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I wish to know whether to choose either coffee or tea as a fequent beverage. There are different kinds of coffee, and different kinds of tea. And the effect of amount and effect may differ as well, maybe for 1 cup a day coffee is better but for 5 cups a day tea is. And that maybe reversed if it is black tea against green tea compared to filter coffee. Even if there is no definite answer some discussion with some concrete points and facts to consider are useful to have in mind.

Maybe switching occasionally is best as well.

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4 Answers

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Apparently they are both prefectly fine for you (and certainly better than drinking nothing), but if you had a choice, then tea is better. Especially if you chose green tea.

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Excellent answer, and nice concise links too! – Vass Apr 7 '11 at 14:50
Care to explain why it's better as well @Sparafusile? – Ivo Flipse♦ Apr 7 '11 at 16:47
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Like green tea, Rooibos tea is also loaded with antioxidants but doesn't contain caffeine. That's a con for some people, and a pro for others (caffeine can cause insomnia and gastrointestinal discomfort for some people). – Barbie Apr 7 '11 at 17:04
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I would agree that alternating between tea and coffee is a good idea, but I recommend drinking more tea instead of coffee. I worked in a kitchen for 8 months and would drink strictly coffee, more then a liter a shift and over the span of 8 months it really messed up my nervous system and seemed to have depleted my body of a lot of minerals. Speaking from experience alone I recommend alternating, simply because coffee is a difficult habit to break. Green tea also contains caffeine, so I would drink that in moderation too.

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Green tea contains caffeine? Does it? – karim79 Apr 7 '11 at 22:44
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Coffee is not healthier but I wouldn't say it's terrible either. The thing you have to watch out for with coffee is that it can change the balance of intestinal flora and lead to digestive problems. Green tea is great, but too much can cause acid reflux.

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Why/how does coffee effect the balance of intestinal flora differently than tea? And how should that effect the amount of coffee or tea a person should/can drink in a day? – Nathan Wheeler♦ May 11 '11 at 19:06
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I have done a lot of research on this, and surprisingly for many - coffee is healthier. Tea companies are funding research (coffee companies also) but I have yet to see CONVINCING evidence for its plausability (I don't care whether egcg, catechins or quercetin are better than tearubigins).

By convincing evidence I mean huge prospective, randomized, COHORT studies, not just retrospective case-control ones. By that definition, coffee is definatelly healthier (pubmed it to believe me).

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