What is tea drunkenness? Also known as tea intoxication, it is a feeling of discomfort caused by drinking too much or too strong tea. It frequently happens to people who aren’t used to drinking tea or those who consume too much at once. Common symptoms include a rapid heartbeat, dizziness, headaches, nausea, and even trembling in the hands and feet.
What are the symptoms of tea drunkenness?
Drinking excessive or overly strong tea can lead to dizziness, headaches, and nausea—symptoms quite similar to alcohol intoxication. Other signs include trembling in the extremities, a racing heartbeat, heart palpitations, unsteadiness on your feet, and a general feeling of sickness. These are all typical symptoms of tea drunkenness.
What causes tea drunkenness?
Tea drunkenness is primarily caused by theophylline or caffeine found in tea leaves. Both caffeine and theophylline are highly stimulating and can over-excite the body. Excessive theophylline can trigger nausea, vomiting, restlessness, tremors, rapid breathing, low blood pressure, metabolic acidosis, low potassium, high blood sugar, and arrhythmias, resulting in the symptoms of tea drunkenness.
What to do when you have tea drunkenness?
Mild cases of tea drunkenness typically resolve within 6 hours. You can also ease the symptoms with sugar or sugary foods. Consuming a little table sugar, drinking some sugar water, or having sugary fruits, milk, honey water, or fruit juice can all help relieve tea drunkenness.
How to prevent tea drunkenness?
1. Avoid drinking tea on an empty stomach; doing so stimulates stomach acid secretion and easily leads to tea drunkenness. 2. Avoid very strong tea and don’t overconsume—it’s generally recommended to keep tea intake under 600ml. 3. Beginners should drink in smaller amounts. 4. Avoid freshly made tea, green tea, and lightly fermented oolong, as these have higher theophylline content. 5. Opt for black tea, heavily fermented oolong, or Pu-erh tea, which contain lower levels of theophylline.
Don’t assume seasoned tea drinkers are immune to tea drunkenness. From the store manager’s personal experience, drinking a large amount of tea on an empty stomach can very easily trigger tea drunkenness, especially with freshly processed new tea. If you feel stomach pain or heart palpitations, we recommend stopping drinking tea immediately, drinking some water, and eating a small sweet to ease the symptoms.