Most people who reach for caffeinated beverages identify as either coffee drinkers or tea lovers. But having a mix of both every day could help extend your life. That’s the major takeaway from new research that pinned down the ideal drink combination for health.
The study didn’t just find the right mix of drinks to sip on a daily basis—it also suggests exactly how many cups of each to kick back for longevity. Surprisingly, there’s a solid number of caffeinated beverages in the mix. Of course, it’s hard to say that everyone in the world should have the same three drinks every day. Also, caffeine has the potential to mess with your sleep, and even your hydration.
So why might this drink combo help you live longer and how can you make it work for you? We tapped nutritionists and doctors for more.
What did the study find?
For the British Journal of Nutrition study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 183,000 people enrolled in the UK Biobank, a long-term biomedical database in the UK. The study participants filled out questionnaires about their diet and lifestyle habits over 13 years, including how much coffee, tea, and water they had on a daily basis.
The researchers discovered that people who had seven to eight drinks each day that combined water, coffee, and tea had the lowest risk of dying from any cause over the study period. When they drilled down on the data even more, the researchers found that a 2:3 ratio of coffee to tea each day was best, delivering a 45% lower risk of dying. So for every two cups of coffee, you’d have three cups of tea.
There are a few things that could be behind this.
It’s not shocking that drinking plenty of water can help support good health. While everyone’s water recommendations vary based on things like body size and how active you are, the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends that women aim to have 11.5 cups of fluids (from foods and beverages) and that men strive for 15.5 cups. You usually get about 20% of your fluids from food, so the requirements end up being around nine cups of fluid a day for women and 13 cups for men. Being well hydrated can do everything from help you keep a normal body temperature to support your brain and digestive health, per the CDC.
A growing body of evidence suggests that coffee and tea can be good for your health too. A recent scientific analysis noted that the hydroxycinnamic acids and chlorogenic acid in coffee can help reduce inflammation, potentially lowering the risk of developing serious diseases as a result. Another study published in February found that having higher amounts of coffee each day, like two to three cups, was “significantly associated” with a lower risk of dying from any cause during the study period. And yet another study published in 2024 concluded that people who had three to five cups a day of tea lived 2.24 years longer than those who didn’t have tea.
Coffee and tea provide a variety of antioxidants called polyphenols, Scott Keatley, RD, co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy, tells SELF. Polyphenols have been linked to a range of health benefits, including a lower risk of heart disease. Tea also contains a lot of catechins, which have been linked to lower levels of inflammation.
“Not only are coffee, tea, and water all sources of hydrating fluids, but tea and coffee, in particular, contain a great source of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging properties,” Lisa Moskovitz, RD, founder of NY Nutrition Group and the author of The Core 3 Healthy Eating Plan, tells SELF. “Fighting against oxidative stress and inflammation will promote longevity by protecting your body against certain degenerative diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.”
Both coffee and tea count toward your daily fluid needs, Christoph Buettner, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, chancellor scholar and chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Nutrition at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, tells SELF. He just recommends keeping tabs on the color of your urine to see how well-hydrated you are, regardless of what you drink. “Aim for pale-straw [colored] urine as a simple hydration check,” Dr. Buettner says.
Both coffee and tea can also serve as healthier substitutes for other drinks too. “If you drink coffee and tea, you are not drinking soda or soft drinks—that clearly is bad for you if they contain sugar,” Dr. Buettner says.
There are some big caveats here, though.
For starters, the study didn’t prove that drinking several cups a day of coffee and tea will help you live longer—it just found an association. Also, the researchers didn’t drill down into what people were having in their coffee or tea, or even the types they had. So, people who regularly enjoyed black coffee and unsweetened tea were also lumped in with those who had specialty coffee drinks and sweet tea.
Keatley also points out that this drink combination provides a lot of caffeine and is on the higher end of what is considered healthy. (The Food and Drug Administration suggests having no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine a day.) “Although there are clear benefits to drinking coffee and tea, it's important to remember that caffeine has a safety threshold,” Moskovitz says.
Caffeine can also come with side effects, especially when you have it in higher doses, Keatley says. “Caffeine blocks adenosine, the chemical that signals the brain to rest, which increases cortisol and keeps the nervous system in a ‘switched on’ state longer than most people realize,” he says. After a while, this can mess with deep sleep, slow physical recovery, and create dependence on caffeine to function, Keatley points out.
Too much caffeine can also irritate your stomach or worsen reflux, which can damage your esophageal lining and even raise your risk of esophageal cancer, Keatley says.
Finally, Keatley flags something else to consider. “Every single researcher is from the People’s Republic of China, who produce about 40% of the world's tea,” he says. “Aside from being the largest producer of tea, China is the largest exporter and cultural promoter of tea, which means there is strong economic incentive for positive findings and for framing tea as a national health asset.”
So, what should you take away from this?
If you enjoy having coffee and tea in your day, you’re fine to keep doing just that—provided you stay under 400 milligrams a day (about 32 ounces of coffee) and don’t experience any side effects. But it’s important to make sure you’re getting in plenty of fluids to keep you well-hydrated.
“The study does highlight what we’ve been telling people, which is to stay hydrated throughout the day,” Cheng-Han Chen, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California, tells SELF. He calls the actual ratios that the study found “interesting,” but notes that most people are either coffee or tea drinkers. “I wouldn’t tell coffee drinkers that you need to mix tea in there or tea drinkers that they need to start drinking coffee,” he says. And, if you’re more of a water person, Dr. Chen says that’s fine too. “You don’t need to start drinking two cups of coffee and three cups of tea a day to be healthy,” he says.
Also, while research suggests that having some coffee and tea in your life is good for your health, more work is needed to spell out exactly how much may be beneficial.
Ultimately, this drink combination may work for some people and not for others. But whether it will actually extend your life remains to be seen.
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