If you simply want to cut back on coffee or find yourself approaching the 400-milligram daily recommendation for most adults, green tea is a great alternative, containing at least three times less caffeine than a 12-ounce cup of joe. Switching to green tea can be particularly beneficial if you find that coffee gives you headaches, makes you anxious or leaves you jittery.. Along with being a coffee alternative, green tea also has plenty of health benefits that can give your body an extra boost.. Where green tea comes from. Green tea has a long history dating back to about 3000 BC in China. Its beginnings as a medicinal beverage led to green tea becoming one of the world’s most popular drinks; the global tea market is now worth over $300 billion.. Green tea is an unoxidized tea that comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. It grows in Asia, primarily in China and Japan. The tea leaves are plucked and then heated to prevent oxidation and preserve catechins, a natural flavonoid compound with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Leaves are then rolled and dried, though the processing method can differ depending on the region.. Matcha, Moroccan mint and jasmine are just three popular types of green tea. xPacifica/Getty Images. A few popular types of green tea include:. Matcha. Sencha. Moroccan mint. Jasmine. Longjing. Gunpowder. Mao Feng. Green tea is the most widely consumed tea and has the most health benefits, making up around 20% of the global tea production market.. Water temperature and steeping time vary by tea type. The ideal way to prepare green tea is to steep it for about 3 minutes with water at 180 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit. Your tea could become astringent if you use water that’s too hot, as tannins are released. Consider an electric water kettle that lets you set the temperature for optimal results.. A cup of green tea contains 15 to 48mg of caffeine per 8-ounce serving. The caffeine content increases if you steep for more than 3 minutes, but decreases if you reuse the tea bag.. When compared to coffee, green tea can provide a more sustained and calm focus. Granger Wootz/Getty Images. What happens when you switch from coffee to green tea. I’m a coffee and tea lover. A typical day used to start with one or two cups of hot, steamy coffee. Then, I would switch to green or herbal tea and water to stay hydrated. But I began to notice that I was getting jittery, and my stomach wasn’t feeling so great, even with just one cup of coffee.. I decided to swap out coffee for green tea to see what would happen to my body. I wasn’t as jittery anymore, but I still had focus. “Thanks to its L-theanine content, green tea provides a more sustained and calm focus, without the jitteriness or crash that some experience with coffee,” said Alison Tierney, board-certified oncology dietician and cancer survivor.. My stomach is also feeling a lot better. Tierney mentioned that “coffee can be harsh on the stomach due to its acidity, while green tea is typica
