Subscribe to Green Tea Podcast:
Does Adding Lemon to Japanese Green Tea Enhance the Benefit?
Green tea is a healthy drink with numerous health advantages; you can't drink it without getting any benefits! On the other hand, lemons are a staple source of vitamin C. So it's not just consumed as a flavoring in different dishes but also added to various drinks, including water. And did you know it's also common to add it to green tea?
Many tea manufacturing companies sell teas with lemon flavoring. But what does lemon have to do with the health benefits of green tea, if any? Does it offer any benefits to drinkers? In this article, you'll discover the reasons for adding lemon to your favorite green tea drinks to make the most of the tea's health benefits.
Powerhouse Fat Burner
While green tea and lemon are natural fat burners by themselves, imagine combining these two powerhouses for weight loss. For example, you might start your day by drinking a dash of lemon juice or a slice of the said fruit in your green tea. But adding lemon to your green tea boosts the latter's weight-loss benefits with catechins. Additionally, the caffeine content of the tea leaves requires your body to exert more energy.
Lemon is a booster for removing toxins from our bodies, acting as a natural detoxifier. It also provides nutrition for your body—the most prevalent is vitamin C. Through detoxification, your blood is cleansed from toxins, which will let your body absorb more nutrients and weight loss boosters such as those found in green tea.
The lemon also helps in the production of hydrochloric acid, which improves digestion. It also slows down the absorption of food, ensuring the nutrients from the food you take fully break down in your body. Finally, lemon keeps you active and kick-starts your energy, which would require burning more than your usual number of calories without drinking a cup of green tea with a slice of lemon.
Toxin Removal
Toxin removal is not just beneficial for weight loss; it also fights illnesses in the later stages of our lives. That's because green tea with lemon cleanses your other organs too. This includes the kidneys, boosting enzymes, and producing more bile in the liver for easier digestion. It can also reduce the surplus in the intestines (including fats and other blockers that might lead to cancer and heart attacks or strokes). So even a damaged liver could be improved by regularly drinking a cup of green tea with lemon.
Because green tea provides these anti-disease catechins that prevent the buildup of plaques surrounding the arteries, these are not fully absorbed by the body. Further, vitamin C in the lemon thoroughly cleanses the intestines and blood vessels and helps absorb nutrients.
In a study by Purdue University, putting lemon in a cup of green tea helps as much as 13 times more to absorb the catechins and retains almost 80% of the catechins in our body. These catechins fight disease while also increasing the metabolic rate in our bodies. In contrast, much of the alcohol and unwanted fats from meat and other unhealthy foods are removed from your body thanks to the vitamin C produced in lemon.
Drinking this miracle combination of lemon and green tea is even more effective in preventing stroke, asthma, cancer, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. This is because blood flow is streamlined and cleansed, acting as natural dialysis for your body, thanks to the boost of lemon's vitamin C.
Iron Absorption
Iron is an essential nutrient. It's necessary to produce more red blood cells in our body and preserve energy, focus, gastrointestinal processes, the immune system, and body temperature regulation.
However, drinking green tea may inhibit the absorption of such vitamins in our body as one of its side effects. But fret not! Studies also show that a slice or squeeze of lemon would already prevent such inhibition.
(Do you like sweetened tea? Here are 10 ways to sweeten your matcha green tea.)
Boosts Immune System
Being a good source of vitamin C, drinking green tea with lemon also helps boost your immune system, staving off coughs and colds, especially in humid or cold seasons. So if you have a cold, then simply sipping a cup of green tea with lemon and getting a lot of rest can make a big difference!
Be Like Wolverine: Quick Wound Cure
Vitamin C in your green tea naturally heals your wounds quicker than doing nothing to them. Citrus fruits like lemon also make your bones and teeth stronger. An added benefit of lemon is that it also alkalizes the body, which balances our PH levels. Balancing the pH levels reduces the uric acid in our body, which causes joint pain.
(You don't want to miss this post next: Can Green Tea Heal Oral Lichen Plants?)
Love Your Skin
Your skin also glows since unwanted toxins that are harmful to our skin and cause blemishes and pimples are also gone. Further, it naturally reduces the redness of your skin, soothes irritation, and prevents fine lines and wrinkles. In addition, folic acid and vitamin B are produced in your green tea with lemon, which would make your hair healthier.
Indeed, green tea with lemon is all about beauty and cleansing from the inside out!
It's never too early for youngsters to take care of their bodies to delay the diseases of aging. They can do this by consuming a cup of green tea with lemon zest daily with warm water. On the other hand, old people should drink this elixir to prevent other illnesses and cure their aches.
Be mindful, of course, that adding this citrus flavor changes the flavor of your green tea. A squeeze of lemon added to green teas produced from cheaper materials makes them more flavorful. At the same time, the natural flavor and aroma of exquisite green teas can change because of the sour taste of lemon.
Did you learn a lot about green tea in this post?
Here are three more to read next:
- Is it safe to eat green tea leaves?
- Is it okay to drink green tea on an empty stomach?
- Why Japanese green tea is perfect for intermittent fasting + How to guide, What to do, & What not to do
This post was first published in 2021 but it was updated in 2023 just for you.
Buy Japanese Green Tea with Lemon
Get Free Bonus Books
Sign up for free to the Green Tea Club to get advice and exclusive articles about how to choose Japanese Tea, and tips, tricks, and recipes for enjoying Japanese tea.
About the author
Kei Nishida
Author, CEO Dream of Japan
Certification: PMP, BS in Computer Science
Education: Western Washington University
Kei Nishida is a Japanese green tea enthusiast, a writer, and the founder and CEO of Japanese Green Tea Co., a Dream of Japan Company. His passion for introducing America to the tea of his homeland was the catalyst for creating the only company that brings high-quality tea from Arahataen Green Tea Farms to the rest of the world. Learn more about Kei
Hi Laura,
Thank you very much for your question.
Green tea contains antioxidants that are beneficial for health. Decaf green tea contains all of the same antioxidants and health benefits of regular tea — without the caffeine Decaf green tea helps in promoting heart health by lowering the triglyceride and cholesterol levels in your body A December 2018 study found that decaffeinated green tea polyphenols prevented weight gain in mice with obesity, suggesting that decaf green tea may play a role in maintaining weight.
However, it is important to note that decaf green tea still contains some caffeine and has fewer antioxidants than caffeinated green tea.
I am trying to eliminate caffeine due to having Sjogrens syndrome. Does decaf green tea have the same benefits?