So does a weight loss tea really exist or is drinking it a total waste of time?

Drinking tea dates back 5,000 years ago to the times of ancient China and it’s only grown in popularity since then.

Most people aren’t even aware drinking tea can enhance weight loss.

But you should know there are certain teas out there that are better for weight loss than others.

There are loads of benefits to drinking tea including both losing weight and dropping belly fat.

Tea is packed with antioxidants in the form of polyphenols. These powerful antioxidants help to protect against skin damage, boost your immune system, improve gut health and even lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Drinking tea is so powerful for weight loss that I made it a part of my superfoods list.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say drinking tea is all you’re going to need to do to drop a lot of weight. But even though it might not be the magical key for weight loss drinking tea can still help you lose more weight.

I know some weight loss teas out there can seem a little scammy but here you’ll find the best weight loss teas you can drink backed by science.

Can Tea Really Help You Lose Weight?

All teas come from the same leaves known as Camellia sinensis.

But as the leaves are processed in different ways they’ll also produce different types of tea for you to drink.

This can drastically affect how powerful the tea is for helping with weight loss.

Drinking tea can help you lose weight and burn more fat for a couple of reasons.

The first is many teas contain polyphenols. These flavonoids are known as catechins and polyphenols.

These are natural antioxidants that help to fight damage-causing free radicals, inflammation, and damage to cells.

Catechins will help to give your metabolism a boost by allowing your body to break down fats more quickly. This is one of the ways drinking tea will help you lose more weight.

Most people just don’t know tea can contain up to 1000% more polyphenols than eating fruits and vegetables.

Many of the weight loss teas you’ll find here also contain caffeine.

Caffeine is a natural thermogenic meaning it’ll increase your body’s energy use. This is what will increase your metabolism by causing your body to burn off more calories.

Drinking tea with caffeine will also raise your heart rate (just like exercising) leading to more benefits such as weight loss.

When you combine catechins and caffeine together you create a powerful weight loss combination just from drinking more tea.

Best Weight Loss Tea Detox

To get the full weight loss benefits of drinking tea you’re going to want to make sure you follow these tips.

When you drink tea the right way and in the right amounts you’ll create the best weight loss tea detox possible.

Try to drink at the bare minimum of 3 cups of tea every day.

This is going to be the lowest amount of tea according to most studies to start seeing some results.

Make sure you steep the tea for at least a few minutes to extract all the powerful catechins and caffeine from it.

Drinking your tea too fast can make you feel nauseous and can even upset your stomach. So make sure to take your time drinking your tea and enjoy it.

I like to start my morning drinking 3 cups of black tea. Then following it with 3 more cups of matcha green tea at lunch and early afternoon.

But if you’re just starting out and not use to the caffeine start at only 1-2 cups.

Try not to drink your weight loss teas too late in the day otherwise, the caffeine can disrupt your quality of sleep. For more on detoxing take a look at my 3 day detox.

Matcha Green Tea

By far my favorite weight loss tea is green tea. Most specifically it’s matcha green tea.

Matcha green tea is the when the whole leaf is ground up and you consume it as part of the tea.

This allows you to get many times more the antioxidant benefits than drinking regular green tea. And that’s saying something!

Matcha green tea contains the richest source of antioxidants in the form of EGCG (Epigallocatechin gallate).

This weight loss tea also contains chlorophyll that will boost your liver’s ability to detox.

This will help to remove toxic junk that can build up in your body such as cadmium and mercury. Studies have found these heavy metals can lead to weight gain.

This study in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition & Exercise Metabolism found matcha green tea was able to enhance how much fat was burned while exercising.

Yerba Mate

Another one of the best weight loss teas is yerba mate. Many consider it to give you the caffeine strength of coffee with many of the benefits of tea.

Yerba mate is very rich in antioxidants such as xanthines, caffeoyl derivatives, saponins, and polyphenols.

This study found yerba mate was effective at helping to reduce appetite while also boosting the metabolism. Both of these alone should make a big impact on your weight loss.

Yerba mate also works to lower the total amount of fat cells in your body along with how much fat they can hold.

Here’s a study where researchers found drinking yerba mate tea can increase your body’s ability to burn more stored fat for energy.

And here’s a 12-week study finding overweight people who drank yerba mate tea lost 1.5 pounds. They also reduced their waist circumference by 2%.

Green Tea For Weight Loss

Just because I mentioned earlier how beneficial matcha green tea it doesn’t mean regular green tea isn’t great too.

Green tea is probably the most well known and most popular weight loss tea on the planet.

There’s lots of science out there backing up how effective it is for weight loss.

Studies have found green tea can help with weight loss by:

• increasing your metabolism
• improving insulin activity
• increasing fat oxidation

I try to drink around 3 cups of green tea per day either regular or in the matcha form.

Green tea is the best tea for losing belly fat as the catechins in it help to release fat from your fat cells. Most specifically the fat on your belly.

Once the fat is released from your fat cells then the green tea will speed up your liver’s ability to turn that fat into energy.

This 12-week study found drinking green tea daily made the tea drinkers lose 2 more pounds than non-tea drinkers. This is when combined with exercise.

Here’s another study finding drinking green tea for weight loss helped to reduce belly fat. Just more evidence proving it can directly help you lose belly fat.

You’ll be able to increase your metabolism by burning up to 4% more calories according to this study.

Now 4% might not seem like a big difference but as the days go by it’ll definitely start to add up.

One more way drinking green tea can help you lose weight is it’ll reduce your ghrelin hormone levels.

Ghrelin is known as the “hunger hormone” that’s responsible for making you feel hungry.

So when there’s less ghrelin in your body the less hungry you’re going to feel. And we all know the less we eat the more weight you lose.

Pu-erh Tea

Pu-erh tea is another powerful tea you can use for weight loss.

It contains a strong amount of powerful antioxidants. These can have a big effect on lowering the inflammation in your body.

Pu-erh tea can also help protect your skin against photo-aging. This is the accelerated aging that can happen to your skin from damage caused by the sun.

When you drink pu-erh tea your body will be able to get rid of more bodily toxins that can build up. This toxic junk in your body can have a big impact on how much weight you gain.

If you’re feeling stressed out a lot then pu-erh tea can help. It works to regulate and protect your nervous system.

The GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric acid) found in pu-erh tea has been shown to reduce anxiety too.

Pu-erh tea can help improve your quality of sleep. Tons of studies have found poor sleep can lead to weight gain.

This study found drinking pu-erh tea daily led to statically significant weight loss.

Most of the fat loss in the study’s participants were from the arms, legs, hips, and belly. All trouble spots!

Oolong Tea

Oolong tea is the Chinese name for “Black Dragon” and you tell by looking at it where it got its name.

This powerful tea is packed with catechins that help you lose weight by boosting your body’s ability to burn off fats.

This study found those who drank oolong tea were able to lose 6 more pounds than non-drinkers over a 6 week period.

Another study by the Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine found participants given 4-8oz. of oolong tea every day lost a least 2 pounds (70%) and more than 6 pounds (22%)

Black Tea

Black tea is also considered one of the best weight loss teas you can drink daily.

It contains both caffeine and L-theanine. Which when combined together creates a powerful energetic focused effect on the drinker.

L-theanine can give you a calm feel plus it’s a very potent antioxidant. It can help you feel both focused and when combined with caffeine can make you energetic too.

Black tea contains the highest amount of caffeine compared to the other teas on this list. This is why I recommend drinking your black tea earlier in the morning. Then you can always drink the teas that contain less caffeine later.

Black tea also has the power to support your body’s ability to create microbial metabolites. What are these? They’re critical to helping to regulate your energy metabolism.

This study found drinking black tea was effective in helping to support weight loss and lowering oxidation stress.

White Tea

White tea is often considered to be the least processed weight loss tea of them all.

It’s dried naturally and in sunlight. This makes it much more naturally processed than most of the other teas out there.

White tea also contains the richest source of antioxidants amongst all the other teas. Crazy enough drinking white tea can give you up to 300% polyphenols than green tea.

This study found white tea has a double effect in helping you lose weight.

The study found white tea can both boost the breakdown of fat in your body and block the formation of new fat cells too.

Peppermint Tea

One of the hardest problems of weight loss are the hunger pains that can come from lowering your calories.

Plus we all know the cravings you can get for your favorite junk foods when you’ve started dieting.

Drinking more peppermint tea can help to lower your cravings. This way you can then keep losing weight without binging.

This study found those who smelled peppermint essential oils were able to lose an average of 5 pounds in a month.

The researchers found smelling the peppermint created chemical reactions in the brain. This resulted in reduced feelings of hunger.

And another smaller study found giving peppermint to participants resulted in lower appetite than those not taking it.

Lemon Tea

It might be a little surprising to see lemon tea make the list of the best weight loss teas.

But lemon tea contains D-limonene. This is a powerful antioxidant found in the citrus rind oil of the fruit.

D-limonene can help fight bloating. It’s even been used since ancient times as a natural diuretic.

This study by the European Journal of Pharmacology found D-limonene has a therapeutic effect on metabolic disorders. If your metabolism is messed up then you’ll be much more likely to gain weight.

But drinking more lemon tea can help correct some of these metabolic disorders.

Rooibos Tea

Rooibos tea is one of those teas you never heard about but drinking it can give a big boost to your weight loss.

It contains the powerful antioxidant glutathione. This has been found to help reverse the aging process.

Rooibos tea is also the only place you can find the powerful antioxidant aspalathin.

Aspalathin is a polyphenol that’s a very potent anti-inflammatory. It can even help to fight off cancers.

You’ll also be able to better lower your stress hormones with aspalathin found in rooibos tea.

When you have too many stress hormones like cortisol pumping in your body the more likely you are to trigger hunger and fat storage (especially belly fat).

Rooibos tea also can also help boost your weight loss by increasing your body’s ability to burn off fat for energy.

Which Teas Are the Best for Weight Loss?

Even though you’ll find a list of the 10 best weight loss teas here my favorites are black tea and matcha green tea.

I prefer to drink black tea earlier in the morning since it’ll give you a big boost in energy and focus.

Then at lunch, I’ll switch over to some matcha green tea or regular green tea.

But it’s a good idea to mix up your weight loss teas you’re drinking to keep things fresh.

Try some of the other weight loss teas on this list of the ten best… you might find one you really like!

What Is the Best Tea to Lose Belly Fat?

Green tea is hands down the best tea to lose belly fat.

Studies have found it can directly cause your body to burn off more fat cells from your belly and abdominal area.

Most if not all the weight loss teas here will help you burn belly fat. But drinking green tea will more the most effective.

What Is the Best Detox Tea for Weight Loss?

If you’re looking to detox the toxic junk from your body then I’d recommend pu-erh tea.

Pu-erh tea has been found in studies to help reduce the toxins that contribute to weight gain.

These toxins can build up in your body and can disrupt your metabolism. The more you can rid yourself of this toxic junk the better you’ll be able to lose more weight.

Green tea is also very effective detox tea you can drink daily.

Do Slimming Teas Really Work?

There are a lot of “slimming” teas out there on social media like Instagram claiming to work wonders for weight loss.

While they do contain some weight loss boosting ingredients you shouldn’t expect them to work wonders.

Or even any better than drinking the weight loss teas you’ll find here.

The Last Word

Hopefully, you now know the best weight loss teas you can drink to lose belly fat.

If you really want to see the benefits of drinking these teas for weight loss then make sure you’re drinking enough.

Three cups is the minimum most studies have found to start seeing some benefits.

Just keep in mind you should also combine these weight loss teas with a proven diet and exercise program like The Flat Belly Formula.

Now I know the weight loss might seem small from drinking these teas. But just remember over time it’ll add up to a lot more than you think.

Now it’s time to go drink some tea!