Chai tea is a great source of antioxidants such as catechins and theaflavins. These fight oxidative stress and can play a role in preventing cancer and other conditions. Depending on how it's prepared, chai tea may also include: Calcium.
As a rule of thumb, chai tea contains about one third the amount of caffeine as a regular cup of coffee and about one sixth the amount of a strong cup of coffee. That means you can consume several cups of chai tea a day without the negative side effects associated with several cups of coffee.
Chai tea is a fragrant, spicy tea that may help boost heart health, reduce blood sugar levels, aid digestion and help with weight loss. Although most of these health benefits are backed by science, it's worth noting that they are generally linked to the ingredients used in chai tea rather than chai tea itself.
Chai tea is a great source of antioxidants, which work to reduce free radicals in the body and promote cellular health, and can even help prevent degenerative diseases and certain forms of cancer. Like other types of tea made from the camellia sinensis tea plant, black tea is extremely high in antioxidants.
Chai has ginger too, another ingredient that supports weight loss by making you feel fuller for longer. It supports gastrointestinal health and acts as a digestive aid for high-fat foods.
If you want a healthier alternative to coffee, chai wins hands down. It's still comforting, tasty and hot, can be taken with or without sugar and can be made without milk or with low-fat creamer, if you're cutting down.
You can mostly thank chai powder mixes for this sugar spike. They're crammed with sugar, so that a single small "chai latte" may contain 20 grams or four teaspoons of sugar. Add in extra syrups famous in some coffee stores and you can see how you might get yourself into a sweet mess.
Chai tea contains a moderate amount of caffeine. This tea blend contains several ingredients, including black tea leaves, as well as other herbs and spices, like ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. These herbs and spices are caffeine-free, but black tea leaves do contain caffeine.
Try to drink at least two, or better still three, cups of tea a day! At The Chai Room we'd like you to get that amount of tea into your daily routine – and Chai should definitely be part of everyone's daily ritual if they are working toward optimal health and wellness.
A cup of chai contains less caffeine than a cup of coffee. This means you can still enjoy a nice cup in the morning for a small caffeine boost, but you'll be cutting back on your caffeine intake. In addition, our body absorbs the caffeine in chai more slowly than the caffeine in coffee.
Chai, which is made with tea, is a damn good substitute for coffee, but does it replicate the same caffeine kick you'd get from a cup of joe? Not at all. While chai made with tea does have caffeine, the levels won't be nearly as high as your regular coffee.
Caffeine blocks certain chemicals in the brain that help promote sleep. Instead, you'll enjoy that pleasant energy buzz we all tend to associate with coffee. Though chai does contain caffeine, its levels may not even be enough to disturb your sleep (unless you're highly sensitive to caffeine).
Green Tea
It's also one of the most effective teas for weight loss. There is substantial evidence linking green tea to decreases in both weight and body fat. In one 2008 study, 60 obese people followed a standardized diet for 12 weeks while regularly drinking either green tea or a placebo.
White tea is the least processed variety of tea and has the highest fat-burning micronutrients known as polyphenols. White tea helps in breaking down the fat and prevents the new fat cells from forming. White tea can also boost your metabolism by 4-5 per cent, resulting in burning an extra 70-100 more calories per day.
Black and green tea are associated with a lower risk of heart attack and stroke, and short-term studies suggest it's good for your blood vessel health.
It can be sweetened with either sugar or honey, though honey is the more traditional choice. The flavor and aroma of chai should be rich and full, with a creamy, milky, sweet and spicy flavor.
Cane sugar, honey and citric acid are three of the primary ingredients in the syrupy concentrate that is used to make the chai tea latte at Starbucks, which hammers you with 220-300 calories per drink.
'Chai' means tea
They're one and the same. So when people say 'chai tea', they're saying 'tea tea'…. but it's a really common way people refer to chai latte, or masala chai to give it its most correct name, here in the UK. If you've been saying 'chai tea' then you're halfway there – it is made with tea!
The caffeine content in a cup of tea can vary, depending on the type of tea leaves and the quantity you are using. But usually, the caffeine content of one cup of tea falls between 20-60 mg per cup (240 ml). Thus, it is advised not to drink more than 3 cups of tea per day.
Chai is black tea and hot milk, while Masala tea will combine black tea, milk and a few spices. With chai growing in popularity, Western tea drinkers have begun referring to milk tea as chai tea or chai latte.
Although the myth is that caffeinated drinks like black tea dehydrate the body, it's not so. In actuality, the high volume of water in a cup of tea is actually quite hydrating to the body—and because chai tea has less caffeine than coffee, it's the safer way to go.
According to health experts, having one cup of tea won't make much of a difference, if you can tweak the ingredients and manage your daily calorie goal of around 1800-2000 calories a day. Thus, it is not Chai which leads to weight gain but the addition of taste enhancers like sugar, heavy cream or full fat milk.
It's a natural stimulant, and the compound most often blamed for tea's potentially addictive properties ( 2 ). Caffeine is often labeled as addictive because it has a chemical structure resembling that of adenosine — a compound naturally found in your body that relaxes your central nervous system ( 3 , 4 ).