Are There Calories In Tea?
Tea itself has very few calories, as it is made from water and the leaves of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. A cup of plain, unsweetened black or green tea typically contains less than 5 calories. However, the calories in tea can increase if you add sweeteners or mix-ins, such as sugar, honey, milk, or cream.
A delicious, fresh-brewed tea is lower in calories, however, adding milk or sugar increases calorie counts. While tea alone has nearly zero calories, commonly added ingredients such as milk and sugar can significantly raise the calories. Tea alone does not contribute any unnecessary calories, but many people enjoy improving the flavor of it by adding sweeteners. You can add extra calories to your left-over tea by mixing creamers and sweeteners, but on its own, tea will not give you a lot of calories.
Specifically, a cup of tea that is 8oz, fresh-brewed, with nothing added, is only 2 calories. As you can see, one cup of tea is at the lower end of the scale in calories, which is why it is easy to incorporate Tea into your diet. In a regular, 8-ounce cup of tea made from Camellia sinensis (which includes green, black, white, puer, oolong, and yellow), there are approximately 2-2.4 calories. The calories of black tea and green tea are virtually zero if consumed without milk or sugar.
For example, green tea calories are lower than those of a cup of tea made with milk and sugar. For instance, a freshly brewed eight-ounce (240-ml) cup of black tea provides hardly 2 calories, considered insignificant. For instance, flavorful or dried fruit teas may provide a few extra calories literally every time you steep the cup. This is because all teas that come from Camellia sinensis plants (which does not include fruit or herb-based teas) have a maximum of two calories per 8-ounce cup.
| Types | Calories |
| Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks | 240 calories |
| London Fog Tea Latte | 140 calories |
| Soy Chai Tea Latte | 80 calories |
Some types of teas will have a little bit (emphasis on little) more, but they seldom surpass the two-calorie mark when served unaccompanied. As you can see, milk tea calories are typically on the higher end, but they are still low enough that you should comfortably be able to incorporate the drink into your diet. If using dairy milk, adding one-half cup of fat-free milk to the tea along with one-half teaspoon of honey results in just 75 calories for a single beverage. If you add the contents of one stick of honey to your tea (about one tablespoon of honey in total), it will add 64 calories to your cup.
A tablespoon of honey, about average for sweetening your tea, will add 21 calories to your drink. A teaspoon of added sugar (which is about 4 grams of sugar) in your tea adds 16 calories to your drink. Speaking of sugar, in order to determine the number of calories in your cup of tea you added sugar and cream to, you need to look up the number of calories your additions contain.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, if you add one packet (3 grams) of sugar per cup, tea has 11 calories; you also get 2.8 grams (1% of the DV) of carbohydrates, and 2.8 grams of sugar (6% of the DV). A typical packet of sugar, such as the kind served with tea or coffee at some restaurants, has about 3 grams, or 11 calories. If you are worried about your intake of empty calories from added sugar, it is good practice to avoid sweetened bottled tea, slurp fresh-brewed tea, and look for higher-quality teas that taste great without added sugar. A typical teaspoon of refined (white) sugar has about 4 grams of sugar, or 15 calories.
If you’re interested in How Many Grams In A Packet Of Yeast, take a look at my other article
However, since sugar and honey are the most common ways of sweetening some commonly consumed teas, spooning just 1 teaspoon (4 grams) of sugar will add 16 calories to your beverage, whereas a tablespoon (21 grams) of honey will add 64 calories (11). Many of the pre-sweetened iced teas that you will find pre-made are loaded with sugar, and few of those drinks offer much in the way of nutrition. While unsweetened tea contains almost no calories, numerous pre-drink options and store-bought tea flavors are loaded with added sugars and fats.
Some shop-bought tea blends, especially some of the sweeter-tasting herbal varieties, can also contain high amounts of calories. That is, the foods that you combine with tea, or those that you prepare using tea, may push your calorie counts higher. At least know that any time you are adding anything in this vein to tea, you are going to increase calories, as well as sugars and fats, which are not healthy for you in the drink. As you can see up top, just about every additive that you might want to add to a tea that you are making is going to be adding calories and diminishing the health benefits of that drink.
Your tea itself is contributing negligible amounts of calories, and if you are adding just one sugar cube or teaspoon, then sugar contributions are not something you need to bother with. The practice of calorie counting and dwelling on nutritional details for every meal itself could be more detrimental than calories per se. Even if we consume a lot of regular tea throughout the day, we should not have to worry about the small effect it has on our daily caloric intake. It is impossible to know the exact amount of calories present in such teas, as many factors contribute to the final products calorie content, e.g. Even adding cream, using a typical amount people add to tea, is not likely to significantly contribute calories. Milk, unlike sugar, also contributes a substantial nutritional value.
If you’re interested in Is It Safe For Infants To Drink Cold Milk?, take a look at my other article
We can expect slightly higher calorie content from powdered green tea — Matcha, which provides us with around 6 calories in a flat teaspoon (about 2 grams). The Grande Matcha Green Tea Latte from Starbucks has 190 calories; a portion of Starbucks Matcha Powder calories comes from sugar, since the powder contains a little added sugar for sweetness.
For reference, a 16-ounce (480-ml) Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks, prepared with reduced-fat milk, has 240 calories (23). For example, Starbucks 12-ounce (355-ml) London Fog Tea Latte blends Earl Grey Tea with reduced fat milk and vanilla syrup, providing 140 calories (16). Tip To help you stay calories in check, you can make your own Soy Chai Tea Latte at home using 8 ounces of unsweetened soymilk, which has just 80 calories.
What’s better for weight loss coffee or tea?
Green tea has nearly no calories, which can speed up your metabolism and increase your body’s capacity to burn fat in general. Contrarily, coffee can improve your metabolism and make you feel full, but not to the extent that it aids in weight loss. Thus, tea triumphs once more.
How many calories in tea with milk and sugar?
The amount of calories you consume from milk and sugar in your tea varies on the type of milk you use and the amount of sugar in it. Generally 100 ml of tea with milk and sugar has 17 calories; however, this estimate is based on a cup of tea with a little quantity of milk and sugar.
Do teabags have calories?
Teabags include plain tea, which has undergone little processing, and has as little as only 2 calories per cup, making the plain tea almost calorie-free. Your plain tea will not have any calories until you add milk or sugar to it. So no, teabags don’t have calories in them.