Coffee vs. Tea

How much caffeine is too much?

by Saba Haider

As a nation, we are coffee drinkers. As New Yorkers, we are bean heads. Culturally, the ancient art, custom and practice of tea drinking has long had little place in the land of stars and stripes. Let’s face it: Americans know little about tea drinking.

Sure, drinking home brewed iced tea is a ritual in the South, and the current rise in interest in herbal tea consumption — especially the well-marketed variety — is a fantastic and noteworthy new direction for America’s tea drinking set. However, the truth of the matter is that these people don’t represent the java-obsessed masses and the Chinese, the Indians and, well, the English, would probably frown upon you if you starting claiming any affinity, or worse, if you started tea-bonding with them.

Tea drinking has been a sacred ritual that has transcended cultures, borders, cuisines and generations around the world since the beginning of history. And for those trying to figure out how it could have happened that tea drinking landed and became so revered on so many shores around the world, and not in America, we must remember that, in fact, it did.

But we dumped it straight into the water that it had arrived from. Let us not forget the Boston Tea Party when in American colonist’s kicked off the American Revolution in 1773 by dumping crates of tea, 45 tons exactly, arriving from Britain into the Boston Harbour as a protest against a newly imposed British Tea Tax Imperialism. Apparently tea washed up on to the shores of Boston for weeks.

Fine, that was a long time ago and today New Yorker’s arguably boast the most discerning palates in the country. Be it good coffee, or Tazo-branded iced tea from Starbucks in July.

But lets put culture and history aside, and look at the coffee versus tea argument from a health perspective.

The British are drinking

The irony of the Boston tea party is that over the past 50 years, coffee drinking has risen exponentially in the UK, where the drink is seen as a sophisticated choice. In August a 17-year-old girl in England was taken to the hospital for a overdosing on coffee. Apparently she drank too many espressos -- seven to be exact -- in too short of a time and the result was horrible. Her body heat escalated and she started sweating, hyperventilating and experiencing extreme anxiety. When the poor girl’s story hit the headlines the next day, tea traditionalists emerged from the woodwork and started their, “this wouldn’t have happened if it were tea …”

The teenage girl’s experience made me sit up and wonder about coffee or caffeine and its hazards. New Yorkers love coffee but every self-respecting Starbucks customer clearly needs to know how much coffee is too much? And is the equivalent amount of tea equally bad?

I asked my doctor. She said that two coffees a day “should be fine” but women should really try and limit their caffeine intake to “one a day”. In America a small coffee these days is anywhere from 10 to 12 ounces. That’s a lot of coffee when you compare it to the shot-size quantities consumed by our European friends. If the average New Yorker drinks three small coffees a day, that could be between 30 and 36 ounces … which needless to say is, well, a lot.

The Health (Club) perspective

Emily Duddy is a nutritionist at the Curves For Women fitness and health centre on West 53rd Street. “Personally, I’d say that New Yorkers have it wrong,” she says. “The amount of caffeine in coffee is what New Yorkers constantly need and are looking for. But it’s artificial energy and eventually they have to accept the energy loss and let themselves detox before they can create more natural energy … or they have to drink more coffee, which is what they tend to do. With tea, you’d have to drink a lot more tea to get the amount of caffeine that’s in coffee.”

“New Yorkers are on the fast pace. But, I have people at the gym here who have given up coffee and they have noticed an increase in their natural energy and also that it has become easier for them to lose weight,” she adds.

Duddy explains that the New Yorkers’ love of coffee is really a bit of a double-edged sword, not only do they get hooked on the caffeine, but also tend to get hooked on the sugar. “Regular black coffee is not too bad, but most coffees consumed in New York are lattes and Frappuccino’s and are high in sugar — so people get addicted to two artificial sources of energy: caffeine and sugar. That’s a big issue too.

“There have been studies done on coffee — it slows metabolism and can affect weight gain as it causes water retention and, as far as tea goes, the herbal aspect of teas can have medicinal qualities in terms of addressing certain ailments such as stress relief and insomnia, or headaches,” she explains.

Ultimately, caffeine is a stimulant to our central nervous system and we need do make sure that it doesn’t get overstimulated. What it boils down to (no pun intended), is controlling the amount of coffee we drink in terms of both quantity and quality. A healthier coffee would be something like one or two small coffees a day with skim milk and no sugar — or unprocessed sugar. Soy milk or rice milk are also great milk alternatives and honey is a fantastic sugar alternative. Don’t wrinkle your nose at putting honey in your coffee — it’s actually quite good.

Whose side are you on anyways?

Okay, wait. Before you switch sides, it’s important to compare and contrast the health benefits of both coffee and tea. Research exists to back up regular consumption of both of them. Both have antioxidants. Green tea is also known as “miracle tea” by many of it’s ardent users, as it is known to have serious healing properties. Green tea alone is attributed with being a natural defense against Alzheimer’s disease, kidney stones, osteoporosis and even tooth cavities. It also is known to “spur” fat metabolism. In general, tea is also known to relax the arteries and lower blood pressure.

As for our beloved java, researchers have said that regular coffee consumption can lower the risk of diabetes, can prevent gallstones and also that it is linked to lower rates of colon and liver cancer. Also, surprisingly, some research has said that regular coffee consumption protects seniors against Parkinson’s disease.

I think it’s safe to say that caffeine is the world’s most popular drug. I personally love it. Go ahead, call me a junkie. I love coffee. I even found out why. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system. Once it enters our bloodstream, the side-effects can kick in within 15 minutes. This includes increasing our heart rate and constricting our blood vessels. However the greatest myth about coffee is that regular huge doses cause increased alertness. Our bodies can become immune to some of the “popular” effects of caffeine — namely increased alertness — and often this effect is substituted by an increased sense of lethargy. Consequently, some caffeine junkies can experience dramatic withdrawal symptoms including fatigue and/or drowsiness, lethargy and headaches. Loss of appetite is also common. Caffeine is also a diuretic and it can lead to insomnia and nervousness.

According to the BBC, ”the highest natural caffeine content is found in filter coffee, a mug of which contains about 120mg of caffeine. Instant coffee contains roughly 75mg and espresso 107mg.”

If you plug those numbers into the United States Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database’s recommended average daily caffeine intake -- between 200 to 300 mg of caffeine per day, we can start giving ourselves tangible daily coffee quotas.

So, if I aim for 300 mgs of caffeine per day, that would be equivalent to two to three cups of filter coffee at 8 ounces each, which is 24 ounces of coffee …

Which, in Starbucks-speak, is equivalent to two Tall House Blends, or three single espresso Tall Americanos a day.

I personally opt for the Tall Americano with steamed soya milk and one brown sugar. It’s my drink.

Illustration by Lauar Gharrity

SABA HAIDER Originally from Toronto, Saba is a journalist that lives between New York and London. Saba was once a vegetarian but when she went to Morocco a few years ago, she gave in to the smell of roasting chicken on the streets of Casablanca. She enjoys writing about whatever she is into at the time and this issue, it happens to be her mother’s wonderful tradition of making yogurt at home. Only while researching her article did she discover why yogurt rules. You can email her at: sabafhaider@gmail.com.