I tried my first mug of white tea (with tangerine) on a leisurely Sunday morning a few weekends ago. I enjoyed the taste from the first sip and downed the whole mug over the course of about ten minutes. As soon as I swallowed the last of it, however, I was struck by the first symptoms of nausea. While I never actually threw up during the ordeal, I kept close to the bathroom for the next two hours.
I’d felt fine prior to the tea and hadn’t eaten anything with it. This episode occurred while a nasty stomach flu was going around, but I’m not sure if it’s even possible to be marginally affected by a stomach virus like that (so that you feel sick for a couple of hours, then shrug it off.) Given that I haven’t had any recurrence of the nausea, I feel sure it was the tea and not the virus, but to be absolutely sure I’d have to repeat the experience by brewing another cup. Unfortunately, there’s really no convenient or appealing time to schedule two hours-plus of acute nausea.
Have any of you experienced something like this in response to white tea? The product in question is Bigelow’s “White Tea with Tangerine” and consists of “white tea, natural tangerine flavor with other natural flavors (soy lecithin)”. Nothing in the packaging explicitly identifies the national sources of the ingredients or the location of its manufacture, but the product description begins, “Reserved exclusively in ancient times for Chinese Emperors,…” so it’s probably made in China. While I’m aware there’s a certain nasty industrial chemical implicated in a number of Chinese food adulteration scandals, the listed protein content of the tea is 0%, so there’s no incentive for anyone to add melamine to the tea.
I’ve never tried white tea but I get similar symptoms with green tea. Not as acute as it sounds like you had but, like you, not immediately and definitely associated with the tea. It doesn’t matter whether it’s plain green or flavored.
I drink lots of black tea but I can’t drink very much green tea without getting an upset stomach.
While I can’t provide any information on what causes it, how common it is, etc. I can tell you that you aren’t the only one!
Thanks for your response. I also enjoy black tea (and it’s okay with me)… but I don’t have enough experience with green tea to know if it causes a similar reaction or not. (I can’t stand green tea, so I’ve never had more than a few sips of it.)
The kicker is that, ethnically, I’m half Japanese, so how I can have such a bad reaction to any kind of tea, and not even like the taste of green tea, is a bit of a mystery… and in certain social situations, a bit of an embarrassment!
I’ve never tried white tea, but iced tea nauseates me. I can’t drink any kind of tea unless it’s HOT. And I prefer lemon or orange flavored teas, but also drink black and green. I think it’s the tannins in the tea, but who knows? I hope someone out there does.
From what I’ve been able to determine from several hours of Internet research, it’s the tannins. Surprisingly enough, tea has substantially more than coffee. IIRC, white tea has the least, green tea has the second least, and black tea has the most. White tea is the only tea I can drink on an empty stomach. Green or black will invariably make me queasy, and frequently make me throw up. Supposedly adding milk binds the tannins and renders them innocuous, but this also binds one or more of the antioxidant goodies (can’t remember which) and renders them inactive as well. Sorry I can’t provide more than factoids, but I didn’t bookmark anything. I’ll poke around for a few minutes and see if I can find my sources again.
I have had the same experience drinking tea on an empty stomach. It’s more present in green or white teas that are in bags with some kind of strong flavoring added (like the one you had). Loose-leaf naturally flavored teas that are brewed to a traditional strength don’t make me nauseated. Putting it in tea bags encourages people to brew it as they would a black tea, but green and white teas can’t take that rough treatment. I’ve had the nausea from strong black tea too, but I usually put sugar in it which helps.
Count me queasy, too. I switched from coffee to green tea in the morning, and if I down it on an empty stomach, I about puke every time. Its even given me a slight case of “the spins”.