Orange Juice - 33 mg
Broccoli - 2 mg
Coffee - 0.5 mg
64 ounces of water per day is recommend to keep us hydrated. How about a cup of tea?
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