The Cost of Coffee vs. Tea

We recently wrote about how to make the switch from coffee to tea for a host of reasons.  In terms of health, while coffee does offer some health benefits, tea seems to win the battle for healthy bodies and minds. Consuming tea regularly can help

  • Promote weight loss
  • Boost your immune system
  • Reduce blood pressure and promote heart health
  • Strengthen bones and teeth, reducing plaque and dental caries
  • Provide antioxidants which can inhibit free radicals on the body
  • Promote overall good health

For thousands of years and around the world, tea has been touted as an excellent way to relax, as well as promoting good health.

Recent reports have indicated that coffee can provide some of the same health benefits as tea in terms of feelings of alertness and helping the body fend off some forms of diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Both tea and coffee have caffeine. Caffeine is a naturally occurring phytochemical that can help those who drink it feel more alert, increase concentration, and keep them awake.

The flip side of getting a higher boost of caffeine is that it can make a person feel jittery or can make it difficult to sleep when they are ready to go to bed. Not only does coffee have more caffeine, but it also contains more acidity which can hurt the stomach lining and overall digestive function, thus causing discomfort.

Conversely, the levels of acidity found within a cup of tea are about the same as that found in other foods in the diet.  This makes tea far less likely to cause similar digestive issues.

Price Comparisons

When figuring out the cost of either the coffee or tea you drink, there are several factors to keep in mind.  Whether you prefer just plain whole bean coffee that you grind yourself, or gourmet and specialty roasts, or when you drink bagged tea from the grocery store or purchase your teas at a specialty tea shop, the price ranges can vary greatly.

At the outset, it can look as if your initial investment in a pound of coffee is going to be less expensive than a pound of tea. A pound of coffee can range between $10 – $20 per pound, depending on the quality of the beans and how they are roasted. One pound of coffee beans can yield between 45 – 50 cups of coffee, depending on how strong you like your coffee.

If for example, you purchase a pound of coffee that costs an average of $20 and it requires a half an ounce of ground coffee, your cup of coffee will cost on average 63 cents per cup. No matter how high the quality of coffee beans used or how they are roasted, most often, they can only be brewed one time.

Calculating the cost of your cup of tea

Now, let’s take a look at the price of Sir Jason Winters tea. Our Sir Jason Winters Original Blend is $24.95 for 5 ounces of tea, or $15.95 for our 4 ounce tea. Each cup of tea will only require 2 teaspoons of tea leaves for our 5 oz tea, and just 1/2 teaspoon for the 4 oz blend.
You get at least 70 servings with our 5 oz teas. Therefore, less than 36 cents per cup!

Since the price of a can of Sir Jason Winters Pre-brewed Tea is $15.95 for a convenient 4 oz. can. With this blend, it cost less than under 17 cents per cup!

As you can see, it’s much less expensive to drink Sir Jason Winters teas than going to Starbucks or even brewing your coffee at home.

Economic and Environmental Costs

Once you have looked at how economical drinking tea can be, you may want to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee or tea and think about the long-term costs to our planet.

It’s no secret that our world is facing the challenge of climate change. For scientists and economists around the world, these changes have taken their toll on coffee crops around the world. Because of the instability of the climate, this has made it difficult for coffee plants to grow and to become strong enough to produce coffee beans for roasting so that today, a majority (60 percent) of the world’s wild coffee species is now facing potential extinction.  Long droughts, rising sea levels, unpredictable weather patterns, increases in diseases and insect pests have done significant damage to the world’s coffee crops in recent years.

Tea for the Long Term

Coffee and tea plants (Camelia Sinensis) take a minimum of three years for the plant to become fully mature. Unlike coffee, which can only produce coffee beans once per season, once a tea plant reaches maturity, its leaves can be harvested every 6 – 14 days. This allows tea plants to produce more product to be dried, cured and taken to market. Some tea plants have been known to produce leaves for as long as 25 -100 years. Just imagine how much tea has been harvested from those plants during that period!

Today’s tea producers have also been made keenly aware of the challenges of climate change. Many growers have spent the last several years taking steps to mitigate the effects as much as possible by forming collectives to ensure the survival of tea. Some tea plantations in China and India, for example, have found it helpful to shift their growing seasons, move plants to higher, cooler elevations, and to be careful to cover the soil with mulch to keep the ground moist and protect the plants from drought.

While no one can honestly know how much our climate will change or how soon, at Sir Jason Winters International, we are committed to offering high quality, healthy teas that are sustainably and ethically sourced. We will continue to search out the best teas from around the world and bring them to you at an excellent price so you can enjoy your cup of tea well into the future.

Resources:

 “The Everything Healthy Tea Book” by Babette Donaldson, 2014, Everything Publishing, Avon, MA.

How Climate Might Affect Tea” by Anna Nowogrodski, Nature, February 6, 2019. Web.

“Love Coffee? It’s Another Reason to Care About Climate Change” by Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News, January 2019. Web.

A Drying Climate Threatens Africa’s Coffee, But Hope Remains” by Tim McDonnell, National Geographic Magazine, August 2017, web.

 

 

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