Dear All,

When it comes to the sake of mere technical discussion, I do agree with most of the above answers.

But when we consume tea/coffee or any other beverages it is not only the nutritional aspects that matter alone.

One should enjoy a cup of tea/coffee and it is the matter of habit that would decide whether milk is to be added or not and in what quantity it is to be added (if it is the individual's choice to have the beverage with some whitener added basically to reduce the astringency of polyphenolic compounds and bitterness of caffeine).

Addition of whitener (may preferably be fresh, pasteurized, hot milk of buffalo or cow, unless the beverage is served as cold) could be milk or caseinate based for convenience but you will never get the same quality with caseinate as you can get with fresh milk and that too of buffalo which is having good amount of fat in it which in turn provides creaminess to the final beverage.

Why one should get really bothered so much that part of polyphenolic compounds such as catechines and gallocatechines are going to reduce their bioavailibility as a consequence of their reactions with milk proteins, time till he/she is able to enjoy the cup of tea/coffee.

But I would definitely say that Ronan Conroy has made the important observation with respect to tea bags particularly those which are made up of plastic fibers and not of paper and we all are now quite aware of dangers of plastics/additives getting mixed into our food system be it, all sorts of packaging materials with immediate contact with food at elevated temperatures or use of teflon coating in so called non sticking cooking utensils.

Regards,

Adding milk does decrease the antioxidants in tea, but in varying amounts.

Proteins in milk can bind to the tea polyphenols thus decreasing their antioxidant capacity. One analysis of the studies that looked at the phenomenon found an antioxidant reduction of up to 18% depending on the type and amount of milk used. And, in a 2013 European Journal of Nutrition study, researchers examined the levels of catechin (a type of antioxidant) found in green tea when drank by itself or with skim milk, soy protein or casein protein. A significant reduction in the bioavailability of catechins was found in the protein groups, compared to green tea alone. The explanation of this from the link below:

https://www.cleaneatingmag.com/personalities/does-adding-milk-to-tea-kill-the-antioxidants

Krishan Kumar

There are many other good answers can be seen from the link below, which is titled:

How do people drink coffee/tea without any milk and/or sugar in it?

https://www.quora.com/How-do-people-drink-coffee-tea-without-any-milk-and-or-sugar-in-it

Krishan Kumar

The best way to optimise the sensory characteristics of both tea and coffee is to make the properly! Adding milk simply interferes with the flavour.

My advice would be

1. Never drink bad tea or coffee. Life's too short.

2. Make it properly.

3. Stop what you are doing and give your full attention to the pleasure of drinking it.

It seems pointless to add that you shouldn't drink instant coffee, or tea from teabags. A typical teabag is made of plastic fibre and releases about 80,000 microplastic particles into your tea. Some teabags are paper, but very few.

I agree with Ronán Conroy. There is never any need for or benefit in adding milk to tea or coffee. This dubious practice was introduced by Europeans who like to add milk to almost everything.

The experts at tea making and serving are the Japanese.

Always boil the water.

Always use leaf tea of the best available quality.

As Ronán suggests, stop what you are doing and give your tea or coffee drinking your 'mindful' attention.

Sip your tea in silence.

milk is for new born mammals. The best thing to dilute coffeine (which is a drug which can cause addiction) - is to dilute it with water. Drink water (mineral water, tap water, clean water ) along with coffee, wine - perhaps also with beer and tea. Remember why tea was necessary. Because water 200 years ago was often smelling and nor safe, so boiling pasteurized the water while making tea or coffee. If taste was still awful, fresh (or later pasteurized) cream or milk helped. We are privileged in some countries nowadays to have clean tasting safe water - and can have tea or coffee for a change.

Teas (green or black) and coffee contains some active substances (anti oxidants, phytochemicals, caffeine etc.) that are benefits to health apart from providing warmt. Enriching coffee or tea with milk may

likely reduce the activities of these bioactive ingredients. Nevertheless, you can still enrich your teas/ coffee with milk or sugar or both once in a while. Black teas and coffee should be taking in moderation depending on the consumers State of health and body physiology.

To address the problem with consumers adding milk to their teas or coffees, one must first ask them the reason behind it; more often than not it is to mask the astringency that they would encounter while consuming tea.

Tea (both green and black) come loaded with phytochemical, antioxidants and polyphenols. Polyphenols have been found lately to help control type 2 diabetes and other related diseases (CVD, Obesity, Etc). Unless the addition of milk to tea affects the bioavailability of these compounds in the gut, the health benefits provided by tea and coffee should still remain.

I hope this answers your question.

Dear All,

When it comes to the sake of mere technical discussion, I do agree with most of the above answers.

But when we consume tea/coffee or any other beverages it is not only the nutritional aspects that matter alone.

One should enjoy a cup of tea/coffee and it is the matter of habit that would decide whether milk is to be added or not and in what quantity it is to be added (if it is the individual's choice to have the beverage with some whitener added basically to reduce the astringency of polyphenolic compounds and bitterness of caffeine).

Addition of whitener (may preferably be fresh, pasteurized, hot milk of buffalo or cow, unless the beverage is served as cold) could be milk or caseinate based for convenience but you will never get the same quality with caseinate as you can get with fresh milk and that too of buffalo which is having good amount of fat in it which in turn provides creaminess to the final beverage.

Why one should get really bothered so much that part of polyphenolic compounds such as catechines and gallocatechines are going to reduce their bioavailibility as a consequence of their reactions with milk proteins, time till he/she is able to enjoy the cup of tea/coffee.

But I would definitely say that Ronan Conroy has made the important observation with respect to tea bags particularly those which are made up of plastic fibers and not of paper and we all are now quite aware of dangers of plastics/additives getting mixed into our food system be it, all sorts of packaging materials with immediate contact with food at elevated temperatures or use of teflon coating in so called non sticking cooking utensils.

Regards,

Because of the taste of tea or coffee some people add milk. For the diet, it is better if the tea or coffee is taken alone, as some people get a digestive disorder in the mixture.

Hello sir,

Please refer this article to resolve your query.

“Addition of milk prevents vascular protective effects of tea.” Mario Lorenz, Nicoline Jochmann, Amélie von Krosigk, Peter Martus, Gert Baumann, Karl Stangl and Verena Stangl. European Heart Journal, doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehl442

Shehadeh Kaskous ,

The digestive disorders you mentioned in people (when milk is added to tea/coffee) is mostly for those who have lactose intolerance.

The lactose intolerance is known to occur for few individuals who lack enzyme 'galactosidase' (or the so called 'lactase') from their digestive tracks. Such people cannot consume most of the dairy products as they contain lactose. For example milk contains as much as 4 percent lactose.

With increasing age also people find it difficult to hydrolyze lactose from their diet due to weakening of galactosidase activity in the digestive tract.

However, such cases are few and far between.

For rest of the population if they have liking for milk as a whitening agent for their tea/coffee then there should not be an issue, simply because there are some interactions between milk proteins and polyphenolic constituents of tea and coffee.

Regards,

according to me drinking coffee or tea with or without milk is his or her own choice like some people prefer taste upon health so they drink these beverages with milk and some people who are more health conscious they prefer tea and coffee without milk as they count their calories whole day. however technically if you take tea without milk than it will relax your blood vessels or dilate blood vessels and also give antioxidant benefits and if you talk about coffee without milk than it will decrease the cardiovascular diseases or benefits the heart and helps in reducing weight too.

I agree with Arun Padhye and Jatin Mehra: As Several studies have found that adding milk to tea decreases its antioxidant capacity, or how effective its antioxidants are at preventing oxidation. This effect is thought to occur because the milk protein casein binds with antioxidants, reducing their ability to fight harmful free radicals.

Related article: Interactions between milk proteins and polyphenols: Binding mechanisms, related changes, and the future trends in the dairy industry

Tea and coffee can be considered as product categories with a vast variation in price and quality wise. The tea produced with the fine silver tips of tender leaves is rich in aroma, colour and other sensory properties. They are rich in antioxidants; mainly 6 types of catechins and tannin. Therefore, you can enjoy the taste of best quality tea without adding milk. If it is not up to your sensory requirements you can try with natural flavoured tea rather than just adding milk and drink.

Quality of coffee is mainly based upon the roasting temperature ( Around 200 °C ) and they are rich in caffeine. But unlike tea, the coffee - milk combination is heavily popular.

However, in the market, a plenty of adulterated and low quality tea and coffee products are there which cannot be consumed without any taste enhancer. In these cases it is fine to add milk.

@Dear Chamodini Thilakrathna,

True indeed.

Bud and two leaves of tea plant gives you the best possible decoction of highest quality both in terms of color and flavor.

Further, also we generally correlate coffee with caffeine but both tea and coffee contains caffeine and when it comes to cup for cup it is the tea decoction that surpasses coffee brue in terms of the extracted caffeine when we consume these beverages.

Regards,

Many people drink tea, coffee, or both, but insofar as there is a difference in taste As black coffee contains twice the caffeine found in black tea. But despite this difference, the percentage of caffeine present in them, if consumed in moderation, is not harmful to health, but has multiple benefits according to the same source, representing strengthening physical activity and stimulating mental alertness and reducing the risk of some chronic diseases

@Dear Dr. Suhad,

It is true that coffee contains more caffeine w/w on dry basis as compared to black tea, the extracted caffeine is more in tea decoction than coffee brue on cup to cup basis.

Regards,

In this case, in what context? Let me add a mix into the discussion. sub-Saharan Africa have concern in protein deficiency. Milk tea is often part of delivery of protein to the population. Would we still hold out for the long term effect of black tea?

@Dear Joshua,

Your point could be valid if people in your part of the world are adding more milk in tea(black tea) like exceeding more than fifty percent of the beverage.

For example in India also there are preparations of tea with milk component in the final cup anywhere in the range of 50-95 percent of milk.

There are people who even add lot of sugar, double the quantity of black tea leaves/powder than the normal to a cup of milk before the whole mixture is boiled to get a strong tea decoction which is quite sweet tasting. Such tea is also known as 'kadak(strong)meetha(sweet)' and is cherished by certain percentage of population.

Many a times such preparations are also added with variety of spices such as cardamom, ginger and sometimes a rose flavorings also.

Again this is popular with certain population and is termed as 'spiced tea' simply because tea is further added with additional flavorings from certain spices or spice mixtures.

Especially people from state of Gujrat, Rajstan and few states from both North and South India prefer their cup of tea in this fashion and they (people of Gujrat) call such tea by various names as "Rajwadi, Badshahi" etc.

But if you consider the percentage of people going for tea preparation of above type then it is so small worldwide and can even be considered as negligible on the whole.

Thus the discussion I suppose here, is the tea as it is consumed by majority of people world over like black tea without milk or black tea decoction with little addition of milk added as a whitener.

Regards,

I would not expect to read such a discussion in RG, but I am glad I did.

It is only ulisions to think that one of them is beneficial for health.

An appreciable lively discussion. Thanks for the discussants. I personally like tea without milk and sugar but coffee without milk and sugar is unimaginable.