Spoonful of sugar in your tea is completely unnecessary – even for sugar lovers

While some national stereotypes are a little tired, the “Brits love tea” one is pretty spot on.

In 2017, a tea colour chart asking people for the perfect shade caused widespread controversy online. That’s how much tea means to us.

So it’s with some trepidation that we tell tea drinkers who take sugar in their cuppa that sugar is a completely unnecessary addition to their drink.

But before you spit your tea out in outrage, we should point out that this was based on a study using men who have always had sugar in their tea.

64 sugar-loving blokes were monitored by researchers at the University of Leeds and University College London over the course of a month.

One group went completely ‘cold turkey’, whereas another group steadily reduced the amount they had in their tea until they’d given it up completely.

There was also a control group who continued to drink sugar in their tea as normal.

Of the group who reduced their intake gradually, 46 per cent managed to stay off the sugar.

The cold turkey group were not quite as successful, with just over a third of them managing to quit sugar for good.

Interestingly, six percent of those in the control group also gave up sugar after the experiment even though they didn’t have to go without it.

“Excess sugar intake is a public health problem and sugar in beverages contributes substantially to total intake,” the researchers said.

“Reducing sugar intake from beverages may therefore help to reduce overall consumption.”

Researchers did add that a study on a larger scale would need to be conducted to cement findings.