Is green tea high in histamine?
Green tea is low in histamine: seven green teas had none, either in the leaves or brewed, while most black teas in the same study had traces. Only 2 of 10 published low-histamine diets exclude tea.
- Histamine
- Not detected
- Other amines
- Low
- Liberator
- Not on the lists we use
- DAO blocker
- No evidence
What each source says
| Source | Verdict | What it says, in our words |
|---|---|---|
| Lab measurements, Italy 1 | Measured | No detectable histamine in 7 green teas, as leaves or brewed; 9 of 14 black teas had traces. |
| Lab measurements, Spain 2 | Measured | No detectable histamine in 9 teas of unstated type. |
| 10 published low-histamine diets 2 | 2 of 10 exclude tea; the chart does not separate green from black. | |
| Review of histamine intolerance, 2020 3 | Its table of substances shown to inhibit DAO lists medicines and two vitamins; tea is not among them. | |
| SIGHI food list 4 | See source | See SIGHI's own list for its rating. |
Measured histamine
| Food tested | Samples | Histamine | Other amines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green tea leaves bought in Italy 1 (Table 5, samples 15–21) | 7 | not detected | putrescine 1.06–1.50 µg/g (the same as mg/kg); tyramine, cadaverine and phenylethylamine not detected |
| Green tea, brewed (2 g of leaves, boiling water, 20 minutes, made up to 100 mL) 1 (Table 6, samples 15–21) | 7 | not detected | putrescine 10.3–15.4 µg/L (micrograms per litre); tyramine and cadaverine not detected |
| Tea sold in Spain, type not given (group) 2 (Table 1, row "Tea") | 9 | not detected | tyramine mean 5.07 mg/kg (up to 10.08); putrescine mean 2.61 mg/kg; cadaverine not detected |
mg/kg = milligrams of histamine per kilogram of food; mg/L = per litre of drink. "Not detected" means below the laboratory's detection limit.
How freshness and processing change it
Green tea leaves are heated or steamed and dried quickly after picking, which the 2016 study says stops the enzyme reactions that form amines in black tea. Dry leaves keep well. Brew it fresh; bottled green tea drinks, matcha and kombucha were not measured.
No histamine in 7 teas, as leaves or brewed. (measured)
Not measured. It is ground whole green tea leaf, and the green tea leaves tested had no histamine. (estimate)
Not measured. Contain other ingredients; three bottled black tea drinks had no histamine. (estimate)
Why we rate green tea 0
Green tea is the best-documented drink on this site for having no histamine. A 2016 study from Italy tested seven green teas, from China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Tanzania, and found no histamine in any of them, neither in the dry leaves nor in the brewed tea. The brew was strong: two grams of leaves steeped in boiling water for twenty minutes, so an everyday cup is unlikely to extract more.
The same study tested fourteen black teas, and the contrast is the useful part. Histamine turned up in nine of them, at 1.69 to 2.44 µg/g in the leaves and 11.1 to 20.0 µg/L in the brewed tea. Those are tiny amounts, measured in micrograms, millionths of a gram, per litre, but they show a real difference. The authors explain it by how the teas are made. Green tea leaves are heated or steamed and dried soon after picking, which stops the leaf's own enzymes. Black tea leaves are withered, rolled and left to oxidise, a step called fermentation although no microbes are involved, and the authors link those enzyme and oxidation reactions to amine formation.
Other amines in green tea were low. Putrescine was 10.3 to 15.4 µg/L in the brew, and tyramine and cadaverine were not found. A University of Barcelona survey adds nine teas sold in Spain, of unstated type, with no histamine either, and only two of the ten published low-histamine diets in its 2021 review exclude tea.
You may read that green tea blocks diamine oxidase (DAO), the gut enzyme that breaks down histamine from food. A 2020 review of the substances shown in experiments to inhibit DAO lists medicines and two vitamins; tea is not on that list, so the claim is not supported by the evidence the review collected.
We rate green tea 0, "low". Brewed from leaves or bags and drunk fresh, it is close to what was measured. Matcha is the whole leaf ground to a powder and was not tested. Kombucha, which is fermented tea, is a different drink with its own page.
Questions about green tea and histamine
Is green tea high in histamine?
No. Seven green teas had no detectable histamine, either as dry leaves or brewed for twenty minutes. Black teas in the same study had small traces; green tea had none.
Does green tea block DAO?
We found no evidence for it. A 2020 review's list of substances shown to inhibit DAO in experiments contains medicines and two vitamins, not tea.
Evidence behind this page
- Seven green teas bought in Italy had no detectable histamine in the leaves or in infusions; putrescine was 1.06–1.50 µg/g in the leaves and 10.3–15.4 µg/L in the infusions. 1
- In the same study, histamine was found in 9 of 14 black teas, at 1.69–2.44 µg/g in the leaves and 11.1–20.0 µg/L in the infusions; three bottled lemon-flavoured black tea drinks had none. 1
- Green tea leaves are heated or steamed and dried fast, which inactivates the enzymes, whereas black tea is withered, rolled and left to oxidise, reactions the authors link to amine formation. 1
- Nine teas sold in Spain, type not given, had no detectable histamine; tyramine averaged 5.07 mg/kg and putrescine 2.61 mg/kg. Two of ten published low-histamine diets exclude tea. 2
- The substances with an experimentally demonstrated inhibitory effect on DAO listed by a 2020 review are medicines plus vitamin C and vitamin B1. 3
Sources
- Spizzirri UG, Picci N, Restuccia D. Extraction Efficiency of Different Solvents and LC-UV Determination of Biogenic Amines in Tea Leaves and Infusions. Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry 2016:8715287, 2016. doi:10.1155/2016/8715287 (Spizzirri UG et al. 2016)
- Sánchez-Pérez S, Comas-Basté O, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla ML, Vidal-Carou MC. Low-Histamine Diets: Is the Exclusion of Foods Justified by Their Histamine Content? Nutrients 13(5):1395, 2021. doi:10.3390/nu13051395 (Sánchez-Pérez S et al. 2021)
- Comas-Basté O, Sánchez-Pérez S, Veciana-Nogués MT, Latorre-Moratalla M, Vidal-Carou MDC. Histamine Intolerance: The Current State of the Art. Biomolecules 10(8):1181, 2020. doi:10.3390/biom10081181 (Comas-Basté O et al. 2020)
- Swiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance (SIGHI). Food compatibility list for histamine intolerance. histaminintoleranz.ch (accessed November 2026), 2026. Link (Swiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance (SIGHI) 2026)