Oxalate reference · Drinks and milks
Oxalate in tea
27 mg in a 1 cup serving, which the Oxalosis and Hyperoxaluria Foundation bands as moderate. That is 11 mg per 100 g, for the most representative of the 5 forms measured. It sits above 55 of the 83 foods with a page here.
What is worth knowing about tea
Black tea is moderate per cup and green tea is low, and both are far below the level the old advice about tea implied. Herbal infusions are lower again. The bigger point for a stone former is that tea is fluid, and fluid is the intervention with the best evidence behind it.
Every preparation measured
| As listed | Band | mg per 100 g | Serving | mg per serving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tea, Herbal, Variety Flavors | low | 2 | 1 cup | 5 |
| Tea, Herbal, Mate | low | 6 | 1 cup | 14 |
| Tea, Iced, Multiple Brands, (Brewed 10 min) | low | 7 | 1 cup | 17 |
| Tea, Green, Multiple Brands, flavored and unflavored | low | 9 | 1 cup | 21 |
| Tea, Black, Multiple Brands, flavored and unflavored, with/without caffeine | moderate | 11 | 1 cup | 27 |
Bands are per serving as the OHF lists them, so a food can be high per 100 g and low in the portion anybody eats. Turmeric and dried parsley are the clearest cases of that, and neither is a problem in a kitchen.
Lower than tea, and doing the same job
Ranked by the most representative form of each, tea is 4 of 6 in drinks and milks. These are the ones beneath it, which matters because a substitute is only useful if it does the same thing on the plate.
| Food | Band | mg per serving | Serving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cow and goat milk, yoghurt and cheese | low | 1 | 1 cup |
| Coffee | low | 2 | 1 cup |
| Oat, soy, rice and other plant milks | low | 11 | 1 cup |
| Tea (this page) | moderate | 27 | 1 cup |
| Beetroot juice | high | 164 | 1 cup |
| Almond milk | high | 165 | 1 cup |
Before you act on the number
A figure in a table is not a figure in your urine. Oxalate in a plant moves with variety, ripeness, soil, season and cooking — boiling leaches a good deal of it into water that is then poured away. What you absorb also depends on what was on the plate with it, because calcium eaten in the same meal binds oxalate in the gut so that it leaves in the stool instead of the urine.
There is no daily target on this site. The OHF publishes bands per serving, not an allowance, and what any one person should aim for depends on their stone chemistry and their own testing. If you have been given a number, that number wins over anything here.
Restriction is not the first move. Guideline advice for recurrent calcium oxalate stones starts with fluid, with normal calcium taken alongside meals, and with less sodium — and it recommends the fruit and vegetables a low-oxalate list tends to strip out.
All 83 foods, and the full published table · Why a low-oxalate list is the wrong tool for planning a diet · Why calcium belongs with the meal, not off the plate
