Is It Ok To Drink Tea Leaves? Drinking & Eating Tea Leaves Explained

Ever been in a specialty shop casually browsing the available teas with your nose being assailed by the delicious scents of the various blends, and wondered Can you eat tea leaves?

Under such circumstances, this would not have been an unreasonable question to ponder. The answer is yes; you certainly can eat tea leaves. But do so using a bit of caution.

Loose-leaf teas are grand when used as a rub, a marinade, a brine, or thrown directly into a recipe. However, popping tea leaves like candy is definitely not recommended.

is it ok to drink tea leaves

Grind Your Tea Leaves

If you intend to consume your tea leaves without the benefit of converting them into a cup of tea, your tea leaves need to be as finely ground as you can get them. We are seriously talking powder here or something very close to it.

Thus, grinding the leaves to a texture ranging from very small chunks to a fine powder will make them easier to digest and will also improve the quality of the dish you are making.

It’s usually a mistake to simply put whole leaves into a recipe, as it will result in a disagreeable lumpiness and peculiar bursts of flavor.

So, whenever you can, grind your tea leaves into a fine powder using a spice grinder, a food processor, a coffee grinder, or if you’re feeling like some exercise, a mortar, and pestle.

It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you make certain that you do it and do it well. This cannot be stressed enough. Your digestion and your tastebuds will thank you for it.

Is It OK to Eat Tea Leaves?

Once again, we say that if you have been wondering can you eat tea leaves? The answer is yes, you can.

They are edible both in raw form and steeped. Furthermore, presently they are not banned from being eaten and are not considered a health hazard.

So if you have a desire to eat tea leaves, go right ahead, but it’s highly recommended that you do so after they have been steeped. This makes them softer, and thus they will be easier on your digestion.

While tea itself is known for its calming and cleansing properties, tea leaves have been known to wreak havoc on your digestion if you aren’t careful.

This is one of the disadvantages that come from eating your tea leaves. Although eating tea leaves doesn’t affect everyone this way, why take the chance if you can avoid the complications entirely?

Is Chewing Tea Leaves Good For You?

Eating tea leaves is a great way to introduce antioxidants into your body.

While it’s true that drinking tea supplies flavonoids that are quite beneficial to a person’s health, the number of antioxidants found in solid leaves can be amazingly higher than in leaves that have been brewed.

Can You Eat Tea Leaves From a Tea Bag?

You can safely eat the entire contents of a teabag, including, of course, the tea leaves. A word of caution, though, as it is not advisable to do so. Many of the nutrients that are in tea leaves are water-soluble and can only be fully released in hot water.

Now keep in mind that if you do this, you will receive a caffeine/tannin high that will be about the same as if you drank a cup of strong tea. It’s the bag itself that you don’t want to ingest, as tea bags are normally bleached paper reinforced with plastics. Not ideal for consumption.

What Happens if You Drink Tea Leaves?

There is absolutely no problem as tea leaves have nutrients that are not water-soluble as well, such as vitamin A, etc. The leaves are gotten from the plant known as Camellia Sinensis and are thus edible.

Humans are able to ingest everything found inside tea leaves except for one thing — cellulose.

Can You Eat Tea Leaves For Caffeine?

Green tea leaves are supposed to be the best for your consumption if you are inclined towards an edible dose of tea.

eat tea leaves
Tea Leaves

It’s safe to eat green tea leaves every day as long as you are careful not to overdo it as far as caffeine goes, which is really a matter of using your common sense. However, one to 3 daily servings or eating a tad more should not harm you.

Is Tea a Slow Poison?

Drinking tea has been associated with numerous health benefits. Tea is known to contain less than 50% caffeine than regular coffee is a fact many indulge in.

Currently, tea is frequently advised as a substitute for coffee when an energy boost is needed.

However, like any other thing, too much consumption can lead to ill effects. As it still contains some caffeine consuming around 4-5 cups in a day can increase blood pressure.

Another side effect is the fluoride in tea in large amounts can harm the bones. Usually prepared warm, one must wait at least four minutes to cool before sipping.

If not, it could harm your esophagus. It can also cause permanent teeth stains. So brush your teeth immediately or rinse with water.

For nursing mothers drinking tea can pass on an irritable bowel syndrome to the baby. So be careful in taking your portions because anything in excess can indeed be dangerous.

How You Receive the Benefits From Your Tea

Regardless of whether your cup of tea is black, green, or white, it is going to have two things in it caffeine and antioxidants.

The fact of the matter is that you will only get these full benefits of the tea if you infuse it. What this comes down to is steeping it in hot water for several minutes and drinking it as most people normally do.

This way, the essential elements that are found in tea will be steeped, together with the flavor and some caffeine.

Tea Benefits By Lybrate.

This is still the best way to get all of the antioxidants and caffeine that you can out of your tea. However, if you need to avoid consuming too much caffeine, then you can always switch to decaffeinated tea.

Also, eating tea leaves is not likely to become fashionable any time soon. It isn’t really a pleasure.

The taste is pretty hard to take, and the bitterness found in the leaves will necessitate that you drink lots of water. If you are going to attempt this anyway, start off with a teaspoon of leaves and no more.

Then wait and see how you feel. If your stomach or your tastebuds rebel, there is nothing wrong with giving up on the idea and simply continuing to drink your tea.

Plus and Minus Sides

Like most things in this world, eating your tea leaves rather than drinking them has both an upside and a downside.

The best news is that all the benefits you receive when you drink your tea are vastly increased when you eat it instead.

You can give that dose of antioxidants superpower by going directly to the source and eliminating the liquid part That way; your system gets the entire amount of nutrients sent right to it.

Along with upping your intake of other vitamins and minerals when you favor chewing tea over drinking it, you’ll also increase your intake of fiber. This can certainly be thought of as a plus, as most of us don’t get enough fiber in our diets. But not so fast.

This doesn’t mean that you should eat large quantities of tea leaves because they provide fiber. When you eat too many of the tea leaves, it could cause digestive discomfort down the road. Often, too much of a good thing is not better for you but can have a negative effect.

Furthermore, there are some people who insist that you shouldn’t eat tea leaves due to pesticides and other possibly dangerous substances that can remain on the leaves.

Then again, there are other people who swear that these amounts of residue are so minimal that they don’t really count at all. and you shouldn’t be concerned

We really can’t tell you what to do here except to use organic tea leaves. The decision is yours to make as you see fit.
Last but not least, your stomach could be very upset after consuming tea leaves, particularly green tea leaves.

The promoters of green tea say no. but many people have had this unpleasant experience. Remember that green tea is very astringent, so it’s only natural that it would sometimes upset the stomach.

However, if you really want to give this a try. do not do it on an empty stomach. Eat something along with your green tea leaves to avoid the obvious pitfalls.

Conclusion

The bottom line in all of this is that if you wanted to know Can you eat tea leaves? You should now understand that you can do so. However, it’s not really necessary and not always an easy thing to do.

You can obtain most of the daily nutrients that you require by drinking a cup of tea or more a day, rather than forcing yourself to eat something that really doesn’t taste all that good.

But ultimately, if that is what you want to do in order to be sure that you are wringing the last bit of benefit out of your tea, then there’s nothing to stop you from going ahead and chewing away.

And this doesn’t mean that you have to give up drinking tea altogether just because you have opted to eat some of it too. You can still enjoy a nice, traditional cup of tea every now and then. Just like with anything else, the key is in moderation.

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About David Dewitt

Hi, my name is David and I come from Columbus, Ohio. I am a amateur photographer, and a coffee lover. I love to write, and don't mind me a cup of joe!