National Tea Day 2025: The Right Way to Drink Tea for Heart Health, Digestion, and A Long Life

Let’s begin with an inconvenient truth: most Indians don’t actually drink tea. They drink a nostalgic blend of milk, sugar, and sentiment that occasionally contains a leaf. Served from battered kettles at roadside stalls or proudly poured in bone china at family gatherings, chai is more of a ritual, comfort but unfortunately not very good for you.

Today, on Tea Day, as we celebrate this extraordinary leaf and the magic it steeps into our lives, let us also take a moment to ask: What if everything we’re doing with tea is cancelling out all the health benefits we think we’re getting from it?

Tea is rich in antioxidants (Getty Images)

Tea Is Nature’s Health Elixir… If You Let It Be

Tea is loaded with polyphenols, especially a type called catechins which are powerful antioxidants. These compounds are associated with better heart health, improved metabolism, and reduced risk of stroke, diabetes, and even certain cancers. A 2020 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology followed nearly 100,000 Chinese adults and found that habitual tea drinkers had a 20% lower risk of cardiovascular disease and longer life expectancy, especially those who drank green or black tea without milk.

Green tea drinkers had a 20% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, found a study (Getty Images)

The Problem with Milk

Adding milk to tea is an art form in many Indian households, right up there with knowing how much cardamom is too much cardamom. But medically speaking, it’s a bit of a spoiler. Multiple studies, including one published in European Heart Journal (2007), found that adding milk to tea blunted the vascular benefits of black tea. Researchers concluded that milk proteins (particularly casein) bind with tea catechins and reduce their antioxidant activity, essentially neutralizing the very compounds that make tea good for your heart in the first place. In plain English: milk hijacks your tea's health benefits and runs off with them.

Tea is steeped in nostalgia for us Indians (Getty Images)

That’s not to say you must ban milk forever, but if you’re drinking tea for your health, consider having at least one unsullied cup a day. You may miss the creaminess at first but your arteries will throw a tiny parade.

Sugar Is The Silent Assassin

If milk is a saboteur, sugar is the traitor within the gates. A single cup of Indian chai often contains 2 to 3 teaspoons of sugar, which is enough to make the World Health Organization nervous. When consumed in excess, sugar is a key contributor to insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It also undermines the anti-inflammatory effects of tea.

What’s more, research in the British Journal of Nutrition found that the blood-sugar-lowering effect of green tea was significantly reduced when consumed with sugar.

Ginger and lemon tea cleanses the system (Getty Images)

So while your grandmother may insist that “chai without sugar is like life without love,” modern science begs to differ.

If you need sweetness:

• Add a touch of honey (after the tea cools slightly)
• Try stevia or natural fruit infusions
• Or simply retrain your palate. Most people adjust to less sugar in 10–14 days

The Boiling Point (And Why We Overdo It)

Now let’s talk about how most of us make tea. Here’s the standard Indian method:

Bring water to a rolling, vengeful boil. Add tea leaves. Continue boiling until liquid turns the colour of regret. Add milk, then sugar. Boil again for good measure. Strain through a net last cleaned in 2012! Unfortunately, overboiling destroys the catechins and increases bitterness, which we then compensate for with more milk and sugar. It’s a vicious, self-foaming cycle.

Here’s the method researchers and nutritionists recommend:

1. Boil water, remove from heat
2. Steep black tea for 3–5 minutes, green tea for 2–3 minutes
3. Add lemon, ginger, or cinnamon for flavour—these ingredients enhance bioavailability
4. Skip the milk, or use plant-based milk with lower casein content
5. You’ll taste the difference. More importantly, your antioxidant absorption increases dramatically.

Better Ways to Brew

Now, we know the love for chai runs deep. No one’s asking you to throw out the masala and become a monk. But you could experiment with:

• Lemon black tea – boosts vitamin C absorption and brightens mood
• Ginger green tea – helps digestion and reduces inflammation
• Kahwa – a Kashmiri brew with saffron and almonds, as poetic as it is potent
• Herbal tulsi tea – great for stress and respiratory health

Even a sugar-free, milk-free masala chai made with spices and loose-leaf black tea can hit the spot while keeping your blood vessels relaxed and your liver smiling.

At its core, tea is a marvel of nature. It wakkes you up, cools you down, and if left unbothered by too much meddling can actively make you healthier. So this Tea Day, by all means, raise a toast to your cherished cup of chai. Let it steep in memory and meaning. But also consider introducing your taste buds to the version of tea that scientists rave about.

References:

• https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/article/27/18/1956/6125502
• https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article-abstract/28/2/219/2887513

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